urban development ...a case studey of cape town

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Reanimating a Comatose Goddess : ReconfiguringCentral Cape Town

Gordon Pirie

Published online: 29 September 2007# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007

Abstract Central Cape Town is no longer a tawdry, unsafe provincial enclave of day-time office workers, commuter shoppers and public administrators. After thedecline since the 1980s due to suburban flight, a private public partnership hasimproved the downtown s state and image. Capitalising on spectacular heritage andlocation, property developers have been transforming work, residential and leisurespaces. Massive private investment in new and converted buildings, and in publicspace, is reconfiguring the old central business district (CBD) into a post-modernspace of high-end production, service and consumption that is aestheticised,

commoditised and historicised. Investors, young professionals, day visitors andtourists benefit more than the peripheral metropolitan majority. Despite inclusiverhetoric, the Africanisation of post-apartheid central Cape Town is less evident thanits glocalisation .

Keywords South Africa . Urban regeneration . Glocalisation .Public private partnerships

The heart of South Africa s Mother City , Cape Town s CBD may become oneof the world s leading urban regeneration success stories ( Business Day , 4February 2005 ).

Introduction

Directed urban revitalisation is a feature of the new century in South Africa s principal cities. In central Johannesburg, the heart of the nation s core metropolitanarea, commercial and cultural projects and private survival initiatives have beenchanging the function, face and feel of the old downtown (Rogerson 1996 ; Dirsuweit

Urban Forum (2007) 18:125 151DOI 10.1007/s12132-007-9012-7
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1999 ; Rogerson 2001 ; Gaule 2005 ; van der Merwe and Patel 2005 ). The city s 30-year plan to revitalise the inner city is partly a bid to re-order and re-controlresource, and partly an effort to rebuild after the suburban flight of old financialand social capital during the last 30 years (Tomlinson 1999 ; Bremner 2000 ; Gaule

2005 ). The emergence of Sandton City as Johannesburg s satellite, and then itsequivalent and dominator, is echoed in some measure in the Durban metropolitanarea. There, Umhlanga has become a powerful rival to the old central businessdistrict (CBD) where urban revitalisation is also active (Grant and Scott 1996 ; Khosaand Naidoo 1998 ; Maharaj and Ramballi 1998 ). In Pretoria (see Donaldson et al.2003 ) the Kgabisa Tshwane Project is intended to transform the old city centre over the next 14 years.

Cape Town, South Africa s oldest city, and its third largest, has not lagged behindin inner-city redesign and reinvestment. On the contrary, central city change in Cape

Town may be more evident and advanced than in Johannesburg and Durban. Oneview is that although local authority commitment to rejuvenation is superior inJohannesburg, urban renaissance is a decade ahead in 14-times smaller central CapeTown ( Financial Mail , 23 August 2005 ). Arguably, developments at the heart of thenation s Mother City are also the most poignant. Certainly, this is the view of Andrew Boraine, the chief executive of Cape Town Partnership (CTP), the city s private public redevelopment agency. In undated (c. 2004/5) remarks on hisorganisation s website, he insisted that no other city in South Africa so personifies both the country s troubled past and its newfound confidence (Cape Town

Partnership, undated).A settlement of 350 years duration can be no stranger to change. For hundreds of years, Cape Town has been regenerating itself, passing through phases of Dutch andBritish colonial control and postcolonial reclamation. The urban fabric has beenshaped by state and private initiatives; civic planning interventions have co-existedwith organic change. In the 20th century, directed change included populationremovals (motivated by public health concerns and racism), construction of dormitory black (African and Coloured) townships on the Cape Flats, andsuburbanisation of workplaces and residences north and south of the CBD alongtram tracks, railway lines and motorways (Cook 1991 ; Bickford-Smith and vanHeyningen 1999 ; Wilkinson 2000 ).

In the process, the historic centre of Cape Town became increasingly off-centregeographically, and was reduced to a parcel of land occupying less than 1% of themetropolitan area and housing a negligible proportion of the metropolitan population. Changes to the central city skyline and developments along its shorelineindicate that the place has not been sclerotic, however. Instead of being reduced to anurban wilderness, the inner city responded to pressures in the commercial andresidential land markets. It survived ill-advised assaults on its economy and socialecology, was alert to competitive forces, and capitalised on new opportunities(Jenkins and Wilkinson 2002 ; Liebenberg 2002 ; Dewar 2004 ). Now, in the 21st century, central Cape Town has acquired qualities that make it a compelling

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out R350 million Estuaries office park ( Business Day , 10 November 2005 ). In thesouthern suburbs, the Claremont Improvement District Company (established in2000) is shepherding private public capital investment of approximately R1.8 billion into office, retail, residential and infrastructural development ( Property

Magazine , February 2007 ). And, although the Cape Town metropolitan area remainshighly unequal (Abbott 2000 ; Turok 2001 ), the polarisation of shopping opportunityas between the old CBD and the southeastern Cape Flats townships is less than it was five years ago. The Vangate Mall on the old Athlone golf course (150 stores)and the Khayelitsha Retail Centre (17,000 m

2, 51 shops) both opened in 2005.

Since 1999, there has been approximately R14 billion of private investment inCape Town central city. Identical to the state funding in Pretoria s Kgabisa TshwaneProject, this amount is the capital value of current leases, new developments,investment purchases, upgrades and renewals (Cape Town Partnership, undated).

The value of non-residential building plans passed in central Cape Town betweenJanuary and August 2004 was 103% higher than in 2003. The value of residential building plans passed in the same period was almost 50% higher than in 2003. Thisscale of development should help slow if not reverse the R80 million (50%) per annum loss in municipal revenue since 2000 (primarily from commercial suburbanflight; Cape Town Partnership, undated).

Agency

The buoyant South African economy, post-apartheid inward investment, domesticinter-city competitive pressures, and profit-seeking investment opportunities have allcontributed to the renaissance of central Cape Town. Government strategies (notablythe young ANC government s 1995 national urban development initiative) alsospurred and channeled change. Private sector initiatives in Cape Town had not faredwell. Starting in 1987, three efforts made by local retail interests to revitalise theCBD and combat decentralisation flopped; one such effort was the 1990 Inner CityTask Group (Levitan 1995 ). When, finally, apathy and inadequate funding wereovercome, it was due in some measure to public rhetoric about the alleged ineptitudeof the ANC city government in its maiden term of office after the municipalelections in 1996. In a city of delicately balanced political loyalty, press headlinesand reports screamed about the collapse of policing and cleansing in the CBD, thedifficulty of using pavements occupied by hawkers and vagrants, and problemsdriving and parking in streets jammed by lawless traffic (Nahnsen 2003 ; Dewar 2004 ). The litany has a global ring.

Violation of persons and property were among the encounters and experiencesreported. Visceral reactions to these episodes are said to have compounded white people s discomfort over loss of political control and cultural hegemony, and their dismay over blurred lines between private and public spheres that are so stronglyinscribed in western European urbanism. Evidently, re-appropriation and re-

Reanimating a comatose goddess: Reconfiguring central Cape Town 127
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unsightly, threatening, polluting and contaminating. Sanctuary from public sleeping,cooking, feeding, washing, urination and defecation would be sought in moretightly managed suburban shopping malls and office parks (Nahnsen 2003 ).

