![Cape Town-131229-The title of World Design Capita 2014 was bestowed on Cape Town by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design [ICSID], which awards this status biennially to cities that demonstrate the value of design as a tool for social, cultural & economic development. Photo: Ross Jansenl](https://image-prod.iol.co.za/16x9/1600/Cape-Town-131229-The-title-of-World-Design-Capita-2014-was-bestowed-on-Cape-Town-by-the-International-Council-of-Societies-of-Industrial-Design-ICSID-which-awards-this-status-biennially-to-cities-that-demonstrate-the-value-of-design-as-a-tool-for-social-cultural-andamp-economic-development-Photo-Ross-Jansenl?source=https://xlibris.public.prod.oc.inl.infomaker.io:8443/opencontent/objects/4a5af63a-03a8-5042-9cc2-ba6e08118cc3)
Grant Pascoe
Cape Town’s tourism sector enjoys an economic footprint of R14 billion (independently verified by an external study) with more than 39 000 people in full- and part-time employment. We have an events-economy that generates more than R3bn and creates more than 3 000 full- and part-time jobs. Along with our film and other niche and growth sectors, these contribute to the amazing diversity that Cape Town offers as an investment, leisure, business and travel destination.
This has not happened by mistake. It has been a strategic focus of the city’s administration to build on the city’s natural assets, by positioning Cape Town as far more than a picture postcard destination. To do this, we have actively sought out key events, activations, ideas and partners.
We have had a number of successes.
Let’s start with recent well-known accolades. Two publications rank Cape Town as a top destination: the New York Times’s “top place to visit out of 52 places in the world” places Cape Town first, and over the pond in the UK, The Guardian places Cape Town as the top holiday hot spot.
As we look through the years we see a pattern: over the past five years or so, there has been a strong recognition of Cape Town as a premium leisure destination, most particularly in our known markets, of the US, UK, EU and Scandinavia.
The CTICC is listed among the top five convention centre destinations on the continent by the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA). Globally, it comes in at 37 – and our belief that we could crack a “top 20” position is part of the motivation for the CTICC’s extension.
The city is also a Top Five destination for foreign direct investment on the continent according to the FDI African Cities of the Future 2013/14 report.
The impact of Table Mountain being named as one of the 7 New Wonders of Nature is positive and long-lasting. To quote Sabine Lehmann, chief executive of Table Mountain Aerial Cableway Company: “In the past financial year a total of 855 595 visitors used our facilities – surpassing the previous record set in 2007. This is attributable to good weather when we need it, the top-of-mind value that the New 7 Wonders of Nature has brought to Table Mountain as a destination, and the fact that our domestic market is growing every year.”
Each of the 7 New Wonders of Nature destinations showed double-digit growth in visitor numbers. We believe we will be reaping the reward of this investment long after it has repaid itself.
Now let’s look at Cape Town’s title of World Design Capital (WDC) 2014, about which much has been written in this, and other publications.
Design Indaba has been instrumental in catapulting Cape Town on to the design stage. But it isn’t, and shouldn’t be, the city’s only claim to design fame. The design sector is experiencing significant growth, along with much of the creative economy. The city has been seeking a larger footprint in order to showcase what it is Cape Town seeks to achieve through design. WDC is that opportunity.
Pursuing the WDC 2014 title was about opening up channels, opportunities and engagements for those who are involved with transforming our city from one that, like all other South African cities, carries the legacy of apartheid, to one that sees a socio-economic shift through design ideas that will fundamentally change the way people live in our city.
Being the World Design Capital means that design solutions take centre stage as we commit to looking at the projects we undertake through a design prism that will focus on innovative solutions to our most pressing challenges.
Our work as WDC 2014 is twofold.
Primarily it is about putting the spotlight on community, public and ward-based projects that that will feed into this administration’s broader redress and urban redesign projects as we set about addressing the imbalances of apartheid.
In this regard, WDC 2014 is having an amplifier effect for city programmes such as the already award-winning Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrades (VPUU) programme, which looks at making communities safer through urban upgrades such as lighting, wider walkways and other design solutions. This is a multi-partner, multi-year investment in urban settlement design geared towards using design to transform communities.
Another example is MyCiTi which has been rolled out in many parts of the city already and is aimed at giving people who were forcibly moved to the edges of the city, the means to access the economic and other opportunities at the centre.
The city’s commitment to public transport over the next five years will result in more than R5bn being spent through capital (roads, bus stops, bus shelters, transport interchanges, buses) and operating channels to put in place a world-class transit infrastructure which will fundamentally shift the way the overwhelming majority of the people experience the city.
The contribution WDC makes is to elevate the conscious use of design in terms of finding solutions to bring people closer to opportunity.
Our backyarders programme, a first for any municipality, is giving vulnerable members of our city access to basic services so they can live in dignity.
The reblocking initiative looks at cleverly moving around informal structures so that life-saving emergency vehicles no longer have to stand helplessly on the perimeter, unable to do their work. They now have a quick route into the settlement.
Given the regular flooding in low-lying areas in which informal settlements tend to spring up, and given the runaway fires in dense informal settlements, the relief that this brings to thousands of people is incalculable. This is transformative design, saving lives.
I could go on. But there is another purpose of WDC 2014, which is to elevate the role of design across the city. Cape Town is proud to be widely considered the design centre of South Africa. WDC 2014 gives its residents the incentive and the encouragement to design a city that is more sustainable, more aesthetically pleasing and more innovative. For this purpose, our implementing agency, Cape Town Design, invited people from all over the city to submit their best ideas. As part of our commitment to building an inclusive city, these projects will ensure that WDC 2014 is not a year-long project but one whose effects will be felt for generations to come.
It is the city’s goal to involve as many Capetonians as possible in WDC 2014, and the mayor made a promise that every ward would be touched by design in 2014.
At the ward co-creation workshops that have been one of the most exciting aspects of WDC 2014, hundreds of people who would never have thought of themselves as involved in design, are taking a role in helping us redesign our city around their needs. It is the notion that design is for the designers that we seek to actively displace.
We will continue working with all our residents to ensure that this title is one that not just puts us on the global design map but which helps us to make this great city even greater.
l Councillor Pascoe is mayoral committee member for tourism, events and marketing in the City of Cape Town.