Many people my age, who grew up in villages or townships remember playing on the street when we were growing up. The street was the primary communal playground and meeting place.
It was safe, a normal space to congregate with friends. It was watched over by eyes from every house that had its front door on the street. This allowed for the collective management of kids – the mum down the road, if you were outside her house, she became in charge. As a teenager you knew any naughty behaviour would be reported to your parents before you even got home. It really did work, but unfortunately it’s not like that these days.
Instead of being community-regulated shared spaces that allow for multiple different uses – from soccer and hopscotch games to impromptu neighbourhood gatherings and lazy sunset strolls, even car washing or fundraising efforts like concerts or fetes, not to mention protests and marches – our streets have become thoroughfares, mostly ruled by the car, a means to get from A to B.
There’s still something that I just love about streets though. Streets are the most basic form of public space, open to absolutely everyone, and a place where everyone comes into contact with the full range of social diversity and difference in our neighbourhoods and cities. Because of that, I strongly feel that we need to restore that childhood memory of our streets in some way.
Of course we can’t go back to exactly what it was, as times have moved on, but cities all over the world are now embracing the notion of multipurpose, liveable streets. Multipurpose streets accommodate cars, buses and cyclists, at various speeds and volumes according to its design, but prioritise all pedestrians from young kids to the elderly and disabled, from headphone-wearing individuals to boisterous families, from joggers and performance artists to photographers and beggars.
In Cape Town’s current context, such an inclusive vision of streets is quite necessary to create social cohesion because it means anyone from any side of town is able to enjoy the streets, not only as conduits between places, but spaces to interact, walk, shop, travel, experience, dream, people watch, exercise, meet, smoke and, yes for some, even sleep. It brings a sense of humanity and soul back into our urban environment.
I think that our city’s soul is in itself justification enough. Nonetheless, increasingly urbanists around the world are also drawing a connection between a city’s urban soul and its economic prosperity through a concept called “place capital”.
Place capital is the intangible aspect of a city that encourages human interactions, fostering real physical social networks and connecting people with opportunities, monetary or otherwise.
Simply: the unquantifiable value added by human connection.
That there is a hunger for an enabling public space for human connection was proven to me by the Open Streets events. Without any commercial endorsement, cultural association or celebrity draw card, thousands of people came to Observatory simply for the occasion of a public street being closed to cars and opened to whatever anyone felt like doing – walking, cycling, juggling, yoga, soccer… playing.
Compare that openness to, for instance, Adderley Street, where there is such a conflict of uses and it is so congested between the taxis, cars, pedestrians, traders and shop openings. Historically, the street was designed as a grand vista that looks up the mountain, allowing you to see this beautiful alignment between the CBD and our very own Wonder of the Natural World. Now, there is so much clutter squashed into such a small space that there’s no possibility of being able to pause, acknowledge your fellow citizens or take a moment of enjoyment.
Open Streets is an invitation to ask “What if our cities were not designed around private automobiles?”
And it was just this event that I was thinking about recently, while on a walking tour along St George’s Mall that I had arranged for myself and the other judges of the Western Cape Public Art Competition. Walking the streets of the Mother City, as I’ve written here before, is one of my greatest sources of inspiration.
Every time I see it through a different lens: public art, trees, culture, diversity, heritage, a constantly evolving urban ecosystem and many others.
What struck me this time was why, since we can’t close off streets all the time as the Open Streets event did, St George’s Mall does not have the same open invitation to play.
It is not a lack of infrastructure – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked and walked St George’s Mall, and every time I walk it, I discover something new. Besides the public artworks and memorials, there’s also a rich retail sector of big brand names as well as independent stalls with owners from all across Africa.
Infrequent attractions abound too, such as the wonderful Earth Fair Market on Thursdays.
I realised that, while our walk was about consciously being present in the space, most people were in transit, that St George’s Mall itself was not their destination. Whereas if you take time and just look at everything – and everyone – in St George’s Mall, there is so much to discover. Most importantly is to acknowledge each and every other user of the space, because there is an incredible community power through those connections and it also increases our sense of security.
St George’s Mall has such potential! So how do we slow it down to a pace where everyone finds their own space and value, and that becomes the ultimate cultural concentration of the spirit, humanity and soul of Cape Town? The place that people say: if you want to know what Cape Town is really about, beyond the postcards, go there for an authentic experience. The place that us Capetonians ourselves visit to top up on what inspires us most about our hometown.
Actually, it was not that long ago that I had that very feeling about the Fan Walk during the World Cup.
I remember that fantastic sense of civic pride as we walked in a group with no clutter, but a sense of purpose and enjoyment. Although the destination was the Green Point Stadium, the draw card was the opportunity to connect with each other and a lot of people simply walked the Fan Walk to enjoy the gees.
Yet, the Fan Walk is a street. A street that still has cars – its multiple uses include cycling lanes as well as sections where cars can be driven – but priority is given to pedestrians. Whereas in Adderley the car is king, which causes a sense of displacement, on the Fan Walk the pedestrian is king.
The key to the Fan Walk’s success, if I think back on the Cape Town Partnership’s work on it, is that it wasn’t created through a stifling top-down legislative approach, but an approach that encourages and enables multiple stakeholders to self-activate through an open management platform, bringing it together and keeping it alive.
Yes, formal infrastructure came from the city, but other institutions contributed public art and furniture, and each and every business along the Fan Walk forms part of the diverse collective tapestry that offers something for everything. Still at lunchtime you can see workers sharing a cigarette and couples taking a moment.
That is not to say that there aren’t the very difficult issues of safety and inclusiveness that must be addressed in relation to public spaces. As said before, every single citizen has the right of access to public spaces and streets, from women and children through to the rough sleepers.
I would like to address the issue of homelessness in greater detail in a forthcoming column, however as a starting point I believe that easily accessible public bathrooms that allow people to have a shower or use the toilet in a dignified way can have a massive impact. There’s nothing more important than getting your dignity back from public spaces, such as streets where people can be seen not as pariahs but as part of society.
Before even that though, we can all be part of building the inclusivity and safety of our public spaces by looking at and acknowledging each other.
I urge you to slow down as you walk through our incredibly rich and vibrant city centre, walk with a sense of presence, engage with all that you see around you in the streets of Cape Town, and tell us about it @ctpartnership #citywalk on Twitter.
l Makalima-Ngewana is the chief executive of the Cape Town Partnership.