Riding a wave of (white) public anxiety about crime and grime (blamed on

homelessness, vagrancy, informal trading, opportunist parking attendants, and trafficcongestion), a private public partnership was formed to take appropriate action. Theglobalisation of diagnosis and response is striking. Validated by government encouragement of sharper civic management, the partnership arguably rested alsoon a discursive link between informal activities and crime that paid too littleattention to the difference between petty and serious crime (Nahnsen 2003 ).

The Cape Town Partnership, a non-profit urban renewal and management agency,was established in mid-1999. Its specific purpose was to secure the city s future byarticulating better the interests of the City Council, the Cape Metro Council, the

South African Property Owners Association, private businesses and their represen-tative organisations (the CTP s 34 corporate members include two oil companies, sixmajor retail chains, nine property companies, six financial service companies andthree hotels). Unlike in central Durban and Johannesburg (Maharaj and Ramballi1998 ; Tomlinson 1999 ), elite interests were not challenged by civic, labour andcommunity organisations, and consultation has been less extensive.

In keeping with practice in Business Improvement Districts in many other cities(Lloyd et al. 2003 ; Hoyt 2004 ), the CTP is a kind of shadow local government. Neighbourhood and ratepayer-based, it is funded by a levy on central city property

rates. The levy generated R17 million in 2004/05. Ploughed into projects for thelocal common good, the funds are supplemented by property rate receipts that theCTP persuaded the City Council to ring fence for local application. The prescriptioncame at a key moment when a newly established single metropolitan civic authority(mandated to implement anti-poverty measures) might have wished to redistribute a proportion of central city revenues into civic projects in the black townships.Coupled with substantial re-rating of newly capitalised central city properties, long-overdue property tax reform in Cape Town (van Ryneveld and Parker 2002 ) willgenerate considerably more funds for future CTP expenditure.

High among the CTP s priorities were economic growth and job creation, building strong trading communities, delivering equitable and effective services, andfostering a creative city. After proudly announced studies of central city revital-isation in the USA and UK (references to Johannesburg and Durban are not mentioned in CTP publicity), the CTP set out rapidly to enhance the security of businesses, workers and visitors, and to provide a clean environment free of litter and graffiti. The modus operandi involved identifying and monitoring 30 guaranteedservices, stipulating baseline levels of delivery and performance, and offeringremedies for breaches (Dewar 2004 ).

The CTP began its practical interventions in November 2000 in the Central CityImprovement District (CCID), an area equivalent to the old CBD. Confirming theneed for defensive action, its inception coincided with the opening of a giant retail

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largest in Africa) opened for business at the end of 2000. Without hoping to matchthis glut, the CCID set about trying to upgrade its own domain.

In 2001, almost three-quarters of the CCID s R14.6 million budget was devotedto security (49%) and cleansing (22.5%). The security expenditure put 183 extra

security personnel on the streets. The cleansing budget doubled existing CityCouncil capacity, and was directed partly at removing illegal posters and graffiti, andcombating illegal dumping. Marketing (10.3%) and operating (13.4%) expensesaccounted for a negligible share of the budget (Nahnsen 2003 ). Early in 2002, asurvey of 500 business leaders, shop owners, office workers, commuters, touristsand informal traders in central Cape Town revealed considerably improved opinionsabout levels of crime, cleanliness and safety. Higher CBD office rentals andoccupancy rates reflected the improvement ( SA Property Review , July/August 2003 :41 42). Vigorous programme development increased the cleansing bill and

enhanced levels of security. Cleansing expenditure of R300,000 a month doubledsince 2003. By 2005, CCID security comprised two permanent security managers,160 private security officers (24 hours), six mobile patrol vehicles, 10 mounted patrol officers, 68 parking marshals. Security officers are linked to the city s 72-camera CCTV network and cooperate with public law enforcement agencies. Officevacancies declined from 60% in 2001 to 10% in 2005 ( Property Magazine , May 2005 ).

Whereas the CTP s success has fanned out in the creation of new operational precincts in and around the central city in the Gardens, Green Point, and Oranje-Kloof there are, of course, critics. As is the case overseas, private public partnerships that

have been installed as quasi-urban government are not always welcomed. In the CapeTown case, concern has been expressed over whether the CTP can serve the interestsof informal entrepreneurs and homeless people (Nahnsen 2003 ). Anecdotally, theseoverlooked persons rage about a return to civic regulation that is as onerous asapartheid policing. Anxiety has been expressed about the displacement of crimeinto neighbouring districts. The prominence of established commercial interests inthe CTP raises queries about the commodification of heritage and property, andalso about the narrowing of public policy debate and the ending of meaningful public participation in service delivery. Already there is worry about the sale of municipal assets and functions, and about the increasingly powerful role of private consultants and commercial interests in urban affairs (McDonald andSmith 2004 ). The interiorisation of previously public realms is not to be takenlightly in the South African context where political inclusion and accountability arestill only budding. At least one commentator reads the emergence of the CTP as theresult of a weak city government abrogating its civic responsibilities in the face of private pressure (Low 2003 ; see also Miraftab 2007 ).

Commercial Space

Retail

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in 2005 they reached R250/m2. Less than 20 shops out of an estimated 1,225

wholesale and retail outlets in central Cape Town were vacant in 2005. In additionto department stores and retail multiples, and the ubiquitous general and servicestores, the mix includes many speciality stores. Among them are 34 jewelers, 20

antique dealers, 23 African art dealers, and 56 motor cycle dealers. The boutique andspeciality stores serve Capetonians as well as the booming numbers of touristsfor whom a cleaner and safer central city has become a space to see, experience,eat in, and photograph. Estimates are that 90% of tourists spend some time inthe central city for heritage and cultural purposes, and for shopping. Compact and suited to strolling, the city offers a diversity of architecturally arrestingaccommodation, facilities, attractions and sights. In the CBD alone, there are anestimated 58 hotels and guest houses. The 252 restaurants, bars and cafsinclude many of the best in South Africa.

Two hundred central city shops are targeted for upgrading or conversion by 2006.In a striking move away from white hegemony, 300 central city shops are now black-owned. Far more Africans trade informally from small pavement stalls. InMay 2004, an estimated 2,200 traders worked in Greenmarket Square, on pavementsalong Adderley Street (the city s original spine of formal retailing), and on therailway station forecourt and roof deck (Cape Town Partnership, undated).

The new retail economy of central Cape Town is variegated, melding withcreative industry. This restructuring is mainly a west-side phenomenon. Shops alongupper (south) Long Street sell funky clothing, curios, world music, beads, books,

refreshments and adventure holidays amid a quirky mlange of backpacker hostels,hairdressers, internet cafes, locksmith, bookshops, ethnic and fusion-food outlets,and scooter rental agents. By night the street becomes a focus of club and bar life(Hogdahl 2004 ). Lower Bree Street has lost its dubious associations with gangs andsubstance abuse, and is shedding its primary identity as a strip of motor retailing. Itsvariety includes cafs, a leisure boating and yachting store, a cycling store, an art gallery and interior decorators. The Dutch owner of a designer-furniture store in aconverted three-storey C19th warehouse there predicts that once-unfashionable BreeStreet will become the design street of sub-Saharan Africa ( Property Magazine ,December 2005 ).

