Cape Town urban landscape transformation

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Factors Influencing the Transformation of Cape Town in Alignment to Urban Planning and Open Space Strategies: 1910-2014 z3489326 Esther, YuHsuan Lin

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UDES0009 Urban Landscape & Heritage

S2/2014

Factors Influencing the Transformation of Cape Town in Alignment to Urban Planning and Open Space Strategies: 1910-2014 1) Background and research introduction Cape Town is surrounded by the slopes of Table Mountain and oceans at the south-western tip of Africa. Cape Town was first developed by the Dutch in 1652 as a transit station from Europe to East Asia. As its special geographical position, Cape Town then quickly outgrew its original purpose becoming the economic and cultural hub of the Cape Colony. It went through the transition of Dutch and Britain colonial empire and the apartheid policy, which has brought itself a unique culture scenario. The city has struggled with serious violence and social problems, where there was the highest rate of murder in the world, since the demise of apartheid in 1994. Nevertheless, with 20-year restructuring and development, Cape Town was honoured to be the World Design Capital for 2014 by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, as well as named the best tourism destination in the world by the New York Times. Africa

South Africa

Western Cape

Cape Town

Figure 1

Figure 2

These maps show the location of Cape Town and illustrates the range of research (Source: OpenStreetMap and wikipedia).

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Based on the historical transitions, this essay will examine the urban landscape transformations in alignment to urban planning and open space strategies through time and pinpoint what has made it distinctive and how these major events acted as catalysts in shaping the city. Following with analysing and mapping the history timeline of Cape Town, it will focus on the period from 1910 to 2014, where the city started to have an overall urban planning and open space strategy. The essay will then point out relevant events and break the time into 3 parts: the pre-apartheid segregation period (1910-1948), the apartheid era (1948-1994) and the post-apartheid period (1994-present). Apart from Cape Town‘s own geographically-natural significance, urban planning and open space strategies are key factors of shaping the Cape Town. The term of urban planning is a political and technical process for integrated development of urban morphology, which concerns itself with large amount of research, analysis, strategic thinking, built environment, urban design, public consultation, policy recommendations, implementation and management. Urban planning in this context includes urban, merged urban regions, regional, city, and town planning (Taylor 1998). As part of urban landscape, open space is seen to be a key element to define public and private domains and forms the urban morphology. Open space refers to areas predominantly free of building that provide ecological, socio-economic and place-making functions at various scales of the metropolitan area. Thus, open space strategy by means can be used to achieve political intention in terms of urban development. In this essay, urban planning and open space will be compared and examined to identify what their roles were during different period and how they worked under political transitions.

2) History analysis and timeline mapping of Cape Town in relation to urban spatial change The earlier stages of urban spatial change concerned with mapping of Cape Town are quite interesting to see how the city transformed through times. A serious of maps shown in Figure 3 illustrates how the city developed and expanded its territory from 1600. Cape Town has started its development since 1652, Dutch captain Jan Van Riebeeck arrived and built this place as one of the VOC (Verenigde Oost-indische Compagnie) station. Then it became an important maritime transit station between Europe and East Asia. However, Cape Town had its major development and territory expanded very substantially when Britain army occupied the city in 1806 and then got permanently ownership in 1814. During the colonial era, the Cape Town planning was following a strong axis from Table Mountain to waterfront, arranged with iconic chapels, plazas and government buildings. The symmetry, axiality and monumentalism were created for the demonstration of power of imperialism.

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Since the 1910s, the population of Cape Town has grown significantly. Following the British garden city movement, the authorities of Cape Town used urban planning as a tool to reallocate the residents by races to achieve the purpose of segregation. Then in the official apartheid period from 1948 to 1994, policies were made to enforce racial segregation by removing black and coloured people from central city to other districts and residential areas. Open space during this time, were used as another instrument to create buffer between different functional areas, which strengthened the racial segregation. Meanwhile, the reclamation of foreshore area was started for redeveloping the harbour area and central city. Nevertheless, from map research, major developments were only implemented in the city central area. In addition, the records of ancient maps could only be found before 1947 (Figure 3.4). This might be a clue to prove the political transition and possible beginning of spatial change of Cape Town. After that, there were only pictures and policy instructions indicating the city had been through the apartheid period with districts restructured and racial rearrangement, as well as a series planning reports by the new government for the post-apartheid development. In Table 1, the research aims to record and identify the major events in relation to urban spatial change of Cape Town from 1910 to 2014. Before the end of apartheid in 1994, the transformation of urban landscape in Cape Town was influenced under political decision making. Since then, the new democratic government has tried actively to plan and implement an integrated development without racial segregation and discrimination. From the chronology table (Table 1), it has shown an event-oriented planning and open space strategy since the 2000s.

