FREE
MARCH 2015
A PROJECT OF THE CAPE TOWN PARTNERSHIP Molo | Hello | Goeiedag
A CITY FORETOLD
You tell us what you think Cape Town’s future holds PAGE 12
THE FUTURE OF HOUSING
Why thinking local matters when it comes to housing PAGE 4
6
I believe the government should empower people to upgrade their own START HERE lives. MOLO MARCH 2015
PAGE 5
Do you want to make the
FUTURE CITY WHAT WILL CAPE TOWN BE LIKE IN 2050? PAGES 8 to 11
future better?
M J V K T
C D 2 3 T
NO?
BE THE CHANGE
yeS
everyone donated WeIfthe map small changes you cost of a meal each week we could can make today end global hunger in 20 years*.
PAGES 6 & 7
what Do you
care abOut? www.capetownpartnership.co.za I would like to help kids living on the street The Homestead provides a safe place for children living on the street. 150 Strand Street, Cape Town
“as Mand
2
MOLO MARCH 2015
editorial
Molo. Hello. Goeiedag. Molo is a free community paper, focused on the people of Cape Town, and published by the Cape Town Partnership. Created by: Ambre Nicolson, Dave Buchanan, Lisa Burnell, Nadine Botha, Ru du Toit, Sam Bainbridge, Stephen Alfreds Designed by: Infestation T: 021 461 8601 www.infestation.co.za Published by: Cape Town Partnership 34 Bree Street T: 021 419 1881
SEND US YOUR STORIES If you or someone you know has an interesting story to tell, mail us at molo@capetownpartnership.co.za (no press releases, please).
WHERE TO FIND MOLO If you or your organisation would like to receive or distribute the print publication, please mail us at molo@capetownpartnership.co.za, including your postal address and the number of copies you’d like to receive. Every month, we’ll be continuing the conversations we start in the print edition of Molo online at www.capetownpartnership.co.za.
Contact the creators of Molo:
@CTPartnership #Molo
Email: molo@capetownpartnership.co.za Tel: 021 419 1881 www.facebook.com/molocapetown
I
don’t like labels, especially in the case of the stereotypical, easy-to-apply labels that are often attached to people. There is one, however, that I wear as a badge of honour: I am a proud Afro-optimist. This does not mean I view the future of our continent, country or city through rose-tinted shades. Like anyone else, when I read the headlines I sometimes despair at the number and complexity of the challenges we face, both locally and across Africa. Nonetheless, when I consider the future, I also feel hopeful. I am hopeful because I believe that ordinary, engaged citizens around the world are making a difference in all sorts of ways, large and small. When I look at Cape Town I see the rapid rate of urbanisation,
the lack of resources, and the social ills that haunt our city; but I also see the parents working tirelessly to create a better future for their children, the young people creating positive change in their communities, and the individuals across all sectors of society who are actively participating in trying to make this city a better, warmer, more humane place. One of the best examples I have come across recently is the 100% pass rate achieved by the 2014 matric class of Spine Road High School in Mitchell’s Plain. These kids and their teachers overcame poverty, the prevalence of singleparent households, gangsterism, and high rates of teenage pregnancy to become the first Mitchell’s Plain school in 50 years to achieve a 100% pass rate.
On being an Afrooptimist I am hopeful because I believe that ordinary, engaged citizens around the world are making a difference in ways, large and small
Three ways, close to my heart, that we can make our city’s future brighter:
1
Recognise the importance of the informal economy, and support informal trade.
2
Support efforts to increase the resilience of our city by participating in public and nonmotorised transport, low-carbon initiatives, and green strategies in your home.
3
Help to activate our public spaces in meaningful ways.
If the future of our city is in the hands of young people such as these, then surely we have cause for optimism.
Turn to page 6 to discover some more ideas on how to make a difference.
Bulelwa Makalima-Ngewana
Molo, Cape Town Partnership, 10th Floor, The Terraces, 34 Bree Street, 8001
ON THE COVER
Your say
Readers’ letters DIVIDED BY DISABILTY
Here’s what you have to say about Molo. Keep the feedback coming: email us at molo@capetownpartnership.co.za
GreenMarket Square then and now The latest issue of Molo is a job well done but, if it is available, we would have loved to see the picture of Greenmarket Square 2014 taken at the same angle as Greenmarket Square 1963.
1963
2015
I am reading your excellent issue on different ways of picturing Cape Town. Your coverage of the city, both the positive and the negative, is often seen from the point of view of black/white, rich/poor, but there is another divide, which cuts across all racial and economic lines: disability. It would be great to show the city and how inclusive, barrier-free and caring it can be, but then also to highlight that it can also exclude and marginalise, based on access to transport, inaccessible restaurants, lack of universal design in building the city and the lack of education for some.