Design has also spread beyond the old CBD. Victoria Junction (Fig. 1) emergedin the 1990s as a mix of design-orientated and telecommunications businesses on thesite of the demolished Cunningham and Gearing Foundry. In a cluster of buildingsnamed Sovereign Quay and Victoria Wharf, the restored 1903 Foundry building presents itself as Cape Town s design dynamo . A controversial African jewelleryemporium and diamond cutting centre has been mooted for close to the CTICC(Cape Times , 6, December 16, 2005 ). An emergent design district on Upper BreeStreet extends into the northern end of trendy Kloof Street along the old CBD panhandle. There, a complex of buildings that began life as the warehouses, plant and offices of the United Tobacco Company (1903) were redeveloped from 1994(Quaghebeur 2000 ). The Longkloof Studios currently accommodate media and film

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As in other de-industrialised, post-modern central cities (Hutton 2004 ), theagglomeration of creative industries in central Cape Town is striking. Hundreds of enterprising young people are nudging edges of the core out of their old industrial

Fig. 1 Recently constructed commercial buildings in central Cape Town, and landmark office towers inthe old CBD

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There are approximately 200 advertising, communication and design firms incentral Cape Town. Media, publishing, film, architecture, performing arts, fashion,music, visual arts, literary arts and heritage enterprises are flourishing. Creativeindustry extends to pavement workshops and NGO factory outlets where artisans

beat, wind and thread township tourist trinkets feverishly in recycled sheet metal,wire and beads. In April 2002, Newsweek magazine rated Cape Town one of the topeight creative cities in the world; a local cultural commentator reckons that thecentral city has the highest concentration of creative industry in South Africa. Thecorollary is that as a repository, creator and distributor of considerable inherited andnew symbolic capital, central Cape Town can nourish spaces of consumption and production in which dialogue and hybridity are prized, and from which a new urbansocial conviviality and cultural topography can emerge (Minty 2005 ).

Offices

Suburban flight of offices from central Cape Town continued into the late 1990s: at least 20 regional head offices or central city branches of major businesses closed or relocated to new office parks in Century City and Westlake. Between 1995 and2000, there was five times more office development in decentralised nodes than inthe CBD. In 2000, CBD office rents were 30% lower than their 1982 peak and 25%lower than in Tyger Valley and Claremont. CBD office vacancies were double thoseelsewhere in the metropole (Turok 2001 ). Companies whose offices remained best

situated in the central city near the harbour included staple port industries: fisheries,shipping services, freight forwarders, and construction, oil and gas industries. Twonew office towers were built in the early 1990s: The Terraces (1992; 14 floors) andMetropolitan (1993; 28 floors). SAFMarine House, the 26-storey head office of thenational shipping corporation, was built in 1993.

Office decentralisation froze the corporate skyline of Cape Town after a spate of building in the 1960s and 1970s. The 22-storey Naspers (now media24) tower on theHeerengracht did not long remain the tallest building in Africa when it wascompleted in 1962, but it set the style. Having already suburbanised its own headoffice by 1956, Cape Town s home-grown Old Mutual Assurance Companydemolished an existing building and invested in a 24-storey cube of general officesuites in 1964 on an Adderley Street corner whose affectionate name, Cartwright sCorner, recalls a more personalised past. Two other insurance houses built officetowers in the CBD. Renovated as The Pinnacle (R80 million), the 23-storeySantam block was built in stages from 1964 to 1978. The 28-storey Sanlam building(1978) perched on top of the Golden Acre shopping plaza on the old railway stationsite. Several multi-tenanted office blocks were placed on the Foreshore in thevicinity of Tulbagh Square: the ABSA tower (1970; 34 floors), Mobil Centre (1970;24), 2 Long St (1971; 22), the BP Centre (1972; 32), the Reserve Bank (1975; 23),Shell House (1976; 29), Standard Bank (1976; 23).

Flaunting successful indigenous (not least Afrikaner) commercial capital at the

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headquarter offices that cowered in the east end of the old CBD. Arranged around anatrium, the limited access, inward-looking corporate spaces turned their backs tothe city.

Recently, office block construction has resumed in central Cape Town,

specifically on the Foreshore (Fig. 1). Excepting for some building east of the oldCBD (Mediterranean Shipping Company brokers and agents, R70 million), most have been in Roggebaai on land flattened by the demolition of the thermal power station (1936). Cape Town s new powerhouse its new financial district isclustered around new streets named Jetty and Wharf, and in the vicinity of Pier Place and upgraded Jetty Square. Office buildings include Investec (merchant bank,R100 million), ABSA, Metropolitan (Assurance), Sonnenberg, Hoffmann &Golombik (attorneys, R80 million), Ernst & Young (auditors), South AfricanRevenue Services, and the Vodacom telecommunications company. Ancillary

services in the area include a gym and a computer store, markers of a new corporatelandscape that lies where there was once a beach and fish market. A new conventioncentre, hotels and an apartment tower block (see later) complete the scene. Multi-storey car parks have been concealed in the new buildings; overflow car parking is beneath the elevated motorway. In the Foreshore tradition, large city blocks, widestreets and street frontages without cafes and shops create a somewhat lifelesslandscape. Away from the Foreshore, smaller office developments are rising on siteswhere redundant, low-rise CBD-edge buildings have been demolished (e.g. CliffeDekker commercial law firm).

Several statistical measures confirm the transparent health of Cape Town

s centralcity office sector. At 9.92%, commercial vacancies in 2004/5 were the lowest since2000 when they ran at 60%. Office vacancy rates are approximately half the rate inDurban, and much lower than in Johannesburg s CBD (25%). Office vacancies are projected to decrease to 5% once residential conversions are stripped out (see below). Increasing rentals realized for top-grade office space also register the vitalityof Cape Town s central city office sector. Rents realised for A-grade offices (lessthan 10 years old) were R25/m

2, R43/m

2and R75/m

2in 1995, 1999 and 2005,

respectively. B-grade offices (between 10 and 20 years old) rented at R22/m 2 , R31/m 2

and R60/m 2 in the same years.In finance and related business services, the count of businesses in the Cape Town

CBD includes 30 banks and foreign exchange outlets, 65 accounting firms and 313registered attorneys. In the property and design sector, downtown Cape Town hosts56 property companies and brokers, and 400 registered architects. Many other small professional accounting, design, engineering, film, IT, video and media firms haveopted out of office blocks and have snapped up and stylishly renovated small buildings (Cape Town Partnership, undated). Appropriate to a central city, thenumber, if not the mix, is unparalleled in any suburban development in Cape Town.

Services

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sector is the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC), a new magnet and visual beacon. One-quarter funded by an (off-site) casino operator as reciprocityfor its monopoly licence in the province, the CTICC opened in June 2003. TheR566 million complex draws to the west central city some of the functions for

which the Good Hope Arena complex was constructed on the CBD s eastern fringe,namely, exhibits, trade and fashion shows, performances and conferences. In itsfirst 6 months of operations, the CTICC held 196 events that attracted 290,000visitors.

The commercial ripple effect from the CTICC has been and will be considerable.During its construction, CTICC contributed R1.2 billion to the central city, andcreated 4,000 direct jobs ( Planning , August 2003 ). Projections are that in the first 10 years of its life, the CTICC will inject R11.2 billion into the western Capeeconomy, and that by 2012 it will have yielded R1.03 billion in tax, created 15,000

jobs and generated R5.6 billion in indirect household income ( CapeAfrica 2001 ).The direct and indirect contributions made by the CTICC to Cape Town s economywill be enhanced from early 2007 when exhibition facilities will increase by1,200 m 2 . Space in the new interlinked 16-storey Convention Tower (R230 million;17,500 m 2 ) started selling at the end of 2005. Negotiation has started withgovernment for acquisition of the nearby dockside Customs House, an austere 1960soffice tower block on the port side of Table Bay Boulevard.