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Figure 3.1 5


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Monumental urban space allocation shows strong axis to link waterfront with the Table Mountain.

Figure 3.2 6


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Figure 3.3 7


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Waterfront transformation

Figure 3.4 8


MUDD z3489326 Esther, YuHsuan Lin Image sources: a, b, d. Maps source: tanap.net, provided by the Cape Town Archives Repository. c, g. old-map-blog.com e. map-world.com f. pinterest.com h. weheartit.com/ancientshades/ i. The sprawl of the Railway Goods Yard cutting off the city from the sea, with the municipal pier extending along the line of Adderley Street, 1930 (Botha 2013, p.24) j. antiquaprintgallery.com k. www.flickr.com/photos/hilton-t/ l. Mammon 2005 cited in Dewar and Todeschini, 2004: 8 Other data sources: wikipedia, City of Cape Town, Cape Town Partnership

Figure 3.5 9


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History timeline of Cape Town's events from 1910 to 2014: Cape Events

Population

1910 Cape Town was declared the legislative capital of the newly-formed Union of South Africa.

130,000

1910s Suburban development along racial lines was influenced by the British garden city movement, and the oversized, zoned planning of Modernism.

Pre-apartheid segregation period

1914–1918: World War I

1927 The first Town Planning Ordinance was passed by the Cape Town City Council. The Greater Cape Town area was extended to include Wynberg.

1928 Table Mountain Aerial Cableway begins operating. 1934 The Slums Act of 1934 was passed, allowing for forced removals in the inner city. This gave municipalities and the government the authority to acquire slum properties. It could have encouraged landlords to improve their buildings but effectively resulted in areas being more easily demarcated for development. District Six presented special problems in this regard.

1935 The reclamation of 480 acres of land on the foreshore was started, linking harbour to the central city. This included the expansion of the harbour and the expansion of the central city by some 270 acres. 1939–1945: World War II

1948

 Urban planning aimed for complete ―se parate development‖: National Party elected on a platform of Apartheid, leading to the Group Areas Act. This year saw the ending of the

Apartheid era

ambivalence towards residential segregation.  The new apartheid government led to a large relocating of blacks and coloureds.

1949 The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act was promulgated. 1950 Some of the Acts passed by the Government: The Immorality Act, the Group Areas Act, the Suppression of Communism Act, and the Population Registration Act (which officially divided South Africans into 'White', 'Coloured', 'Asian' or 'Native'). It was compulsory for all Capetonians over 16 to carry ID cards specifying their race.

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618,000

Political Spatial policies change

Major events


MUDD z3489326 Esther, YuHsuan Lin 1954 D.F. Malan Airport opened. 1955

705,000

1958 An enormous road construction project was started, including Table Bay Boulevard, Settlers Way, Eastern Boulevard, Liesbeeck Parkway and Black River Parkway.

1960s Large industrial areas grow up on the outskirts of the city.

803,000

Railway lines and roads are used to strategically separate areas. City becomes part of the Republic of South Africa on 31 May 1961. Cape Town railway station rebuilt in 1961.

1966 District Six was declared a "White Group Area". This meant that all buildings except religious ones could be demolished ('slum clearance'). About 150,000 people (mostly Coloureds and

district reform

Africans) were forced to move to residential areas on the Cape Flats.

1968 Non-whites banned from District Six and houses demolished per race-based legislation.

1970s The early 1970s saw the emergence of various shanty towns -

1,114,000

Unibel (1972), Crossroads (1974), KTC (1975), and Modderdam

informal urban

(1975).

landscape

1975 Development of Mitchells Plain started – 40,000

1,339,000

home-ownership dwellings for 250,000 people.

1978 Cape Argus Cycle Race has begun. Cape Town Civic Centre built.

1980s 1970s–80s: Steady growth of Cape Flats townships and informal 1,609,000 settlements, most notably Khayelitsha and Mitchell‘s Plain.

informal urban

Violent clashes and forced removals continue.

landscape

1984 Black Communities Development ACT (4 OF 1984) (BCDA) 1985 Land Use Planning Ordinance (15 of 1985) (LUPO) 1986 The pedestrianisation of St George's and Church Streets started. 1988 Touristic development of the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront. It became the country‘s most popular tourist destination with 1.5 million visitors monthly.

