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Cape Town’s Integrated Rapid Transit System takes shape

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The City of Cape Town announced deadlines for the implementation of phase one of the Integrated Rapid Transit System (IRTS) at a meeting of the Cape Town Partnership’s Central City Partners Forum this week.

The West Coast trunk route between Bayside Shopping Centre and the CBD/ Waterfront will be up…

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Whoops! Did someone perhaps jump the gun?

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Sunday, 22 August. We had been waiting for about two hours at the Clyde-Pinelands sports fields, along with a good crowd of about 5 000 people, to watch the demolition of the Athlone Towers. Finally, three minutes to go. Nearly time for the big event. A stir of anticipation began…

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Athlone Towers – a giant new opportunity for a different approach to city building?

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When our boys were small, their name for the Athlone cooling towers was the ‘giant’s coffee cups’. Located near the N2 highway out of Cape Town, the ‘coffee cups’ usually signified the start of a holiday weekend out of town, or the end of a long tiring journey home.

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The ‘unhappy compromise’ shows signs of coming of age

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The Cape Town Foreshore has been described as an ‘unhappy compromise’ resulting in series of ‘wind-blown stretches of asphalt and concrete, filled with car parks and roaring traffic, inaccessible to pedestrians.’* Yet on a still winter’s morning, in the early dawn light, on foot, the Foreshore can almost be beautiful.…

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Cape Town Squared (or how some of our most valuable public assets are not being properly used)

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Do you remember the popular zebra artworks dotted around public spaces in Cape Town during the World Cup? Well, they’ve now migrated to the Artscape Piazza on the Foreshore.

The 33 zebras form an exhibition entitled ‘Not all is Black and White’, by the World for All

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Ten reasons why the Cape Town 2010 Fan Walk worked so well

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The Cape Town Fan Walk has become one of the talking points of Cape Town’s World Cup experience. The editorial in today’s Cape Argus described it as a ‘masterstroke’. John Robbie of 702 Talk Radio asked me yesterday to what we as a city owed the success of the Fan…

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The Lie of the Land

Tired of English outbursts, French tantrums, Italian dives in the penalty area and Brazilian handballs? Take a moment to visit a new art exhibition called The Lie of the Land, on at the Old Town House in Greenmarket Square.

The exhibition, which is curated by Michael Godby, consists of diverse…

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350 000 people in Cape Town Central City for start of Football World Cup

The City of Cape Town estimates that an astounding 350 000 people visited the Cape Town Central City area on Friday 11 June to watch the World Cup Opening Ceremony and Bafana Bafana-Mexico game on TV and to attend the opening match at the CT Stadium, with 250 000 in…

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New Cape Town inner city public transport system takes shape

One of the legacies of the 2010 World Cup will be improved public transport, including an inner city route. The following information is adapted from a recent City of Cape Town communiqué:

The inner-city loop service (download route map) will provide a safe, quick, reliable way for tourists and locals to…

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Siyajikeleza, Laat Wiel, Going Places

At the invitation of the City of Cape Town, I went for a ride on one of the new Integrated Rapid Transit (IRT) buses today to view three of the stations that have recently been completed: Civic Centre, CT Airport and Cape Town Stadium. It was exciting experience, as it is now possible to…

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Don’t write off the Joburg inner city

It’s become convention wisdom in certain quarters to write off the Johannesburg inner city, especially amongst those who haven’t been there for a long time. I’ve got a meeting next week with Lael Bethlehem, who heads up the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) and her team, so I’m hoping to catch up on…

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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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