Two hotels serving Foreshore entrepreneurs already existed near the CTICC,namely the Capetonian and the Tulbagh (now refurbished and renamed Hollow on

the Square). The Cullinan and the Holiday Inn are two newly built hotels; theyopened in 1998. Others have since been constructed, extended and modified: CityLodge, Arabella Sheraton (2003, R380 million, 500 beds) and three Protea hotels(North Wharf, Jetty Square & Victoria Junction). Since 2000, more than 1,000rooms have been added to the stock of registered short-term accommodation in 58hotels and guest houses in the central city (privately let self-catering apartmentsexcluded). The range includes new boutique hotels in converted buildings (Metro- pole, Urban Chic, Cape Heritage, Hippo). Overall, hotel building has provided39,000 construction jobs. These will be sustained by new hotels still in design in late2005, namely St George s (Cathedral Precinct) and one in the shell of the under-utilized Huguenot Memorial Hall.

Residential Space

The increasing proportion of metropolitan domestic space in central Cape Town isone of the startling features of the area s regeneration, and one of the reasons for theexpansion of the central city service economy. Whereas, in 1985, when there was nothing left to do in the CBD except work (Vokaty 1986 : 210), and the night-timecity was deserted, poorly lit, depressing and dangerous, now life is returning.

Grand old townhouses in the historic centre mark one stratum of past residence.

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11/29Square) reveal the historic presence of other residents. Single- and double-storeyedVictorian houses in Gardens, Tamboerskloof and Bo Kaap (Fig. 2) index the

Fig. 2 New build apartments and lofts in contemporary central Cape Town, and residential conversion of commercial and industrial buildings

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These densely settled, wealthy suburbs nevertheless helped sustain the central cityeconomy. Shopping malls and office parks have not and will not emerge on the steepslopes of these inner city suburbs. Similarly, there is a limit to how many more new places of work, shopping, recreation and cultural activity can be provided on the

prosperous Atlantic seaboard littoral.In the 1970s, residential land use in downtown Cape Town stagnated. The

remaining residents were predominantly poor Africans and mixed-race people wholived in substandard dwellings (Brand 1978 ). On the eastern edge of the CBD, tensof thousands of people were evicted from the infamous District Six. Thirty-five yearson, under a new political dispensation, some of these ex-residents and their familiesare trickling back (Dewar 2001 ). In a different process, one that does not entailevictions, there is also a gathering movement of middle-class residents into thecentral city. Although perhaps not quite yet constituting South Africa s equivalent of

the

fifth migration

in the USA (Fishman 2005 ), this

re-urbanism

involvesdensification from new construction, conversions, and penthouse developments onthe rooftops of commercial buildings. Cranes hover over shored-up facades behindwhich bulldozers and drills wreak havoc.

The reconfiguration has been encouraged by declaration of the central city as oneof the national government s specified urban development zones where privatesector investment enjoys tax incentives to construct and improve building stock. Thescheme aims to assist urban regeneration by paying accelerated depreciationallowances set at 20% for 5 years for refurbishment, 20% in the first year of new

construction, and 5% for 16 years thereafter. Financial facilitation is but one force ina complex conjuncture of functional interdependency that emerged spontaneously or was engineered deliberately in the central city property submarkets (on this idea, seeBeauregard 2005 ).

The first office-to-residential conversion in central Cape Town involved thefamously ornate 18-storey Art Deco tower block that stands across from the GrandCentral Post Office (1940), itself reconfigured into retail space. In a project whichthe architect likened to reanimation of a comatose goddess ( Planning , October 2003 : 19), the Old Mutual building (1939) was converted into sectional title unitsfrom mid-2003 (and renamed Mutual Heights). Next door, the compact five-storeyterracotta-faade building (c. 1902) that housed Wellington Fruit Growers since 1934was converted into four residential units at the end of 2004. Old Mutual s drab 1960soffice tower block on Cartwright s Corner was converted into 124 apartments andsix penthouses in 2004.

The most prominent and prestigious of the central city residential conversions is aR1 billion development at the southern end of St George s Mall, a pedestrianisationscheme along the length of nine city blocks that was developed in four phases between 1986 and 1991 (van der Merwe 1991 ). Scheduled to open at the end of 2006, the project is being driven and funded by Eurocape , a new company with anAnglo-Irish parent. The project involves gutting six financial office buildings that were purchased in early 2002. Behind the facades will emerged a majestic 150-room

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(site of the Dutch East India Company Hospital, 1697 1782), the Cape Times/ Syfrets and Nedcor Investment buildings, and the Caf Royale. De Beers donated itsRhodes building. The project includes three levels of retail (3,500 m 2 ) and parkingfor 330 cars. The unique development twins a post-apartheid and an imperial icon

into the name Mandela Rhodes Place . Nearby, five floors of apartments ( The Piazza ) are being added to the old

Groote Kerk office building. Behind elegant historic facades fronting onto AdderleyStreet, former commercial space is being converted into a boutique hotel and 50apartments. The Adderley Hotel comprises the old BoE building, the Pearne andthe Fabian buildings (1903 1906). The 11-storey Guardian Life building becomes Adderley Terraces . To the rear, a skywalk connects parking garages to MutualHeights. The two top floors of the Westminster Building (purchased by a foreigninvestor in 2006 for R10.5 million) will be converted to apartments. The mo-

mentum for residential conversions is likely to continue around Church Squareafter the sale of a vintage corner site building. Built in 1931 as Colonial OrphanChambers, three-storey Creative House, headquarters of the Public & AlliedWorker s Union, was sold to Italian investors for R9.9 million in 2005 ( Property Magazine , October 2005 ).

Elsewhere in the old central city, the 75-year-old Bill of Costs House oppositethe Cape High Court and close to legal chambers in Keerom Street has beenconverted into 12 residential units. Conversions and additions have been completedor are underway along Bree, Loop and Long streets: R115 million was spent

redeveloping Glaston House into 19 luxury apartments. Elkay House boasts threelofts. Other redevelopments are House Nouveau, 6 Pepper Street, De Oude Schoor and Manhattan Place.

In the Greenmarket Square precinct, hybrid office-parking-retail-residential stacks have begun emerging from consolidation and redevelopment of office blocks now named Namaqua House (R15 million), The Decks (R80 million) andGreenmarket Place. Superior accommodation and extra car parking has reduced building vacancy and increased rentals in the area. Simultaneously, the central city is being re-socialised: 24- to 45-year-old professionals comprise the majority of purchasers of new central city accommodation. They are dissolving distinctions between living and working spaces. Adjacent to the conversions in Art Deco BibleHouse and Kimberley House on Greenmarket Square, 50% of the apartments sold inMarket House were purchased by young women professionals, the majority of themwomen of colour ( Financial Mail , 23 August 2005 ).