Zahraa Moerat, Cape Town Andrea Vinassa, Cape Town
“The future’s uncertain ground. It’s something we try tame, to pin down with our plans, to map with our imagination. But really we’re just scratching around in the dust and the dark. All we’ve got is right now. If we’re talking about Cape Town in 2050, maybe all we can really say for sure is this: live tomorrow’s dream today.” KEVIN SHELLEY, illustrator and designer
Proudly Capetonian I picked up a copy of Molo at the local library. I’m not even sure why I did because most of these free papers and mags are just vehicles for advertising and end up being thrown away. I had some free time waiting for someone and started reading it and was blown away! It made me so happy and proud to read and see positive things about our city, even if on difficult and
challenging topics. Here are two of my own favourite images of Cape Town. Nicky N, Cape Town
IN SHORT
COLUMN
Slum Honey
T
CHARLIE HUMAN
hey march through the N1 North Gate, between the giant bronze legs of heroes from the First Struggle, a bloodied army with their body armour caked in ash from the Blast Veld, their boots thudding on the broken tar. Up above the city, the mountain looks as if a toothless god has sucked huge chunks of granite away, like an ice cream from its stick or flesh from its skeleton. He smiles when he sees it. The Mother City wears her scars well. Each time he comes back from the front the crowds grow smaller. And those that do come perform in a kind of over-the-top playacting that smacks of hired help. The war helps for political manoeuvring, but only until people are sick of it. They trudge down past the old train station, where the hydroponic produce that provides the bulk of the city’s sustenance is traded between the rotting hulks of the old trains. As a boy he used to sneak into the ghostly carriages and pretend to ride through the shellpocked CBD. They march through Termin District, his home as a boy. It was here, right on this street
shorts
underneath the overhang of the old station, where he was recruited with a handful of food and a promise of riches stripped from the bodies of dead enemies. ‘Slum Honey’ the recruiters called them, the boys and girls they plucked from the dirt. Sweetness from the ashes. He looks for Kay but he knows it’s stupid. She wouldn’t come to see them unless it was to protest. A small, dirty girl hands him an orange flower and he takes it with a smile. Her skin is ravaged by the wasting disease. How little she must have been paid to be here and how little it would help her life. His own mother had caught the wasting disease and he knew that very soon nothing would be able to stop the little girl’s pain. He should just raise the scattergun from his shoulder and end her suffering now; that would be kindest thing he could do. But he’s not that brave. So he just smiles. They march through the poverty, gleaming soldiers of the Second Struggle. The dirty walls are plastered with huge posters that call for the arrest of The Msizi, the red-masked revolutionary that has united
The show might almost be believable if he didn’t spot the stony faces in the crowds, wrapped in their grey blankets, touching at their earpieces and scanning. The Order of Whispers watch over their carefully choreographed show like stern, violent parents. the desperate. The rising sea has pushed people into the darkest corners of the city and they have nowhere else to go except to his embrace. The new wealth is only for some and Msizi is a symbol. A symbol the powers-that-be will hang from a crossbar in the centre of the Grand Parade when they catch him. The crowds grow thicker as they get closer to Waterfront City, that inner citadel with its grey monolithic walls that keep out the sea. The city within a city. Shouts of praise rise from the middle class; citizens in their
blue and red geometricallypatterned blankets, their golden interlocking triangle earrings, their conical hats, woven straw headbands and upper-arm beads. The social symbols that mark them as distinct from the rags and bare feet of the citizens from areas like Termin Hill. They wave placards showing Blake Erefaan – the tall, distinguished leader looking proudly out at a sunrise. A New Freedom. A New Dawn. The show might almost be believable if he didn’t spot the stony faces in the crowds, wrapped in their grey blankets, touching at their earpieces and scanning. The Order of Whispers watch over their carefully choreographed show like stern, violent parents.
The army winds their way through the streets. The familiar feel of the unit moving together like warm water isolates him from the coldness of his thoughts about the girl with the flower and her falling-apart face. They turn a corner and then Kay is in front of him, a figure in the crowd wrapped in the white cloth of The Tradition. She holds the three ritual sticks of fynbos in her small hands and white headbeads frame the glow of her face. Her wry smile cuts into him. It is at that line, the line made by the compressed half-smile on her lips, that the outer struggle – The Second Struggle that began when those monstrous things came from the sky – ends. And his own struggle begins.
Cape Town’S future in numbers Between now and the year
2050
the world’s population will
increase by an additional
2
BILLION PEOPLE.
Worldwide, the temperature will rise by 2.2 degrees Celsius, and the sea level will rise by at least 30cm.
Of this planetary population of
9.6
Closer to home, South Africa’s fertility rate will decline slowly, while life expectancy across the continent will rise.
As much as
50%
of Africa’s population will be younger than
by
25.
2050
If we continue There will be as many people with our over 65 in South Africa business-asas there are currently usual approach, people under 15. the energy needs of Cape Town will quadruple.
BILLION
PEOPLE
70% of them will
live in a
city.