1989 Start of metropolitan planning process.

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1,933,000


MUDD z3489326 Esther, YuHsuan Lin 1990s  Abolishment of the last of the Apartheid laws by President

2,296,000

F.W. De Klerk.  Urban sprawl: end of influx control leads to rural migration and rapid growth of underserviced, overcrowded Cape Flats settlements. Informal economy and violence levels boom due to unemployment and inequality. Gated communities for the rich spring up in response to widespread lawlessness.

1991 The Group Areas Act was abolished. 1992 In process of legitimating the metropolitan plan, which was first entitled: 'Proposed Guidelines for Planning & Development in the Cape Town Metropolitan Area Prior to the Adoption of the MDF'.

1993 Document draft of metropolitan development framework entitled: 'The Way Forward, Interim MDF Draft Report No. 1'.

1994

 First national and provincial democratic elections on 27 April. Greater Cape Town was then split into 6 municipalities.  Nelson Mandela became SA's first democratically elected president.  Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP)  1st draft of the Metropolitan Spatial Development Framework (MSDF).

1995 1995 Rugby World Cup held. Post-apartheid period

1996

 First democratic local government election were held.

2,565,018

 Cape Town/Central, Tygerberg, South Peninsula, Blaauwberg, Oostenberg, and Helderberg municipalities created.  After the elections hundreds of thousands moved to urban areas in search of work, putting up shacks made of tin, wood and cardboard.  Metropolitan Spatial Development Framework: Technical Report

1998

 The Dignified Places Programme started.  Table Mountain National Park established.

2000s  City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality formed by merger 2,892,243 of Cape Town/Central, Tygerberg, South Peninsula, Blaauwberg, Oostenberg, and Helderberg.  Central City Improvement District (CCID) and Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign organized, with a focus on safety and urban maintenance.

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economical urban landscape


MUDD z3489326 Esther, YuHsuan Lin  The MSDF Redraft 2001.  Integrated Development Plan (IDP), a 5-year government plan, has laid solid framework for urban improvement since 2002.

2003 2003 Cricket World Cup held. 2006 An initiative document of Cape Town 2030 was issued: 'Planning for Future Cape Town: An Argument for the Long-term Spatial Development of Cape Town'.

2007 Land Use Management Bill (March)

3,497,097

2009 Cape Town Stadium opens. 2010

 FIFA World Cup held, building on infrastructure and public space improvements underway in the city.  2010 Green Goal Action Plan  Cape Town Green Map project

2011 World Design Capital 2014 bid won by Cape Town.

3,740,025

2012 Cape Town Spatial Development Framework (SDF) 2014 World Design Capital

3,750,000

Table 1: Timeline of major events involving shaping the Cape Town. References: City of Cape Town Bickford-Smith, V, Heyningen, E and Worden N 1999, Cape Town in the twentieth century, David Phillip Publishers (Pty) Ltd, Claremont, South Africa. Michaelides, G.G 1997, Candid Cape Town: A Discreet Guide to the Cape Peninsula, C. Struik Publishers, Cape Town, South Africa. Palser, D, ‗Lighting up the Fairest Cape, 1895-1995, A historical record commemorating the centenary of the City of Cape Town Electricity Department Undertaking 1895 to 1995‘. Pieterse, E (ed.) 2010, Counter Currents: Experiments in Sustainability in the Cape Town Region, Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd, South Africa. Watson, V 2002, Change and Continuity in Spatial Planning: Metropolitan Planning in Cape Town under Political Transition, Routledge, London http://capeinfo.com/cape-town-history http://books.mongabay.com/population_estimates/full/Cape_Town-South_Africa.html http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/cape-town-population/ http://www.capetown.gov.za/en/stats/CityReports/Pages/PopulationProfiles.aspx

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3) Town planning and the modernist experiment in the period of 1910-1994 3.1- Pre-apartheid segregation period: 1910-1948 Prior to the system of Apartheid institutionalized and legitimized it in 1948, racial segregation already has a long history of predominance in South Africa. In the first half of the twentieth century, modernist planning along with British garden city movement and the acts of segregation enforced during that time played a very major role in shaping Cape Town‘s urban and industrial areas. On 31 May 1910, Cape Town became the legislative capital of the Union of South Africa, bringing to the end of old colonial certainties. Losing economic and political influence, Cape Town was re-identified as a cultural hub of South Africa, the 'Mother City' of the nation. The City Planning Department was officially established in the 1920s, where the planning authority had ambitious implementation of the 'Monumental Approach' to reconstruct the foreshore to well-link with the heart of the city and transformed Cape Town to become the 'Gateway to South Africa'. During this per, the city continued to grow and took the modernist experiment of the oversized, zoned planning development. However, the influence of new laws and existing prejudices coupled with the depression after World War 1 led to hardened discrimination that separated and classified the population on racial lines. Through racially-minded policies and segregation legislation, the 1923 Natives Urban Areas Act, local governments had power to regulate the African presence in central city in relation to their economic status. The modernist urban planning taking from Ebenezer Howard‘s garden city movement to achieve a better balance between town and country surrounded by greenbelts, sarcastically, were turned into racially segregated practice. Africans and some Coloureds were forced to move to the outskirts and form the townships, where they were separate via the use of natural and man-made barriers, such as terrain, Figure 4: The Segregation City (Kay 2007, p2) 14


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open-space corridors, railways, highways, or other transport infrastructure (Quirk 2013).

