There are five key elements of the 2010 World Cup legacy for Cape Town:

• R14bn of infrastructure, much of it funded by National Treasury (e.g. CT Stadium, Green Point Urban Park, CT Airport, rail station upgrades, first phase IRT, highway intersections, pedestrian routes, cycle routes, public squares) – There has been nothing like the immovable deadline of the World Cup to get decisions made and things done
• Higher levels of local skills and experience in the public and private sectors (e.g. negotiating with FIFA and National Government, building infrastructure on time, planning and coordinating diverse work-streams and events, issuing complex tenders and managing multiple contracts, up-skilling in the construction industry)
• Enforced cooperation: Government departments, city agencies, organisations and private companies learning to work more closely together to get things done on time
• Stronger Cape Town profile and brand (especially with the positive impact of the Final Draw on 4^th December)
• Better social cohesion – Capetonians enjoying the same space together – an intangible but important part of the legacy

The new raised traffic circle in Green Point, allowing pedestrian access to the CT Stadium and Urban Park, is part of the 2010 infrastructure legacy

So, Cape Town is already a winner because of 2010. How do we build on this legacy? Cape Town is well poised to continue the momentum through key initiatives that are already taking us into the future:

• City Development Strategy
• Integrated Rapid Transit Strategy
• Central City Development Strategy 
• Bid to make Cape Town the World Design Capital in 2014

We still don’t have a clear vision of where we want to be as a city in 20-30 years time, and how we are going to get there. This means that we tend to continue with ‘business as usual’ type thinking and doing.

What we need is a city development strategy – a planning process used by many cities around the world to set out a vision for the city’s future and a roadmap on how to get there.

A city development strategy or CDS is not a ‘plan’ but a way of getting city leaders and citizens to agree to make the right choices. A successful city strategy cannot be all things to all people – it must provoke choices. To be really useful, a CDS needs to contain a set of ‘change levers’ to ‘bend’ our current unsustainable development path towards a more desirable future.

Khayelitsha - a poor but potentially vibrant economic node

Examples of issues (indicative rather than exhaustive) that would need to be addressed by a CDS include:

• Employment and greater distribution of incomes
• Entrepreneurship and the establishment of businesses
• Social cohesion and common city identity
• Urban land question (unsustainable low-density urban sprawl and the need for a more compact city; shortage of adequate housing and basic services; car-based planning or make a fundamental shift towards a city organised around proper public transport)
• Looming resource constraints: energy, water
• Impact of climate change on our coastline and agricultural production
• Human capital development: education, health, skills
• Impact of rapidly changing technologies

The good news is that the City of Cape Town has recently signalled its intention to lead an inclusive and participative city development strategy process later this year. Much good work has already been done by Accelerate Cape Town’s 2030 visioning process, which can be built upon.

It is imperative that we take this process seriously and get involved so that we can collectively shape the future of our city.

We need to get behind the Integrated Rapid Transport System (IRTS)

The question we ought to be asking is not, can the Cape Town afford the IRT, but rather, can we afford not to build it. To continue as a primarily car-based city without a decent, safe, reliable public transport system is not sustainable. A large proportion of our citizens don’t have cars in any case! Rising energy costs will make car travel less affordable. We need to reduce our city’s carbon footprint. The economic cost of congestion on our roads increases exponentially every year. Finally, we cannot continue with the political, economic and social cost of not connecting the disparate parts of our city together and enhancing mobility and access for our citizens.

The IRT is not just a transport project – it is a city transformation project. It is the cheapest form of car-competitive public transport available to cities. It has the potential to drive the necessary city densification processes, with more compact development clustering around stations and along public transport corridors. It can link isolated communities to the mainstream urban economy, offering opportunities to reduce poverty. It can complement the existing rail network. It can provide jobs for taxi- and bus-drivers and many others.

IRT lanes under construction (Pic: Bruce Sutherland, City of Cape Town)

IRT is probably the single most important infrastructure project in the city over the next 10-15 years. It is the main 2010 World Cup legacy project – if we mess it up, we will have squandered the development opportunity of our generation.

It is a complex project, not for the faint-hearted. The City of Cape Town’s initial estimates of costs were too low, the initial project management processes not systematic enough. However, I believe that the City has rectified these issues, and that we are back on track. There is a top team with experience in place under Mike Marsden, which has instituted proper programming and planning. The Department of Transport and National Treasury are firmly behind the project – but this window of funding opportunity will not last forever. If we are not seen to be actively behind the project, driving it beyond 2010 to all corners of the metropolitan area, the funding will peter out, and with it, our chance to experience a decent public transport in our lifetime.

Central City Development Strategy (CCDS)

The CCDS is an existing ten-year framework to guide public and private planners, investors and developers in the Central City (defined as stretching from Green Point to Salt River), published by the City of Cape Town and CT Partnership in 2008.