By 2050 a house that would cost R1.2 million today will cost R40 million. source:
www.housepricesouthafrica.com, City of Cape Town State of Energy and Energy Futures Report 2011, United Nation’s report World Population Prospects: the 2012 Revision
3
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MOLO MARCH 2015
The Future of Housing in Cape Town
O
ur cities are stubborn. Cape Town remains geographically and socially separated despite the fact that undoing the spatial divides of apartheid has been a goal of the democratically elected government since 1994. Our houses and residential spaces are a testament to this patterned inequality: those fortunate enough to live in well-off neighbourhoods enjoy lower levels of crime. Those unfortunate enough to be living where the previous government put them, continue to experience some of the country’s worst levels of violence and crime. Nyanga, not 30 kilometres from Cape Town’s city centre, has the highest number of homicides per capita in the entire nation. Changing the layout of our city has proven difficult, particularly in terms of housing. Newer approaches, such as the work that Slum Dwellers International and others are doing with informal settlement upgrading, are helping to restructure informal settlements in our cities. But for areas with pre-existing structures,
finding ways to pair innovative finance with restructured cities is very challenging. Nonetheless, recognition of the need for densification and mixed-income housing is growing for planning departments across the country. Translating these goals into successful plans of action at the local level will take creative thought, and new ways of approaching grant-making and financial strategies. It will also take a new way of thinking about communities; one that is less about city-wide policies, and more about smallerscale ‘precincts’. Focusing on specific neighbourhoods allows the effects of housing interventions to be seen more clearly. Also, if we can identify specific alreadyestablished precincts that carry the space and infrastructural capacity to handle housing expansion, they can engender a stronger sense of true community development through a greater return on investment of public and private funds. Here’s an example. Looking at Cape Town, neighbourhoods
Beyond the need to provide adequate shelter for a growing urban population, can thinking about housing in new (local) ways help transform more than just the physical landscape of our city? Urban researcher Andrew Fleming argues that housing could re-engineer the way we think about our cities and their roles as generators of inclusion and opportunity. Text by Andrew Fleming, images by Lisa Burnell, supplied
such as Woodstock and Maitland are already well-suited to housing expansion, particularly affordable housing. If funds are channelled towards building one new development of affordable housing in Woodstock, it will certainly bring a degree of benefit to the area. Now, take that a step further: what happens when you start thinking about several new housing units? Using a strategy of collective management, you could in theory build three or four medium-density social-housing developments in close proximity to one another, but not right next to each other. In order to connect them, you could leverage some of the project’s capital expenditure budget for stronger infrastructural improvements, such as community walking paths, parks and sidewalks. Additionally, the existing community benefits, which will in turn generate a stronger community, where residents not only understand the need for social housing, but actively encourage it as part of a strategy of community development.
Focusing on specific neighbourhoods allows the effects of housing interventions to be seen more clearly.
At least 13% of all households in the Western Cape live in informal settlements, according to the latest census data.
The idea of precinct-based development goes even further when you plan to make better use of existing community infrastructure. By placing several different – yet connected – sites of social development in existing areas (called ‘infill development’), you can support community resources: schools, clinics, libraries, parks, and other government-funded spaces with more people. Not only does this make
Hostels in Khayelitsha show the legacy of apartheid infrastructure.
better use of existing state-run facilities, it also helps alleviate the pressure on government to build new facilities at new sites on the urban periphery. In Woodstock, an increase in resident numbers through new social-housing developments would have a great effect on the precinct’s local economic development. More residents means more people shopping at local retailers, which means more money generated and staying in the community – benefiting new and old residents alike. More residents also means more people taking advantage of the great public transportation in the area – reducing the need for cars, and increasing the use of government investment in public transportation. Critical to such a programme’s success would be ensuring community participation and buy-in from the get-go. Engaging with existing residents, finding out their concerns, and including them in the design process will reduce the feelings of marginalisation or safety concerns that can sometimes arise from developing affordable housing in pre-existing urban communities. Many private social housing companies have started to integrate this strategy as
a key component of any project. SOHCO’s Cape Town property, Steenvillas, demonstrates just how important community engagement with surrounding residents is for the overall success of a development. Looking to the future, thinking about precincts as opposed to individual developments can help the government, the private sector and communities to think about how to leverage money and other assets to be more inclusive. Greater density in better areas means reduced commuting time, less reliance on individual motor vehicles, and reduced need for extended infrastructure in our cities (such as sewerage, water pipes, roads and drains, which all cost the city a great deal of money). Of course, more research and engagement is needed on just how such an idea could manifest. Property markets, affordable housing typologies, and existing pressure on low-income housing markets would all need to be taken into account. Nevertheless, the idea signals a new way of thinking about our city’s housing future: more inclusion, more economic development, and more opportunity.
