Tag Archives: Cape Town Central City

At street level, where public and private spaces intersect, things get really interesting…

This is a copy of my talk at the opening of Along these City Streets, an exhibition by Mary Visser currently on at the AVA Gallery at 35 Church Street, Cape Town.

Mary Visser has produced a most beautiful set of paintings for her new exhibition – Along these City

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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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Perverse outcomes? New bicycle lanes in Cape Town CBD add space for cars

I have been monitoring how the new bicycle lanes in Bree St in the Cape Town CBD are being utililised. In my view, the net effect has been to simply give more space to motorists for illegal parking (where they can now double park for free without obstructing the traffic flow) and for delivery vehicles…

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We’re on the road to nowhere…

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Update: There was a good response to my original post on Cape Town’s unfinished freeways. Ella Smook wrote a follow up article in the Cape Argus on 01 September (see full story below), following which John Maytham picked up the debate on Cape Talk radio.

What do you think? Should the Foreshore Freeways be:…

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Come rain or come shine… we walk the city to discover our history

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I took a group of 25 international journalists on a walking tour of the Cape Town Central City this morning. The weather was awful, a typical wet Cape winter’s day, but true to our motto – we walk, come rain or shine – we set off in good spirits. The group is…

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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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Post 2010 paradigm shifts create opportunities for new city development

Pedestrian zone in Adderley Street

In 2008, the City of Cape Town and the Cape Town Partnership published the Central City Development Strategy – a framework to guide change and manage growth over the next ten years. We are currently reviewing and updating the strategy in light of the 2010 World Cup experience.…

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2010 World Cup: More of an afterglow than a hangover!

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What better place to say farewell to the 2010 World Cup than in Upper Long Street? I watched the gut-wrenching final between Holland and Spain with friends and family at Long Street Cafe.

Long Street has been the epicentre of the Cape Town late night World Cup party for the…

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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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Cape Town shows the world how to street party

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We were hoping to get 100 000 people on the Cape Town Fan Walk for the Germany vs Argentina 2010 World Cup Quarter Final match. At its peak, the Fan Walk hit an estimated 153 000! This means that when 65 000 people were in the stadium, over 90 000 continued

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Navigating the Cape Town Central City

Navigating the city

As part of our efforts to make the Cape Town Central City more navigable for tourists (and local suburbanites!) during the 2010 World Cup, the Cape Town Partnership and CCID asked Chip Snaddon, well known local cartoonist and illustrator at the Cape Argus, to draw us a humerous guide which showed,…

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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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