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No African cities feature in the top 100 cities of the 2010 global innovation economy index

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No African cities feature in the top 100 cities of the 2010 global innovative economy index, published by the Melbourne-based 2thinknow Innovation Cities™ Program. Cape Town is ranked third in the emerging cities innovation index, after Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Top 100 innovative cities

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2020 Olympic Bid: Next big thing or red herring?

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Cape Town is already a popular global and local events city – think Design Indaba, Cycle Tour, Jazz Festival, CT Carnival, World Economic Forum, Mining Indaba,  etc - and we have strengthened our reputation by helping to host a successful Football World Cup. We need now to be planning how to bid for more sporting and cultural events in…

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Who’s afraid of South African urban culture?

I am a bit worried when I read the description of the design of the South African Pavilion at the $60-billion Expo 2010 Shanghai, which opened at the beginning of May. The theme of the Expo is ‘Better City, Better Life’. You would think therefore that this would be…

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Goodbye, Van Zyl Slabbert

Frederick Van Zyl Slabbert, who died today aged 70, was a great guy. I first met him in 1974 in Cape Town when he was MP for Rondebosch for the then Progressive Party. My father, Alex Boraine, was the newly-elected MP for Pinelands. Twelve years later, they walked out of the…

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A bold plan to meet India’s urban challenges

Comparisons are often salutary. Just when we think that the challenges around poverty, inequality and under-development in South Africa are daunting, you realise that somewhere else, the scale of the problem is 100 times greater.

I had the opportunity to meet recently with Aromar Revi, Director of the Indian

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Parallel debate in US on inclusive memorialisation

I posted some comments on the need for inclusive memorialisation in February this year. I was pleased to see that they contributed to a debate a few months later on the same issue on American Public Media, followiing an interview with Archbishop Desmond Tutu by Nancy Rosenbaum on Speaking of Faith.

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Tales of Two Cities

It’s become a bit of a cliche nowadays to evoke Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities when describing the poverty, injustice, violence and unequal access to resources that characterise many cities around the world. Strictly speaking, Dickens was writing about and comparing two different cities before and during the French Revolution: Paris…

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Creating Spaces for Creatives

Given our commitment in Cape Town to supporting and developing creative industries, I was interested to see what Toronto is doing when I visited there two weeks ago. After all, it’s where Richard Florida, influential writer on the role of the creative classes in cities, now directs the Martin Prosperity Institute,…

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Fela, Flatiron and Rising Currents – it’s just an Empire State of Mind

Writing a blog about visiting a city like New York is a bit unnerving. I mean, how is it possible to describe even just a few of the overwhelming exeriences with a few words and pictures? Well, one thing that I have learned in New York is that anything goes if you put your mind…

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High Five for the High Line

A few days ago, we visited the High Line, one of New York’s most popular new attractions, to see what the buzz was all about. What a great experience.

The High Line was built in the industrial West Side of New York in the 1930s to transport freight traffic 10m in the…

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Painting New York with sand

Meandering through Washington Square Park, we came across artist Joe Mangrum, who ‘paints’ public spaces in New York with temporary brightly-coloured sand installations. Part of Joe’s philosophy is to encourage interactive use of public spaces. As he asserts: “When public space is privatised, free speech is curtailed”. Check out…

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Blooming Washington

I’m en route with my family to an International Downtown Association meeting in Toronto in two weeks time, via Washington and New York. We were lucky enough to arrive in Washington at the same time as the famous cherry blossoms. The cherry trees were a gift from the Japanese government in

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