FEATURE
5
MY STORY
A dream house in hangberg
Xoma Ayob was born in the shadow of the Sentinel in the Hangberg informal settlement called Texas. He can recall a time before the factories when you could simply brush the seaweed aside to pluck a crayfish out of the water. While Xoma spent some of his childhood in Piketberg, survived the student riots of 1976 in Athlone, and spent six years in Australia with his second wife, Hangberg has always been his home. Text by Alma Viviers, images by Lisa Burnell, supplied
I
n 2013, when the City of Cape Town wanted to move Xoma – by then a long-time resident of Hangberg – to a Temporary Relocation Area (TRA) in order for housing development to take place on the land that he had been living on for more than 30 years, he refused. For Xoma, a TRA house was simply not a viable option. He did not see the sense in giving up his home, and the garden and livestock that sustained him, nor the view that he has relished for more than three decades, to be relocated to a ‘camp’ of generic boxes. In an attempt to soften Xoma up, the city approached Stephen Lamb and Andrew Lord of Touching the Earth Lightly, long-time advocates for fire- and flood-proofing temporary houses in informal settlements and creating food security through vertical gardening, to create one of their signature green walls for Xoma’s TRA house. This introduction set in a motion an exemplary process of co-design that not only resulted in the construction of Xoma’s dream house, but also resulted in an international spotlight on Khoi rights and new ways to approach housing delivery. Since the basic structure of the house was completed in July 2014, Xoma has spent the past eight months moving and settling in with his wife Fiona and her four children, building new shelter for his animals and birds, making a new veggie garden and incrementally improving the house – adding a deck, enclosing the
Above: Xoma grows vegetables using a vertical garden installed in repurposed plastic pipes. Top: Xoma’s new flood- and fire-resistant home, named the Light House, in Hangberg.
bottom using rubble infill, and setting out stairs and pathways around the property. “The house has kept me very busy. The process was quite intense. It was a challenge, but also a great experience, because I am moving from shaky ground to solid ground. And now for the first time in my life I can actually put down a pathway or a wall or steps, and know that I don’t have to break it down… ever. And that is everyone’s dream in life. I am just very happy that I have reached that goal now. Everything has got its place now. “I now have time to get back to training the kids [from the neighbourhood] in martial arts, and teaching them about the local plants and how they can grow their own to sell. The one thing that I still want to do is to put up a kids’ gym at the house where the kids can play where it is safe, when they come to visit the animals.
“I felt quite empowered when I met Stephen. When he told me he was here to listen to what I wanted, I thought to myself, ‘I could work with him’. He let me decide, and let me show my mind and what I needed. I would point him in a direction, and he would show me that the direction I was going in could lead to this or to that. That is how we started negotiating and making plans for the house. He was really doing a good job, because he never said ‘no’ to what I wanted; he always said that we could try it. So we started to develop this bond as the Light House was built.
For as long as a project is treated with such respect, then it will be a success and it will grow.”
“I was also surprised to find out that of all these people who were working with us, helping us, donating stuff, only two of them were permanent partners of Stephen; all the other people, more than I can count on my fingers, 20 or 30, all of them were his friends. It was a great surprise to me; it opened my eyes, because I was getting veiled into thinking that we [the Khoi people of Hangberg] are on our own; that nobody cares. It was great to see that there are people that we don’t even know, that we wouldn’t even think would help with something like this, who stand for the rights of others, who stand for a Khoi’s right to his land. “Now that this [the house] has happened, everyone is saying that I was right. I was right not to shut up. I was right not to move, and to stand up for my rights. People applaud and respect that about me. I keep saying to people, you must take my example and live with it; because if you keep your mouth shut, then before you know it you are on a truck somewhere with all your furniture. “So together with Stephen and Andrew we are liaising with the chief !Xam [a community leader in Hangberg], and we as a team are now building another house. We want to arrange it in such a way that he is now empowered to keep the train of beneficiaryled, co-designed and in-situ-built houses going to the next station and the next station. “We can’t build a house for everyone in Hangberg, and we have to do them one by one. We
Now that this [the house] has happened, everyone is saying that I was right. I was right not to shut up. I was right not to move, and to stand up for my rights. People applaud and respect that about me.
find we have the necessary manpower and the public relations to do it. And we are not going to the government and asking them for a cent, because we have touched the hearts of people in France, people in Germany, America and England. “But you see, the way things were done here was the proper way. Whoever put whatever funding in here can see it with their own eyes. For as long as a project is treated with such respect, then it will be a success and it will grow. “I believe that instead of giving people houses, the government should empower people to upgrade their own lives – instead of promising them stuff that never happens, or setting up projects that flop. If the government can do that, they will have less worries and work. And I think that is proper governing, don’t you?”
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MOLO MARCH 2015
START HERE
Do you want to make the
MONEY Make a donation to the Frank Joubert Art Centre Vredendof Keurboom Road, Newlands T: 021 683 2720
future better?
SKILLS Contact the Cape Craft and Design Institute 2nd floor Harrington House 37 Barrack Street, Cape Town T: 021 461 1488
“I think it’s important to support the creative economy of our city.”
What resource can you share?
TIME Attend an event. Find out more by signing up for Creative Cape Town’s monthly newsletter at www.creativecapetown.com
NO? Less than 1% of the world’s gross domestic product – $300 billion - would lift one billion people out of poverty. This amount represents 1.6% of the income of the richest 10% of the world’s population.* As an individual you can make a difference.
YES
LIFE SKILLS NICRO 4 Buitensingel Street Cape Town T: 021 462 0017
What do you
care about?
VOCATIONAL SKILLS The Carpenter’s Shop 14a Roeland Street Cape Town T: 021 461 5508
I would like to help kids living on the street. The Homestead provides a safe place for children living on the street. 150 Strand Street, Cape Town T: 021 419 9763
“Children are our future.”
