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Opportunities for a new V&A Waterfront Development Path, or, will it be Business as Usual?

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Cape Town’s well-known V&A Waterfront is back under South African ownership. It was sold yesterday to Growthpoint Properties, South Africa’s largest listed property company, and the Public Sector Investment Corporation (PIC) representing the Government Employees Pension Fund, for R9,7bn.

The new owners have announced that they plan to spend between…

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Cape Town gets serious with commuter cycling routes

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Do you live in Woodstock, Brooklyn, Rugby, Tijgerhof, Milnerton, Marconi Beam, Blaauberg or Table View, want to beat the rush-hour traffic to the Cape Town CBD and get fit at the same time? Then Cape Town’s newest dedicated 15km commuter bicycle route is for you.

Join us for the inaugural ride…

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Who is championing Cape Town’s Integrated Rapid Transport system?

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Integrated Rapid Transport (IRT) represents the future of Cape Town. Without it, we will not achieve our goals of being a sustainable, equitable and accessible city. Billions of rands have already been spent. Billions more will be spent over the next 15-20 years. The MyCiTi Bus Rapid Transit project represents…

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Talkin’ bicycle blues, or why don’t more people use bicycles as their primary means of transport in South African cities?

Today I was introduced to an amazing project called Bicycle Portraits, which investigates bicycle culture in South Africa, and in particular, the lack of cyclist commuters on the roads. Its run by Stan Engelbrecht and Nic Grobler, who travel around South Africa meeting fellow cyclists and taking pictures of them…

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Walking blues, or how to make Cape Town a more walkable city

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At one level, Cape Town is a city prominently associated with walking – on the mountains, the beaches, the Sea Point Promenade, the walkway from Muizenberg to Kalk Bay. In particular, one thinks of Peter Slingsby’s wonderful hiking maps and Mike Lundy’s influential Best Walks in the Cape

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Innovative Affordable Land and Housing Data Centre launched in South Africa

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Providing well-located affordable housing in our cities and towns is one of the most vexing questions facing urban policy makers and housing departments. Now, a new initiative aims to provide a better understanding of the dynamics that shape low-income and afforable land and housing markets in South Africa.

The Affordable

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A year of blogging dangerously

I see that I have written 148 posts on ‘Cities for People’ since I started blogging in October 2009. That’s more than a post every three days, which I’m told is the least one must do to keep one’s readers vaguely interested. Blogging has been a great opportunity to get back into the art of…

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Bus Rapid Transit in Istanbul

Here’s a recent video on the new bus rapid transit system in Istanbul produced by EMBARQ, a global network which focuses  on environmentally and financially sustainable transport solutions to improve quality of life, mainly in developing cities. It is part of EMBARQ’s Cities in Focus series on innovative public transport solutions.

According…

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One step forward, two steps backwards: the densification debate continues

I reported earlier this month that the City of Cape Town has approved a new city densification policy (City of Cape Town considers new urban densification policy). It appears that I was mistaken. It’s now back to the drawing board, as Ella Smook’s article in the Cape Argus (see below)…

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Why lively public spaces that centre around people and community, not cars, are important for democratising cities

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My colleague, Ibrahim Seedat, Director of Public Transport Strategy at the South African Department of Transport, drew my attention to this great interview with former Bogotá mayor Enrique Peñalosa in Yes! Magazine.

In Ibrahim’s words, “Even though you have heard it all before, it is always a refreshing option to read…

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City of Cape Town considers new urban densification policy

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The Cape Times today reports that the City of Cape Town is considering adopting a city densification policy next month. This is welcome news and needs to be supported! Continued low-density urban sprawl in Cape Town is not sustainable. We are one of the most dispersed and fragmented

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Where is the centre of Cape Town?

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My colleague Iain Harris, who runs the popular Coffeebeans Routes (“We create contemporary, urban, African experiences that provide travellers deep insights into the places they choose to visit”) raised some provocative questions on his blog yesterday – Where is the centre of Cape Town? What happens if we move…

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