Residential conversion and construction is also occurring around the edges of theold CBD. Some is on the Foreshore, where indigenous tree planting and a canalisedwater feature have enhanced the streetscape. The old mixed-use Art Deco Colloseum building that housed a cinema until 1973 is being converted into 62 apartments. A1950s Medical Centre is being converted into a 160-room four-star hotel on fivefloors. Above, Fountain Suites will comprise 70 apartments and newly built rooftop penthouses (R100 million). Overlooking Riebeeck Square, 112 Buitengracht,



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In the Roggebaai district, the new R390 million Icon building (a Black empowerment project) adds 200 one- and two-bedroom apartments and penthousesto central city stock. In an old warehousing zone on the southwest edge of the CBD,several buildings have been converted to apartments named The Edge, 11 on Buiten,

West Side Studios and Bree Street Studios. On the northwest edge, apartment blocksare rising on vacant land and on land cleared of offices and light industrial structuresin the vicinity of the new Cape Quarter at the new Soho Square building (the oldReaders Digest building) and at Harbouredge, Metropolis, Rockwell (103 apart-ments) and Waterkant (incorporating the old Phoenix Hotel).

The Harbour Bridge and Canal Quays developments provide new residentialspace along the Roggebaai Canal. The building creates a belt of almost continuoushigh-density residential space linked to the V&A Marina. Construction of this gatedcomplex of six-storey luxury apartments nestling round the edges of the historic

harbour started in 1999. After a R1.3 billion phase of development, civic authoritiesstalled progress until mid-2005. When finished in 2008 the 200-mooring yacht Marina will contain approximately 600 housing units, a 100-bed hotel with separateisland chalets, and a time-share residential block. Comparable suburban projectsinclude (lower price) upmarket apartments overlooking an artificial lake at Bellville s Tyger Valley hub.

To the east and southeast of the CBD, several office blocks and warehouses are being converted to residential use. The Harrington Square parking lot presents agolden redevelopment opportunity in the vicinity of several 100-year-old commer-

cial buildings, notably the two-storey vacant Beikinstadt building (seller of Judaica

books and religious articles), Woodhead s leather merchandisers, and the two-storeyCastle Hotel Nearby, in a district of clothing factory shops on Buitenkant Street, thefailed retail venture at the Old Town Square is being redeveloped as an enclave of apartments. A four-storey corner warehouse (37 Buitenkant) has been converted intoresidential use and topped with lofts. The tower block on Roeland Street that previously housed the offices of the Cape Education Department was converted intothe Perspectives apartments in 2003/4. Next door, two more buildings are beingredeveloped. Dunkley Square has been gentrified, comprising townhouses adjacent to restaurants and designer studios.

Further south, Victorian residential row houses have been converted into officesfor architects and designers, and into restaurants. In the same urban fringe, changeshave affected a light industrial district of motor-related activity (sales, repairs, parts, panel beating), printing and publishing, and discount factory outlets for clothes,household lighting and upholstery. Here, abutting a small area of public housing for fire station crews (and, in the past, prison warders), a range of building shells,foundations and cleared sites are in various stages of redevelopment. Schoonmill,Cannon Gardens, Trinity Gardens and the Four Seasons are multi-storey residentialcomplexes. The Wembley Square residential development (R128 million) includesoffices, upmarket food retail and a gymnasium.

On the back of Cape Town s property boom, initial construction and conversion

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less wealthy investors hoping to rent into a local market. One target is young, singleand partnered people doing well-paid work in the knowledge and technologyeconomy who are seeking a toehold in the high-amenity lifestyle space of centralCape Town. Prior to the latest residential developments in the central city, entry-level

apartments were clustered in nearby suburbs. In the CBD, one of the few blockswhere there have been modestly priced apartments is Senator Park, a cheaplyconstructed early 1970s building dumped close to government offices for theconvenience, initially, of low-paid civil servants. Offering affordable long-termaccommodation (not least to African immigrant entrepreneurs working in central cityarts and crafts, and as parking attendants), the hideous, shabby building comes closer than any other lodgings to being central Cape Town s sole inner-city multi-storeyslum. Unlike in downtown Johannesburg, urban rejuvenation has not had to target unhealthy and dangerous tenements.

The late 2005 log of residential conversions in central Cape Town records some29 separate developments (96% sold) since 1999 when 340 units came onto themarket. In 2004, 840 residential units were constructed. Estimates are that in 2006approximately 2,340 residential conversion units will be built and transferred.Average floor size (bachelor, single, two- and three-bed apartments) is 96 m 2 . At prices between R5,000/m

2and R27,000/m

2, the average selling price size has been

R1 million per unit. The rate of construction is higher than in adjacent Green Point suburb (an established zone of high-density residential dwellings) where the number is expected to be 1,500.

Between 80 and 90% of inner-city units have been sold to Capetonians and three-quarters to owner-occupiers (Cape Town Partnership, undated). The developers areselling not just centrality to work, but also a lock-up-and-go lifestyle featuring easilymanaged, safe space. Chic apartments and lofts in modern or historic buildings that offer panoramic views are also marketed as offering secure off-street parking, and proximity to diverse cafes, restaurants and nightlife. An on-site gymnasium and plunge pool are common features. Opposite the historic Victorian-period KimberleyHotel, the redevelopers of Temple House (45 apartments), a disused seven-storeyfactory building, sell a lifestyle featuring biometric security and a zen roof terraceand meditation area. Black enterprise is designing and marketing another redevelopment (Ilitha Lofts, 28 apartments) under the Afro-chic umbrella.

The conjunction of redevelopment and residential gentrification in central CapeTown is a source of both pleasure and concern. On the one hand, round-the-clock activity in the central area should breathe life into expensive, unique real estate, andincrease the number of taxpayer and consumer stakeholders. New residentialdevelopments that raise the central city population to about 55,000 will provide amore sustainable customer base for central city retail and entertainment, includingthe estimated 252 restaurants, food-to-go and coffee shops. On the other hand, in thenew democratic South Africa there is inevitably dismay about centrally sitedresidential development from which the mass of daily downtown workers andshoppers are excluded by virtue of their poverty. Skin pigmentation no longer



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extends it to foreign investors, business entrepreneurs, and vacationers. As elsewherein the metropole, soaring residential property prices between 2002 and 2005 dashedhopes for a mixed-use, mixed-income, socially inclusive central city. The Province ssale in 2006 of a residential home for the elderly, and the conversion of the building

and valuable site into expensive apartments ( The Orangerie ; R220 million; 92apartments, opening late 2008) shifts the profile of the central area in terms of affordability if not generationally.

Moderating exclusionary residential development in central Cape Town is oneof the aims of the CTP and other public bodies. Geographically, the provision of social (affordable) housing in the inner-city neighbourhood of District Six is not strictly a central city project, but residential infill there will ease criticism andconsciences. Restitution of land to the victims of apartheid spatial engineering hashad 66 claimants confirmed for 126 new maisonettes ( Cape Times , 8 2006 ). In the

absence of restitution claims in the central city itself, private ownership and highland prices are likely to curb residential in-fill by low-income housing. An extensiveopen-air government vehicle parking lot near historic Rust-en-Vreugd is ripe for redevelopment, possibly as a parliamentary village that will consolidate threedispersed suburban parliamentary compounds ( Cape Argus , 24 January 2007 ).Gentrification in photogenic Bo Kaap suggests a trend that is inimical to reversingcentripetal, exclusionary forces in the urban residential property market. With political will, vacant land in central Cape Town can still be acquired for low-incomehousing. Sections of underutilised space on the Foreshore, and on stretches of land

on the eastern side of the old CBD, may be knitted into tentative 1996 plans for 2004Olympic Games accommodation on 300 ha of underutilised brownfield ground at Culemborg railway yards (Hiller 2000 ).