I think it’s important that kids learn creative thinking skills. The Children’s Art Centre provides extramural art classes for children. Cambridge Street, Walmer Estate T: 021 465 3140
I don’t have money to donate but I can share my time. Big Brother Big Sister helps connect children with mentors. T: 021 551 6996 Email: makeadifference@bbbssa.org.za
“As Nelson Mandela put it: education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.”
Straatwerk Corner of Rose and Castle streets Cape Town T: 021 425 0140 Salesian Institute Youth Projects Corner of Somerset and Chiappini streets T: 021 425 1450
LITERACY AND LANGUAGE The Scalabrini Centre offers English language tuition and literacy classes to refugees. 47 Commercial Street Cape Town T: 021 465 6433
Are you interested in child or adult education?
CHILDREN
What skills or knowledge can you share?
ADULTS
FEATURE
“We need to focus on economic growth if we want to see real change.”
NO
Inyathelo works to advance job creation and entrepreneurship. 2nd floor, The Armoury, Buchanan Square 160 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock T: 021 465 6981/2
FOOD SECURITY
PRESERVING BIODIVERSITY AND ECOLOGICAL CONSERVATION SANBI (The South African National Biodiversity Institute) Kirstenbosch Gardens T: 021 799 8800
REDUCING CARBON EMMISSIONS
Do you already...
1. buy local whenever possible 2. support informal trade 3. if you are an employer, try to hire local employees?
YES
Do you you have time or money to donate?
What are you most concerned about?
“Climate change is real, we need to do something about it. Now!”
• Motor vehicles are a huge source of carbon emissions. When possible car pool, use public transport or try nonmotorised forms of transport. • Reduce by donating or composting food and always recycling.
WOMEN’S HEALTH Mamelani Projects provides community-based health education. Wesley College 20 Durham Avenue T: 021 448 2725 SWEAT offers support and health counselling to sex workers. 19 Anson Road, Obersvatory T: 021 448 7875
“How can I support people living on the street?”
KIDS
ADULTS
The Ark is one of the few places in Cape Town that takes in homeless families. 5 Old National Road, Faure T: 021 843 3927 The Haven is a night shelter, providing anyone with a safe place to sleep, a hot shower and food. 2 Napier Street, Green Point T: 021 425 4700 Percey Bartley House helps young men with shelter, education and family reunification. 44 Pine Road, Woodstock T: 021 447 5722
7
I would like to help our city’s most vulnerable citizens.
“How can I support people with substance abuse probelms?” Cape Town Drug Counselling Centre 1 Roman Road, Obervatory T: 021 447 8026
Salvation Army offers shelter. 85 Maynard Road, Wynberg T: 021 761 8530
“I want everybody to have enough to eat.”
YES
Do you you have time or money to donate? The Service Dining Rooms offer hot meals for 5 cents. 82 Canterbury Street Cape Town T: 021 465 2390
Are you already...
1. supporting local food growers by buying local produce whenever possible 2. growing your own fruit and vegetables 3. reducing food waste by donating perishables to your local soup kitchen, school or church or by using food that has gone off for compost?
NO
Soil for Life teaches people about urban agriculture. Stables Lane, off Brounger Way Constantia T: 021 794 4982
PREVENTING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
PROVIDING A SAFE SPACE FOR VULNERABLE GIRLS
Sonke Gender Justice works to create gender equality. 4th floor, Westminster House, 122 Longmarket Street Cape Town T: 021 423 7088
Ons Plek provides a safe space for girls who have been living on the streets. 4 Albertus Street, Cape Town T: 021 465 4829 St Anne’s provides shelter and care for abused mothers and children. 48 Balfour Street, Woodstock T: 021 448 8518
What do you feel most strongly about?
“I want women to enjoy gender equality.”
*source: UNESCO Education Counts report 2011
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MOLO MARCH 2015
Cape Town in
2050 What does the future hold?
We asked YOU what you thought Cape Town would be like in the year 2050 – from the physical space of the city, to the ways our society may have changed. Here’s what you had to say.
The writer and academic
An efficient and cheap public transport system will have broken down the spatial, psychological, and imaginative barriers of 2015. Capetonians will enjoy free and secure movement across the entire Table Bay area, pursuing and sharing their varied interests.
Professor Njabulo S Ndebele, writer, academic, and prior vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town In 2050, Cape Town will be a 24-hour city. By then, a multi-cultural, multi-national population, with a strong base of South Africans, will be living in the city centre. An efficient and cheap public transport
The environmental and human rights lawyer Loretta Feris, professor of law at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Law at UCT
I envisage a city in which poverty is no longer the harbinger of environmental destruction, and in which environmental harm is not most acutely felt by
the poor and displaced. I envisage a city in which competing claims between environmental protection, and equality and dignity are no longer entertained. I envision a city in which
everyone has access to clean and safe water and sustainable sanitation. I envision a city that realises our constitutionally protected environmental rights.
system will have broken down the spatial, psychological, and imaginative barriers of 2015. Capetonians will enjoy free and secure movement across the entire Table Bay area, pursuing and sharing their varied interests. They will have
worked hard to achieve this lifestyle. Maintaining it and building on it will have become one of the self-perpetuating features of a lifestyle built over the past 40 years by Capetonians comfortable with themselves in 2050.
