JUDITH FEBRUARY | Sustainable cities the agents for social change

South Africa is nearing the end of its somewhat fraught G20 Presidency. In a world of Trumpian proportions, holding the position was always going to be tricky. On its website, South Africa outlines the goals of Solidarity, Equality and Sustainability.

At the heart of sustainability is, of course, dealing with the vexed issue of climate change. Increasingly, cities are at the heart of the sustainability mission.

For those of us who live in South African cities, we know that much work still needs to be done to make these cities sustainable in far broader and dynamic ways. Much of that has to do with inclusivity and access and dealing more decisively with South Africa’s stubborn spatial apartheid.

It is useful now, perhaps, to ask, what are cities and how do we increase their ability to be agents of social change? They are places in which to live, love, work, thrive and survive. Great cities are able to accommodate diverse forms of expression by those who live in them through art, music, sport, food, literature and graffiti, to name a few. They have a comfortable relationship with those who dissent and with a past that might be haunting.

Cities are places of community and individualism, solitude and togetherness. Community within cities often happens in those public spaces; squares, beachfronts, promenades and parks. Public transport links and joins the dots of community. In London, the city’s parks are its greatest asset, New York has the iconic green lung of Central Park and there is no greater pleasure for an Italian than meeting on a public square – places where life is lived more publicly.

South African cities, for an array of reasons to do with the past and present, have failed to grasp quite how fundamental cities and their development are in creating those spaces for interaction between ordinary people in a society with such high levels of inequality.

Sharing public space is the great leveller, after all.

Some of the debates around the appropriate use of public space arose as far back as 2008 with the “Seafront for all” campaign against development on the Sea Point promenade in Cape Town.

The Sea Point promenade is probably one of the most diverse public spaces in Cape Town, where people of all hues and backgrounds are simply free to be, walk, cycle, play football and interact. It is the place where people of the Cape flock on warm summer days to be chilled by the Atlantic Ocean and where its Muslim community gathers for sightings of the moon ahead of Eid celebrations.

It remains hard to believe that had the politicians and planners had their way, a large part of the Sea Point promenade would by now have morphed into yet another parking garage and shopping area. Instead, children still play, the runners run and the football teams continue to dribble. Some rather odd public art has found its way onto the promenade, but we better be divided by debate on those Ray-Ban sunglasses and seeing across to Robben Island than by yet another concrete eyesore creating the further atomisation of the city.

Given the tooth-and-nail fight to retain the Sea Point promenade as a true “seafront for all” Capetonians, it is not surprising that development in Sea Point remains hotly contested - development of boutique hotels, cafes and fancy restaurants. But mixed-use housing has also been a bone of contention and the ongoing battle about the site of the Tafelberg school and its redevelopment provides plenty of insight into the way debates regarding post-apartheid redress and access to opportunity.

We also consistently need to be asking ourselveswhat kind of city are we building, in which a concrete jungle is preferred over green lungs and open spaces for interaction and simply to ‘be’?

A drive along the Garden Route in the Western Cape shows how golf course-style development is threatening the environment and our beautiful coastline. When wildfires broke out in Cape Town, one had to wonder what city planners were thinking when approving housing developments in fire-prone areas of the mountain.

Our "mall culture" has created a particular lifestyle that has the effect of exclusion and closing off parts of the city to the "other".

In cities like Johannesburg, sustainability seems a pipedream when most of the infrastructure lies in ruin and corruption has turned the "powerhouse of Africa" into a place better known for grime and a change of mayor - each candidate more self-serving than the previous one. Governance and leadership matter are intrinsic to the sustainability debate, after all.

But, poet, Karen Press, perhaps puts it more eloquentlyin Under Construction, one of a series of poems on the urban landscape, and the kinds of questions we should ask about citizens, community, anonymity and creativity in cities.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION
test: would Vladimir and Estragon be willing to wait here?
test: would a ball kicked along the road roll backwards?
test: would a bunch of flowers stay alive all the way home?
test: would Charles Baudelaire walk these pavements?
test: how long would a goldfish survive?
test: would Frida Kahlo find enough colours?
test: would the carrots grow straight?
test: would Nawal el Saadawi be able to relax?
test: would a cellist be heard?
test: would Elvis be happy here? Would Fela?

We could ask the same of all our South African cities and find that the answers provide some difficult challenges. The development and governance choices of today will affect the sustainability of our cities for decades to come.

Future generations may not thank us for failing to overcome the challengesof shaping new cities where everyone feels welcome to work, play, create or be anonymous.