There are two exciting new projects currently underway that will potentially have a large impact on the future development of the city:

Land Use Change Management: This project aims to address issues that often cause difficulties when it comes to deciding on applications for rezoning and departures, such as building height restrictions, development densities, views, heritage and conservation, active streetscapes, parking ratios in buildings, amongst other things. The intention is for the City to be able to publish development parameters to guide future developments in the Central City and thereby give more certainty and predictability to developers when they are drawing up their applications, investors when they are considering funding projects and planners when they are making approvals. The City of Cape Town intends to consult publically in April. If successful, this path-breaking planning project could be used to guide development in other parts of the city.

Cape Town Central City by night as seen from Table Mountain

Provincial Central City Regeneration Project: The Provincial Government is a major owner and occupier of space in the Central City (some 200 000m²⁾. MEC Robin Carlisle has begun a process whereby all Provincial assets in this area are evaluated in terms of their development potential, for example:

• Reconfiguration of Provincial Government accommodation
• Provision of public services
• Better use of educational and health facilities
• Possible public-private partnerships for commercial, mixed-use or affordable residential developments

The MEC has brought in the participation of the four universities through the Cape Higher Education Consortium. He is also currently liaising with Intersite and Passenger Rail Services (Prasa) with regard to the Cape Town Station phase two regeneration project (in itself, a major potential post-2010 initiative) and Transnet with regard to their Culemborg site, to ensure an integrated public asset management strategy.

This project, which will hopefully be implemented over the next 5-10 years, could have a dramatic impact on the momentum of development in the Central City, and provide ways of addressing the need for affordable housing, spaces for small businesses and non-profit organisations, and additional educational and social facilities. If successful, the intention is to be able to use the model elsewhere in the City and Province.

Cape Town CBD and harbour, with Blaauwberg on the other side of Table Bay

World Design Capital Bid 2014

Creative Cape Town is a programme of the Cape Town Partnership which promotes the development of the creative and knowledge economy in Cape Town. One of our projects is the East City Design Initiative (ECDI) which aims to create a precinct for design, innovation, creativity & entrepreneurship in the Central City.

The East City Precinct is already attracting major attention. It was recently designated a Cape Catalyst project by Provincial Government. It is the home of the successful Cape Craft and Design Initiative, Fabrication Laboratory, the District Six Museum and Homecoming Centre, and the new Central Library in the restored Old Drill Hall. The Old Granary Building is scheduled to be upgraded into a cultural hub.

The new Fugard Theatre opens this week in the old Congregational Church Hall (one of the best restorations of an historic building I have seen) and is destined to become one of the best theatres in SA. The Spier Contemporary is opening in March in the City Hall – showcasing 100 SA artists and 132 works of art – which in turn is helping to restart the process of using the City Hall as a dedicated music and cultural centre.

On the basis of these trends, we will be launching a process to bid for World Design Capital status for Cape Town in 2014 at the forthcoming Design Indaba.

This award is conferred biennially by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID) to a city that is dedicated to using design for social, cultural and economic development. If we are successful, this title will give Cape Town a chance to showcase our achievements and aspirations through a year-long programme of design-led events and activities – just as World Design Capital designees Seoul (see YouTube video) and Helsinki will do in 2010 and 2012 respectively.

More importantly, pitching for this title will also give city stakeholders an opportunity to once again work together towards a common goal – just as we have done with the 2010 World Cup. Already, many key stakeholders including the Mayor of the City of Cape Town have endorsed the project, and prominent individuals associated with design innovation have agreed to join a bid advisory body.

We have to be ready to submit our bid in February 2011. That gives us a year to get our act together. I invite any individual, organisation or business who is interested in getting involved to contact the Partnership, which is acting as a bid secretariat on behalf of all the stakeholders.

Conclusion

I know of many other examples of initiatives and projects in Cape Town, which have the potential to take us beyond 2010. However, time does not permit me to list them all here.

Plans and projects on their own are not good enough – we need to look at how we do things. In implementing plans for 2010, we have shown that we can do things differently. We have taken complex decisions. We have met deadlines. We have mobilised people out of silos and compartments, beyond ‘business as usual’. We have become less parochial and more outward looking.

The key question is: can we continue on this basis, or will we slip back into comfortable mediocrity?

Capetonians came together in 1989 to help get rid of apartheid. Can we again come together around a common vision?

Keep off the grass!

About a year ago, I was privileged to have the opportunity to take Enrique Penalosa, former Mayor of Bogata, Colombia, on a walking tour of the Cape Town Central City. Penalosa is well known because of his pioneering efforts as Mayor between 1998 and 2001 in transforming his city from a car-dominated to a more people-friendly environment.

The website of the Project for Public Spaces in New York has this to say about him: “While mayor, Peñalosa was responsible for numerous radical improvements to the city and its citizens. He promoted a city model giving priority to children and public spaces and restricting private car use, building hundreds of kilometres of sidewalks, bicycle paths, pedestrian streets, greenways, and parks… Peñalosa also led efforts to improve Bogotá’s marginal neighbourhoods through citizen involvement; planted more than 100,000 trees; created a new, highly successful bus-based transit system; and turned a deteriorated downtown avenue into a dynamic pedestrian public space. He helped transform the city’s attitude from one of negative hopelessness to one of pride and hope, developing a model for urban improvement based on the equal rights of all people to transportation, education, and public spaces.”