The creative director
Regularly flooded by rising seas and extreme weather, coastal Cape Town will still be the Cape of Storms – but also a beacon of hope. Cape Town rises above the tides and storms, motivated citizen-led initiatives build connected communities, avenues of expression and income are channelled throughout the metropole, multiple vibrant hubs of creative and income-generating activity develop across the Cape Flats, attracting people to leafy new human-centric centres. Townships are on stilts. Homes are printed. Creativity is everywhere. Adversity plus deliberate community-strengthening projects help build a city that can weather the storms. And shine.
Brad Baard, Cape Town Carnival creative director
FEATURE
9
‘The Rainbow Nation’ will only happen, however, if there is a common belief that we truly are beautiful in our diversity and that change is possible – not just for tourists but more importantly for our citizens.
An 1899 painting by James Ford showing Cape Town in 1999.
THE NEXT GENERATION
THE TOURISM EXPERT
Athraa du Toit,
Enver Duminy,
tween
CEO of Cape Town Tourism There is a lot of speculation on ‘Tomorrow’s Cities Today’. As urbanisation continues to expand globally, the spatial and economic resources in transforming cities like Cape Town are increasingly uneven. According to many studies the inequality is growing, and therein lies the complexity that defines our city today, and will also determine Cape Town in 2050. I believe that tourism is the key to unlocking and reducing the inequality gap. Tourism in Cape Town has
The anarchist Aragorn Eloff, anarchist and member of the bolo’bolo collective Dearest friends in 2015 A few things are different now. Capitalism, that myopic system that rewarded the very worst among us, has finally been erased from the face of the Earth. Through a whole host of revolutionary, evolutionary and insurrectionary unfoldings, we’ve also managed to get rid of the state. In fact we
have been slowly eradicating or letting go of almost every strange, archaic habit of turning differences between us into hierarchies. Instead of holding power over each other, we produce it together. The city is less crowded, too; without the exigencies of market relations and state centralisation forcing us into massive, unsustainable conurbations, we’ve chosen to spread out into myriad diverse communities. The extra space is doing wonders for our wellbeing, and the land around us is looking much healthier now that we’re not relying on cars, industrial monocropping or animal exploitation.
It must be hard to imagine, from the vantage point of your time of alienation, crisis and collapse, how we managed to arrive at such a utopian future. I’ll give you a clue: we imagined, fought for and created it together, all of us, as free equals. It seemed impossible at first, but it was less impossible than continuing down the path we had been on. Yours in wildness, with love and hope, The anarchists PS: There’s also a lot more ocean around, but being the new, albeit much hotter, Venice isn’t all that bad.
proven to be a key contributor in changing the fortunes of many citizens (I’m one of them) and also leaves a positive and lasting impression on visitors who continue to stay longer, experience more and spend more in Cape Town. Tourism will be a huge driver in the promotion of change within our city over the next 35
Two children in traditional Cape Minstrel costume.
years, if it can live as a collective aspiration, bringing people together. ‘The Rainbow Nation’ will only happen, however, if there is a common belief that we truly are beautiful in our diversity and that change is possible – not just for tourists, but more importantly, for our citizens.
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MOLO MARCH 2015
19˚
20˚
21˚
22˚
23˚
Table Island
THE TEACHER
A
Mountain Range 20˚
Stellenbaai B
JANICE CAMERON
Macassar Islands
Rashiq Fataar,
21˚
C
THE FUTURIST director of Future Cape Town
Rather Cosy Bay
Sea Valley
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Just Another Bay
Scarborough Bay
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Islands of Good Hope Hangklipeiland
M A P I L L U S T R AT I O N : C H R I S B E R E N S
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2 19˚
3 20˚
4 21˚
5 22˚
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A map by Chris Berens imagining what Cape Town might look like in the distant future if sea levels were to significantly rise.
The CITY COUNCILLOR Councillor Garreth Bloor, Mayoral Committee Member: Tourism, Events and Economic Development I envision the Cape Town city-region economy growing within the 7% to 10% economic growth range. I also envision Cape Town being recognised
globally as having a competitive and inclusive opportunity economy and being one of the best cities in which to live, work and stay. I believe Cape Town will be recognised as one of the top five trade and investment destinations with an efficient and friendly environment. As an energy efficient economy I envision Cape Town to be a network of interconnected and thriving business districts and public spaces that are both financial and cultural hubs as well as living laboratories for their residents.
I imagine that the Cape Town metropolis will extend far beyond its current borders... and hopefully, this will include affordable, accessible housing. Hopefully, there will be green space, community gardens and home-grown foods. Hopefully, the gap between Bishops Court and Bishop Lavis will have equalised, suburban fear a thing of the past. Hopefully, learning facilities will cater for all individuals, fostering curiosity, creativity and innovation. Hopefully, a living wage and a maximum salary will have been introduced. Hopefully, the government will be accountable for working towards the common good. Hopefully, Braai Day will be a lifestyle and not just a day off. Hopefully.