Mass settlement of the urban poor in the central Cape Town is utopian and emptyrhetoric. It cannot merely be assumed that the prime solution to unequal life chancesin greater Cape Town can be solved by having tens of thousands of seriouslydisadvantaged citizens living in the central city. Some social housing would certainly be desirable, not least for accommodating the growing number of people who work unsociable hours in the service sector. A practical way of making the central citymore inclusive for the urban majority is to improve its accessibility to townshipresidents who have day jobs there, who shop there, use the public services, and maylike to spend more leisure time there. A key step is to upgrade Cape Town s ailingmobility infrastructure by commencing investment in rail and road mass transit that has been postponed for decades.

The alliances and values restructuring central Cape Town have chosen to combat homelessness there before grappling with providing social housing. Partly becauseof its association with petty crime committed by boys and young men, the CTP hastackled homelessness vigorously. The cooperation of community courts has beensought to encourage community service sentencing. With the help of a full-timesocial development officer, the CCID has also linked up with NGOs to help street children in particular find temporary shelter, be returned to their families, receive

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Public, Cultural and Leisure Space

Preserved, gracious old homes and grand old commercial buildings are among thekey elements in central Cape Town s visually pleasing landscape, and they

contribute to its distinctive atmosphere and history. Public buildings enrich thestock of cultural/historic capital. Many of the city s finest public buildings areclustered around the Company s Gardens (Fig. 3). Tuynhuis (1701), a presidentialresidency, was declared a national monument in 1993. Other notable buildings arethe Slave Lodge (1679), the SA Museum (1825), Parliament (1885, declared anational monument in 1993), Hiddingh Hall and Library (1911), the SA NationalGallery (1930) and the SA National Library (1860). Adding to a zone marketed inCape Town as South Africa s premier cultural precinct , several prominent buildings cluster around Church Square: the Civil Service Club (1866 1976), the

National Mutual Life Association of Australia building, South Africa

s first Congregational Church (1821), and 5 Corporation Street.

The city centre is also dotted with historic places of worship, namely The PalmTree Mosque (1807), the Groote Kerk (1841), St George s Cathedral (1901) and theGreat Synagogue (1905). St Stephen s Church (1838) began as the Africa Theatre(1797), and was declared a national monument in 1965. The street-level presence of foreign consulates (e.g. French, Netherlands, Italian and Belgian), which own andoccupy their own historic buildings, adds a refined, cosmopolitan air to the landscape.The US Embassy has moved to Westlake suburb. Only a small proportion of inner-city

land is devoted to education: the facilities are the Technical College (1923), GoodHope Seminary High, Gardens Commercial High and St Mary s Primary.Few private institutional buildings have been constructed in Cape Town for

decades; the SA Jewish Museum & Holocaust Centre (1999) is an exception. Far moregovernment-use buildings have been remodelled or newly erected. In the former category, the Roeland Street prison was converted into an archive depository andreading room. The Edwardian premises on Victoria Street vacated by the CapeProvincial Archives quasi-reverted to its original educational function (the Universityof the Cape of Good Hope, 1913) and became the Centre for the Book in 1998.

In the 1960s and 1970s, new local, provincial and national government buildingsaltered central Cape Town s skyline significantly. Not unlike their commercialcounterparts, the tower block developments were oversized, obtrusive, andarchitecturally meretricious. Erected with the help of height and setback allowancesthat overrode town planning restrictions, the slabs were insensitive to the grain,scale and charm of adjacent and nearby buildings. Their brutality and sizeoverwhelmed nearby structures and public squares, helped destroy public street life, and created domineering, alienating and blighted spaces. One offender is theold City Council office block (1969: seven floors of offices above six floors of parking) City Park was recently converted and renamed Christiaan BarnardMemorial Hospital. Other offenders are: the Provincial government building (1974;20 floors), the new Foreshore Civic Centre (1978; 26), the Reserve Bank office

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Fig. 3 Existing landmark public buildings and the (re)construction of public space in twenty-first centurycentral Cape Town

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patronage preserved some urban heritage. The Simon van der Stel Foundation was prominent. The Rembrandt Foundation restored and redeveloped 14 16 KeeromStreet as the Five Flies restaurant after it had been a private home (1741), the Nederlansdsche Club, a bank, and the German Consulate (pre-1939).

The emergence of central Cape Town as a stunning goddess has not happened just in the last 3 years. On the contrary, it took years of struggle to preserve the city s richarchitectural heritage. Agents of urban governance (including the Cape Institute of Architects) effectively became sensitive to conservation in the mid-1970s. The CityCouncil s A City for the People Report (1975) helped root urban conservation, andthe publication 3 years later of an inventory of historic buildings advanced the process. Urban conservation awareness was translated into action in the late 1970sover plans to extend Table Bay Boulevard south as an elevated freeway over Buitengracht Street, and to create a 2,000-car park adjoining Riebeeck Square. The

term

boulevard

dignifies the elevated car conduit that separated and alienated thecity centre from its harbour and the sea, and was arguably the single most significant and dramatic urban design intervention in the city s history (Townsend2003 : 123).

The Boulevard plans blighted a run down area, but civic opposition led to their reversal. In the 1980s, a public furore about proposed developments in and aroundGreenmarket Square (including an underground car park), saved key buildings,sightlines and heritage, while allowing creative re-use of utilitarian space. After theCity Council s 1985 proposal for a CBD pedestrian network (that eventuated in St

George

s Mall), the formation of its Urban Conservation Unit in 1986 gave further impetus to urban conservation. The Cape Town Heritage Trust (1987) achieved rapidsuccess in the area between Greenmarket and Riebeeck squares.

In 1990, after a decade of squabbling, a town planning regulation finally enabledcontrol or influence over development of conservation-worthy buildings and thedesign of new buildings in central city conservation areas. The 15-year-long process(1979 1994) of designating conservation areas culminated in 1997 with theconsolidation of approximately 40 separate such spaces into one unit covering theentire historic city centre. In place of a parking lot for 2,000 cars, refurbishment of buildings dating from 1771 (creating Heritage Square ) was completed in 1998 after 30 years of endeavour (Townsend 2003 ). Recently, in an era of heightened heritageawareness, the Alliance of Inner City Civics has mobilised to pressure observation of urban zoning (including building use, bulk and height), and alignment with provisions for public consultation and greening that are stipulated in the 1996metropolitan spatial development guidelines. Moderate success was achieved byconcerted neighbourhood protest in 2004/05 that succeeded in saving the faade of the old Phoenix Hotel on Chiappini and Strand streets.

Site excavations for the flurry of building in central Cape Town have spawnedinterest in archaeological conservation. Thirty years ago, care was taken to preserve(and display behind glass) the historic water well discovered during the digging of the subterranean concourse of the Golden Acre shopping centre. Subsequently, the



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Rhodes Place is not in a corner that effectively conceals from public view another treasured fragment of Cape Town s neglected maritime past.

Heritage is reconfiguring central Cape Town in a major way as a result of the potent, serendipitous archaeological find in central Cape Town during excavations in

mid-2003 for the Rockwell apartment block. The digging unearthed over 2,000human skeletons believed to be of the city s C17th/C18th poor and underclassessuch as sailors, servants, slaves and indigenous people. Public outcry failed to prevent exhumation of the unmarked graves, but work was suspended and aconservation zone thrown across blocks abutting Prestwich Street. After a lengthy process of appeal and public consultation, the proposal is to honour early citizens ina R4 million commemorative project on the edge of the old CBD. PrestwichMemorial Place will comprise re-interment in St Andrew s churchyard, upgrading of formless and forlorn St Andrews Square into a memorial square, and erection of

walls of memory/interpretive panels along an upgraded and partially pedestrianisedroute leading past nine forgotten C18th/C19th church cemeteries to the site of theold Amsterdam Battery.