So, Peñalosa is a pretty influential person when it comes to promoting people’s rights to the city, especially public spaces, and we were keen to learn from him. We showed him around town, and looked at our own public space improvements, such as the Grand Parade and Greenmarket Square. We observed where invasions of public space were continuing to take place, by cars, traders and retailers (Peñalosa expressed his horror at the amount of open parking lots in the city, but admired the potential of the St George’s Mall pedestrian spine). We discussed ways in which to improve the pedestrian environment and to promote cycling.

We also discussed the proposed new Integrated Rapid Transit System and the planned improvements to the Cape Town Station. It was while walking through the station precinct that the embarrassing incident took place. As we walked onto the Station Forecourt, the only bit of green space in the CBD other than the Company’s Gardens, we were immediately ordered to get off the grass. We remonstrated with the security guard: ‘Surely this is public space, a place for people to come out of the buildings to eat their lunches?’ It didn’t help. We were unceremoniously turfed off and completed our walking tour in a somewhat subdued fashion. Clearly, we still had a long way to go in terms of changing attitudes…

Postscript: the Station Forecourt is currently being dug up and resurfaced to form new public square in the heart of the city. People will be welcome in the space, which will effectively form the start of the Fan Walk to the new Cape Town Stadium.

Enrique Penalosa in Cape Town 2008

We had a great turnout at the Cape Town Partnership AGM this week. Our theme was ‘Life after 2010′ and we showcased over 40 public and private projects and developments that demonstrate that Cape Town is ‘open for business’ after the World Cup has come and gone.

CTP Board celebrate 10 years of successful public private partnerships in the Cape Town Central City at 10th AGM October 2009

Happy 10th anniversary Cape Town Partnership

BRT

We’re busy gearing up for the Cape Town Partnership AGM this coming Thursday (29 October). We have decided not to go with just the boring stuff (annual report and financial statements) but turn the occasion into something worthwhile. So we will be having a mini-conference on ‘life after 2010’ to show that we don’t need necessarily to go through the post mega-event blues that many cities seem to go through and that Cape Town will be ‘open for business’. At the same time, we are also conscious of all the ‘unfinished business’ challenges that we face in the next decade – the need for more jobs, a growing economy, affordable housing, with the unfinished Foreshore Freeways and the incomplete restitution of District Six being the two most visible reminders. All the presentations and discussion will be on the Cape Town Partnership website from Friday.

The striking Milwaukee Art Museum, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, on the shores of Lake Michigen

I was privileged to be invited to join the Board of the International Downtown Association (IDA) at the 55th IDA Congress, held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in September 2009. The IDA has been around since 1954 and with over 650 members, represents a great network to share ideas and experiences about urban management.

What I realised is that we in South African cities have now built up a degree of experience over the past two decades that can be shared with the rest of the world. This was apparent when I presented a paper on Public-Private Partnerships in the Central City: Lessons from the first ten years of the Cape Town Partnership.

This paper situates urban management and public-private partnerships in the context of Cape Town as a developing city in an emerging economy, conditions different to those faced by cities in advanced industrialised nations. In particular, delegates from countries similar to South Africa, such as Brazil, showed great interest in our model.

The IDA conference took place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Tasso Evangelinos and I, together with colleagues from the City of Cape Town, took time to walk about the city. Milwaukee is a fairly typical US city, in that it is heavily suburbanised, with a car-based transport system. As a result, although their downtown (central city) area is well-organised, safe and clean, with nice signage and good street furniture, there is almost no-one on the streets. (For similar observations on Milwaukee, see Brad Segal’s comments in his blog Progressive Urban Management Associates)

We were told that there are over 60 000 public and private parking spaces in the Milwaukee downtown area (Cape Town CBD by comparison has 16 000), which perhaps explains the predominant car culture and the lack of people on the streets. My conclusion is that while sound urban management and a clean and safe environment is a prerequisite for a thriving business area, it is not a sufficient condition to make it a vibrant people-space.

Chicago, on the other hand, about an hour and a half away from Milwaukee by train, is an amazing people city. This is reflected in the wonderful public art in the public spaces, such as the giant 162-ton 1967 Picasso in the Daley Plaza to the more recent installations in the Millennium Park, in particular, Jaume Plensa’s Crown Fountain and Anish Kapoor’s astonishing 110-ton elliptical Cloud Gate.

These public spaces are popular with locals and visitors alike. The Chicago downtown is, of course, a highly dense mixed use area, one of the preconditions for active public space. Milwaukee has created something really beautiful, namely, the Milwaukee Art Museum, designed by famous Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, with a moveable sunscreen with a 217-foot wingspan that unfolds and folds twice daily

Calatrava said that he was not just designing a new building but creating ‘part of a city’. He was right. With the new museum, Milwaukee, without necessarily intending to do so, has created a new icon for the city. Similarly, if you think about it, the new Cape Town Stadium provides a new take on an old and powerful icon, namely Table Mountain.

Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate, Millennium Park, Chicago

Jaume Plensa's Crown Fountain, Millennium Park, Chicago