In 2050 the Cape Town city-region is no longer just a strategic port and harbour for goods and services, but a global centre in itself and a gateway for exciting ideas, which positively impact Africa and beyond. The port now routes people and ideas from from our continent to the world and brings visitors, investors and decision makers to the city and the South African Development Community. Long travel distances have been reduced, at least experientially, by highquality infrastructure using technology to virtually connect more people, more regularly with our city. Aggressive climate change and energy policies
have ‘future-fitted’ the city-region to adapt to a changing world and environment. The diversification of industry and a reduced reliance on external resources, among other strategies, has lent the city a deep resilience. This makes Cape Town less vulnerable to the local and global stresses and shocks to which no city remains immune. Citizens are well educated and informed, and thus able to participate directly in the continued development and improvement of the city-region, so promoting a vibrant and responsible public realm and civil society.
The port now routes people and ideas from our continent to the world
The sustainable business and social innovation expert Ralph Hamman, professor at the UCT Graduate School of Business, and Research Chair with the UCT African Climate and Development Initiative
Cape Town in 2050 will be bigger, fuller, hotter and stormier. Urbanisation will continue, and climate change will lead to higher temperatures and more intense storms. We won’t have apple orchards in the Cape any more. Technology will change how we eat, work and play: we’ll eat artificial protein, and our fresh produce will be grown in entirely artificial environments. The well-off will pay a premium for food that grows under the stars.
Our virtual lives will intersect more with our ‘real’ selves. Some of us will work in virtual offices, while others will make a living playing games in madeup worlds. Energy production and manufacturing will be decentralised. Creative entrepreneurs will be able to source material, manage production and market to a global audience using the computer in their spectacles or necklace. The Cape Town clothing factories will be a faint, quaint memory. Fission might provide access to abundant energy. But such a post-scarcity world is not likely. Some will have the means to benefit from new technologies and others won’t, so inequality will be exacerbated. Our best chance will be to get our education system working better – and differently, inspired by Einstein’s adage that imagination is more important than knowledge.
THE NEXT GENERATION Tasneem du Toit, teenager
The urban scholar Professor Edgar Pieterse, writer, academic and director of the African Centre for Cities at UCT
In 2050 Cape Town will be known as the mongrel city of the future. It will be the Mecca of animated dialogue, learning and experimentation for urbanists everywhere trying to figure out the equation to simultaneously achieve social justice, environmental care, productive lives, and an endless
capacity for wonder and fun. After large-scale invasions in 2025 of the slopes of Devil’s Peak, Table Mountain, Lion’s Head and the Twelve Apostles by the homeless and landless, the city was poised for an allout class war. However, with everyone’s blood on the boil, guns cocked, and trapped in a frozen economy, ancient wisdoms prevailed… The revolutionary implications of
the invasion for consolidating a genuinely integrated, lowcarbon and passionate society of fierce contestation and solidarity proved irresistible for both the elites and the ‘invaders’; the latter soon become known as the pioneers of the future. Radical urban transformation became Cape Town’s competitive and comparative advantage in a world bereft of vision and care.
FEATURE
THE MEDICAL HISTORIAN Rebecca Hodes, director, AIDS and Society Research Unit, UCT In the future, we won’t focus so narrowly on killing germs, but instead more expansively on supporting healthy populations. Hand sanitiser in toilets and handbags will be replaced by clever, delicious
concoctions that strengthen bodies and biomes. Healthcare workers will visit people at home, work and school. No women will die in childbirth, and no children will die of preventable diseases. Surfing will be a school subject, taught by gogos. Contraception will have no side-effects, and be available and accessible to men and women. Mental illness will be understood as a common and treatable medical condition, and HIV will be eradicated through universal provision and adherence to antiretroviral treatment.
An image of Cape Town in the future created for the television show Interster in the 80s.
The Open Streets advocate Lisa Kane, researcher, writer, sustainable transport expert, and one of the founders of Open Streets Cape Town A typical day in 2050 here in Cape Town starts early, with the mosques calling to prayer. But the background hum of traffic that gran used to speak of can’t be heard. Whatever cars are on the road became quiet electrics or hybrids a long time ago. The cars rushing through to town as the mosques call out are avoiding the ‘congestion charge’, which starts at 6.30am and lasts all day. ‘Congestion charging’ wasn’t the political problem that everyone expected in the 2020s, after that e-tolling controversy. After all, by 2025 every car had an automatic payment system for the licences, and so charging
The 2015 Open Streets event held in Bree Street in Cape Town.
a bit for using the road when it was busy was no big deal. Anyway, the gridlock got so bad that something had to change, and the only thing that they knew would work (because other cities had shown that it could) was the ‘congestion charge’. I can’t believe my grandparents devoted so much of their money to owning a car! Imagine! What a burden to have to look after it and pay for space to park it – not to mention the fuel they had to put in. Fuel is so expensive these days, thanks to the carbon charges. I would
Greg Andrews,
Max Kaizen,
Lunga Mateta, managing director of Creative Nestlings I would hope in the near future the different people in this city would be more individualistic rather than merge into one melted candle. Not individualistic in a selfish manner ratherto be unapologetically who they truly are.For people tounderstand and accept that we are all different.Forallof us towear our differences proudly in front of each other – andteach each other about each other. Hopefully by 2050 there will be spaces, books, festivals, films, songs and events that set out to celebrate each others individualism and differences. With no-one feeling left out.