In a post-modern atmosphere of diversity and pluralism, the intellectualconsciousness that has grown in the last decade about the extent, visibility, fragilityand power of public history has come at an auspicious moment for central CapeTown. It is plain that the place that has been the epicentre of 350 years of whitesupremacist rule has in fact been central Cape Town; this is the sacred ground wherewhite western culture and power have been exercised and reproduced relentlessly

(Nahnsen 2003 ). The sense that architects, architectural ideas, developers, plannersand public discourse have controlled, legitimated and reproduced white (European)space and culture is widely shared, if not always in the finest detail (Coetzer 2003 ).Mosques and synagogue aside, cultural incursions into the cityscape that could not be secreted indoors have been treated as nuisances and marginalised. Apart frommiddle-class black professionals now living in the city centre, and those working andshopping there, most Capetonians of colour possess nooks in the central city only briefly and sporadically during evening shopping under Christmas lights, a twilight run, the International Jazz Festival, and the century-old annual minstrel-paradethrough the CBD at New Year (Martin 1999 ; Baxter 2001 ; Minty 2005 ).

Deeper comprehension of the cultural dimensions and significance of all citiescoincides with the desire to make South African cities places where the newdemocracy can have palpable meaning and impact, where social heterogeneity isencouraged. Thus, in 1996, Cape Town s planners sought professional advice on places of African cultural significance in the city (Robins 2000 ). The sentiment behind the year-long One City Many Cultures project in 1999 resurfaces inacknowledgement that the central city especially can be both a positive and negativesymbol of Capetonian identity. As Boraine remarked in undated (c.2004/5)commentary on the CTP s website, the CBD is the geographical and spatialstarting point in our attempt to redefine common culture, values and experiences. It is our Ground Zero where we must deal with collective and selective memories of a

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values; commemorative plaques stake out capitalist industrial history (e.g. a plaqueat 1 Thibault Square, for instance, marks the site of the town s first (1845) gaslighting company plant). Similarly, state buildings in a government district perform alaw-and-order role in a precinct of power. For the entirety of Cape Town s history

except the last decade, public buildings, squares and statues constructed an ordered,ceremonial landscape of white male settler and then white nationalist maledominance. Concretised in European architecture, the design and names of major state buildings and streets commemorate a selective past, one that many citizensexperienced as hostile. Likewise, overbearing public statues in central Cape Town pay homage to European founding fathers , colonial overlords, and Afrikaner nationalist heroes: Bartholomew Diaz and Jan van Riebeeck; Queen Victoria,Edward VII and Cecil Rhodes; Louis Botha, Jan Hofmeyr and two of Jan Smuts.

In a city where recent transformation has been driven mostly by colonial and

(white) postcolonial political desires, and by commercial pressures, anxieties andmoney, the task of using the remodelling of the mother city to help rebuild civicsociety remains a major challenge. Reversal of the de-democratisation of centralCape Town has started tentatively with actions that undercut its political and socio-economic exclusivity. In a spirit of tolerance, there has been no iconoclastic removalor mass toppling of public statues, but, as part of symbolic reparation , some have been imaginatively and temporarily re-contextualised (Minty 2006 ). There has beensome judicious renaming of buildings. The old Supreme Court building/CulturalHistory Museum has been renamed Iziko Slave Lodge (and the museum s myopic

artefacts and references widened). Parliament

s signature apartheid building (HFVerwoerd) has been redesignated. The Nico Malan Theatre Centre (1971) on theForeshore has been renamed the Artscape Centre. Apartheid-era street names remain.

In the future, the celebratory totems of white heroism, conquest and rule will probably be counterbalanced by giving more prominence to sites that mark black

subjugation, misfortune, dispossession and resistance. Presently, only an inconspic-uous plaque commemorates the site of the tree under which slaves are reputed tohave been auctioned; it is located on a traffic island in a busy side road where pedestrians seldom venture. An unmarked oak tree nearby commemorates theemancipation of slaves in 1834, an event that was announced in Greenmarket Square. The name of Riebeeck Square (declared a national monument in 1961)commemorates a white founding father, but obscures its place as a site of farm trade( Boereplein ) and then public floggings ( Hottentot Square ; 1809 1842). Anyfuture redevelopment of the notorious apartheid detention and torture centre at Caledon Square might avoid the mistake made at the V&A s Breakwater Prison(1859): the place that, between 1926 and 1989 was a hostel for black dock workersis transformed, but as a business school and hotel, not as a cultural centre that reflects on a dark past. Representations of the way in which masses of ordinary people experienced the Grand Parade should be incorporated into its redesign andre-use: it was the end-point of many anti-apartheid protest marches and gatherings.Similarly, sight should never be lost of sanctuary, vigils and protest at the People s

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resistance. Next door to the parliament that legislated apartheid is the cathedralwhere opponents met illegally. Across from the imposing Caledon Square policestation and gaol (1928) where apartheid prisoners waiting trial were incarcerated, theDistrict Six Museum stands guard triumphantly over the wasteland of dispossession

behind it. At a key junction between Cape Town s past and present, thedeconsecrated church, which houses the Museum, has been the venue for vigorousdebate about whether and how to reclaim this section of the central city as thespiritual home of thousands. Its strictly commemorative work almost complete, theMuseum is transforming itself into a welcoming urban cultural space for 12,000returning ex-residents. Urban renewal on the eastern fringe of the CBD lends itself tothe project. After the East City Investment and Development Conference in October 2004, the old Sacks Futeran wholesalers store at 15 Buitenkant Street is beingconverted into the Homecoming Centre comprising a 220-seat theatre, restaurant,

exhibition and educational spaces. Shops will sell indigenous crafts and foods, anddisplay and merchandise indigenous knowledge (District Six Museum Newsletter,December 2004).

Symbolically, in the post-apartheid city, the Museum s activist role is switching:the original campaigning slogan Hands off District Six is changing to Hands onDistrict Six . The mission of stopping removals and destruction was succeeded by a phase of preserving public memory, and that phase is evolving into one of rebuildingand reconciling. As such, the D6 Museum is ideally suited to watch over futureurban residential exclusion and dispossession in Cape Town, however subtle and

surreptitious. In mid-2005, the very public eviction of squatters from unoccupied D6land set aside for resettled families was a test of integrity and strategy.Rejuvenation of public open space in central Cape Town is marginally less

problematic, but zealous management of informal trading in cobbled, bustlingGreenmarket Square and on the Grand Parade can easily be mistaken for a wish tode-Africanise the city and demean the livelihoods earned there. Other public squaresneed enlivening. For years they have been disconnected from each other, have hadno amenity value, have made no reference to their origins, and have been devoted tocar parking (accounting for up to a third of all designated parking in the city; Daniels1973 ). Riebeeck Square, for instance, presents itself merely as a car park; the historicAfrica Theatre (1797; St Stephen s church from 1839) stands on one sideunremarked.