Forallof us to wear our differences proudly.
convenor of the Street People’s Forum and operations manager of the Service Dining Rooms
educator, researcher, executive creative director at the Ogilvy Digital Marketing Academy, and coprogramme director of Business Acumen for Artists at UCT’s Graduate School of Business With the faltering of many nation states in 2032, Cape Town became one of the planet’s most desirable city states. Independently sustainable, open-source, still strong on beauty, but now also enticing some of the planet’s best brains and nostalgic retirees from old developed nations (who are refusing the supervision of robots, or the gruelling immortality therapies). With the first big hack, and the collapse of various national and
THE IMMIGRANT Bongani Kona, Zimbabwean-Capetonian writer
global financial systems, Cape Town boldly experimented with game design, cryptocurrencies and augmented reality as an alternative operating system (early in the 2020s) to power trade, safety and health. Citizens became addicted to the game-play and formed online guilds, as education quickly moved from formal schools to develop immediately useful each1teach1 expertise. Ageing, degrees, loans and transport all became relic barriers to value creation – the
This is a difficult question to answer, and not only for the obvious reasons about the pace of technological advancement and how that is reshaping the way we live, but because predicting what Cape Town will look like in 2050 also means predicting what the world will look like in 2050. To me that’s a really daunting prospect. We live in unjust times, where so many have so little. To maintain this status quo will require ever more repression of the weak by the strong. The urgent question for me then is how can we share the future?
rather just walk or cycle when I can. Now that the cars have collision control and I have my under-skin GPS, it’s really safe to cycle, and my battery pack gets me up the hills. I also get money taken off my hospital premiums every time I walk or cycle. For the longer trips about town I use one of the public transport systems; or if it’s to somewhere unusual, then I just use a vehicle optimiser on my smart phone, which means I get to share a car with people (vetted automatically by Facebook) to go where I need to go. Easy.
THE SOCIAL ACTIVIST
The arts and business educator
THE creative start up co-founder
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Cape Town became one of the planet’s most desirable city states. robots at the ready, to help you adapt your character – and unexpectedly, the once-deviant sales and distribution strategies of gang culture helped build a powerfully creative entrepreneurial corps.
Predicting what Cape Town will look like in 2050 also means predicting what the world will look like in 2050.
I’d like to see a city that takes ‘encounter’ seriously. We’re an amazingly diverse city, but sadly so divided. I look forward to a city whose policies don’t entrench past hatred but incentivise business and private interests to cross difficult frontiers of culture, race and economics; policies that take seriously human creativity instead of ‘problem solving’ the ‘other’ person’s failure. Our knowledge of human distress has grown markedly in the past 100 years, but we are only now beginning to understand the complicated web of causes that exist in social systems like cities. Cape Town can become a place where people can genuinely hear one another, come to understanding one another and, in so doing, grant each other the dignity of our mutual regard. This more than anything else would be a wonderful dream come true.
Tell us what you think Cape Town will be like in the future. email: molo@capetownpartnership.co.za
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MOLO MARCH 2015
YOU SAY
STREET TALK
PICTURE THIS
We took to the streets of Cape Town to find out what you think our city will be like in the year 2050. Images by Lisa Burnell
Emily Bristow:
I hope that by 2050, Cape Town will be exactly like Mzoli’s: one big, multicultural party.
Lalannie Knoll & Shameema Hoosain “In 2050, Cape Town will have a first-world economy and infrastructure, with European flair and an unmistakably unique African ambience, and socio-economic divides significantly less prevalent, or (optimistically) non-existent.”
Sam Bainbridge “We will be a pedestrianfriendly city, with smart electric bike-parks, and a fully integrated solar-powered transport system that includes water, rail and air transport. No more peakhour congestion! The city itself will be a thriving 24/7 metropolis and all buildings adorned with solar panels, small-scale wind turbines and other sources of electricity generation, allowing them to operate independently from the grid.”
Ambrose Uren “By 2050 there will be skyscrapers everywhere, with 100-floor apartment buildings because there’ll be so many people. There won’t be any petrol left, so we’ll be using sunflower oil, which won’t last long. Eskom will be kicked out by next year and they’ll be looking towards the ocean for ‘hydro-energy’ (is that a thing?). People will have apartments in the ocean, with malls on the ocean floor. Surfboards will be the cars of the day.”
Reagan Meyer:
By 2050, roads will be replaced with travelators, which will remove the need for cars and public transport; and gatsbies will be delivered by drones!
Amie Henriksson: “In 2050 I think Cape Town will be the film capital of the world. There’ll be big studios and a lot of new hotels to accommodate all the crews and movie stars who come here. There’ll be no more traffic in the city centre, and more walkways and parks for people. To get around there’ll be cable cars that transport people everywhere in town. And rush-hour traffic will no longer exist.”
Carlo Massa: “I think that by 2050 Cape Town will be extremely built up, all the way up Table Mountain. Cars are going to be driving themselves, and the streets are going to be extremely dangerous.”