The transformation of open public space in central Cape Town from hollowvacancy to space of dialogue, memory and creativity (Minty 2006 ) may be expectedto make a major contribution to democratising the city. Preliminary discussions areunderway for Parliamentary extensions whose design will reflect democratic rather than colonial and supremacist governance ( Sunday Times , 11 December 2006 ).Already, the free annual outdoor concert fixture in the Company s Gardens on thenational Day of Reconciliation eases its staidness, and has created a sense of widened public ownership and entitlement, albeit momentary. Enticing any form of life onto the windswept checker-board deck spanning Hertzog Boulevard will be a

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forty years, will complement transformation of the Grand Parade. A public con-sultation process ending in mid-2006 will shape reuse and redesign of the dominant mast-lit car park to the side of which is a bus terminus and a 100-year-old open-air fresh produce market. As at Durban s Warwick Junction and Johannesburg s Metro

Mall and Muti Market, accommodating and retaining a vibrant local market atmosphere would be a way of upgrading and creating truly public space.

The Parade s historic function was capped in February 1990 when it became thesite of Nelson s Mandela s public reception and his first public address after hisrelease from prison. In May 1994, on the occasion of his becoming President, headdressed the nation again from the balcony of the 1905 City Hall (declared anational monument in 1985), squaring up to the statue of King Edward VII oppositeon the Parade. Being used as the venue for the 2006 Homeless World Cup street soccer event will further help strip the Parade of its militarist associations. Con-

version of the nearby Drill Hall into a municipal library is advancing the process of substituting places that have narrow sectional associations with places that are anopen resource. Taking over the Castle of Good Hope (1679) from the military wouldhelp. The spirit of change has been captured by one of several business leaders,citizens and developers in the Concerned Citizens Group, which is trying to reclaim public space in the vicinity. Conceding that the city centre was formerly the play-thing of the white community , he recognised the need to involve all stakeholders, tomake it their city, and to make us all proud citizens of Cape Town ( Property Magazine , May 2005 : 36).

Pursuant to ordered inclusiveness, two new public open spaces are emerging onthe west side of the Foreshore. Both are some distance from the principal pedestrian paths in the central city and are in places that the majority of Capetonians probablyhave not yet visited. At the V&A Waterfront, where presentation of public historyhas tended to be selective (Worden and van Heyningen 1996 ), a formal, democratic,contemplative (if not celebratory) space was unveiled on the Day of Reconciliationin December 2005. Enveloped by the paraphernalia and whiff of high-endconsumerism, stately Nobel Square honours the country s four Nobel Peace prizewinners. Statues there depict Albert Luthuli, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu,and ex-presidents Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk. In an unusual gesture, asculpture honours women s part in South Africa s political struggle.

Another proudly South African public place is scheduled for Roggebaai on avacant block of land wedged between the CTICC and hotels. The new DesmondTutu Peace Centre will be a rare institutional building project in Cape Town. Thecomplex is planned as home to a leadership development school and a museum of peace. A public square is intended to facilitate social mingling; a design lessforbidding than the walled forecourt of the CTICC may indeed help ordinarycitizens feel an affinity for a new, inclusive city. There is certainly a need for a healing arts and culture environment where a sense and practice of commonhumanity in communal spaces can foster understanding and togetherness, affirmand dignify all citizens, and loosen if not rupture class and cultural barriers (Minty



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conceals other heritage and values, and that breeds nostalgia and amnesia (Marksand Bezzoli 2001 : 43).

Conclusion

The identity of Cape Town as national matriarchal city resonates with originationand affection. The metaphor is also one of bounty, embrace, care and respect. Theimage of goddess adds lustre and power. Mortal decay is not normally scripted into the personification. Nor is rebirth. But in the 21st century the face and heart of SouthAfrica s Mother City is being remodelled. Readmitted into global circuits of investment and consumption, and favoured by a strong national economy, the historichub of one of the world s most magnificent small coastal cities is regenerating.

The current transformation of central Cape Town is but a phase in centuries of urban evolution. The novelty is not the event as such, but its context, speed, content,agency and outcome. The emergence of central Cape Town as a vibrant, spectacular,multi-functional, post-modern space has been made possible by massive privatelocal and foreign investment in physical rehabilitation. This eye-catching process has been facilitated by post-apartheid hope and commitment, by heritage consciousnessand legislation, by investment tax incentives and by a robust private public urbanmanagement partnership. Commercial and cultural renaissance is occurring in newretail, production, performance, convention and museum venues, in new offices,

hotels and apartments, and in historic buildings converted to work studios andresidential lofts. In the process, a new urban aesthetic is emerging, one sensitive toand proud of the urban past.

Central Cape Town 2 km2

of precious earth thrives despite competition fromsuburban shopping centres, office parks and gated residential estates. More than just being prolonged and resurfaced, however, the old urban core is being reconfigured.Structurally and spatially, it is no longer the central business district in themetropolis. Not only is considerable business conducted elsewhere in greater CapeTown, but the commercial component of the CBD is no longer primarily about commodity trade. Instead, it is shifting toward investing, services, and creativeindustry. The new speculation and capitalisation is in property, heritage and panoramas. The re-spatialisation of the central city also involves loss of identity.The palpable and mental boundaries of the old downtown are dissolving: it would bedifficult indeed to justify repeating the exercise 45 years ago of delimiting the CapeTown CBD (Davies 1965 ).

The task of rejuvenating central Cape Town is not as demanding as in placeswhere suburban flight left the inner city derelict. Rather, the task has been to reverseloss of some functions, embrace a new role and plug future decay. The challenge isalso to validate and cultivate priceless fixed assets such as architecture, culturalcapital and an exquisite locale, all of which create an eccentric gravitation. First-timeutilisation will constitute part of the renewal in vacant modernist space on the

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Johannesburg s historic core, and the transformation is likely to be more customaryto western eyes.

Reinvigoration of central Cape Town has not repressed anxiety about profit-ledrenewal, or about the gap between the rhetoric and the reality of reclaiming and

reconstituting the central city for all citizens of the polarised metropolis. There is adiscourse and spirit of civic inclusiveness among the institutional agents of transformation. There has been employment generation, and black elites haveinvested in property, but there remains some way to go in leveraging a deep socio-economic transformation across the entire metropolis, let alone a new sense of urbancitizenship and community. It would be unfortunate if central city rejuvenation wereto accentuate the glaring disparities that already exist in the city s resourceopportunity and prosperity profile. How ironic if the central city that once over-looked a fortified island of diseased and then political outcasts was itself to become

an island fortress in a sea of alienation and poverty.Developers who have participated in and stand to benefit from central city re-

vival have already donated to the upgrading of public space, and/or to socialdevelopment and social housing programmes. Inclusive and reconciliatory urbandesign is another way of sharing the fruits of central city rejuvenation. But thedebate about precisely how much the so-called central city itself should shoulder the burden of enriching, pluralizing, democratising, integrating and uplifting the entiremetropolis has scarcely begun: central city and citywide regeneration are easily elided.The political, economic and symbolic obligation on the core of the provincial capital

may be large. But

central

Cape Town is not geographically central in themetropolitan space economy it succoured. Nor is it not predominant in that economy(it accounts for 33% of metropolitan business turnover, 25% of formal and 10% of formal and informal metropolitan employment, and 20% of metropolitan propertyrates income). Instead of percolating through the entire metropole, the reverberationsof reconstituted power, finance and semiotics may leapfrog the outskirts of CapeTown. The foundation of South Africa s Mother City may be embarked on restorationwhose scale, sensibility and significance are less metropolitan than they are localised,nationalised and globalised.

Acknowledgement Thanks to Vanessa Watson for reading a draft, and to Philip Stickler for cartography.

References

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