Figure 5 & 6: Garden City concept (Howard 1902). This concept was translated into setting up the satellite townships to allocate the Blacks and Coloureds.

Apart from removing Africans and the Coloureds from the inner city, restructuring and redeveloping Cape Town‘s Foreshore was another key factor shaping the city during this period. The development was built on massive land reclamation from Table Bay in the 1930s and subsequent planning throughout the 1940s and 50s, in connection with the construction of new docks to replace the old pier built in 1925. In order to improve city infrastructure and increase the capacity of the harbour, the pier was demolished in 1940 to make way for the Foreshore plan (Figure 3.4), which not only changed the coastal line for building the modern port but also extended the city, created land for freeways, railways and wharfs for the vision of Gateway to South Africa' (Figure 7-9). The open space proposed still followed the monumental axis for linking the harbour to Table Mountain (Figure 7, 9, 10). In the process of transforming the Cape Town, modern concrete buildings replaced the old waterfront and these developments with segregation policies marked a new, disconnected and imposing era (Bickford-Smith et al. 1999). The pier was associated with a pre-apartheid Cape Town as it showed the focusing development in the White-dominated central city, in stark contrast to the poor townships where the Blacks and Coloureds were relocated.

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Figure 7: Under Beaudouin‘s 1940 scheme, his initial sketch showed the grand east-west axis in terms of monumental approach to create a dramatic vista of Table Bay (Botha 2013, p.53).

Figure 8: 1947 Foreshore final plan, rendering the landscape in monumental terms, with the grand boulevard drawn in a very neat line without considering the contours of the landscape (Botha 2013, p.66). 16


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Figure 9: 1947 Foreshore final plan, highlighting the new buildings, and in the particular the new, green park spaces afforded by proposed landscaping schemes (Botha 2013, p.68).

Figure 10: Perspective looking up the monumentally designed green park from the Maritime Terminal. The buildings appear as a bland complex, not intruding the view of Table Mountain (Botha 2013, p.72).

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3.2- Apartheid planning: 1948-1994 In 1948, the policy of apartness in South Africa, known as Apartheid, followed by its acts became a landmark in dividing every city into radically based residential areas with barriers such as transport lines, roads or open space corridors. With dramatic population growth after World War 2 and modernist influence, Cape Town had relative change in shaping the urban landscape and municipal politics in the period: the 1940s to 1990s. Compared to the pre-apartheid segregation period, urban planning in this time aimed of complete 'separate development', which led to legislation of the Group Areas Act of 1950. The purpose of the Act was to eliminate the mixed racial areas in central city and mandated separate residential areas, related amenities and educational services for different racial groups. It had the effect of dissociating each residential area with spatial separation by placing natural as well as man-made open spaces, industrial areas and transport infrastructures as buffer zones. With highlighting theories of modernism and racial superiority, the apartheid government adopted strict zoning principles of modernist urban planning. Besides Ebenezer Howard's garden city movement, such strict planning and development were taken inspiration from Le Corbusier's Ville Radieuse, but only repurposing their concepts of functional division towards racial ends (Wainwright 2014). According to Kay (2007),

Figure 11: Le Corbusier‘s Ville Radieuse, which was followed strictly zoning plan (Image resource: land8.com).

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apartheid planners applied modernist planning for suburban, orderly settlements to mould and reform a built environment for Africans to conform into an obedient working class for easier control and security, rather than happiness and health. These townships were designed along the lines with military barracks, which later on became the legacy of apartheid.

Figure 12: The Apartheid City (Kay 2007, p.3).

Figure 13: Contrast between pre-apartheid working-class area of Cape Town and the planned apartheid township (Watson 2002, p.33).

On the other hand, another policy reinforcing the Apartheid society was the population Registration Act of 1950. It empowered the government to categorise its citizens into four racial groups: African, White, Coloured, and Asian, with racial identification on personal identity documents (Oakes 1995). In 1966, the White-only district: District Six was formed. Accordingly, racial segregation during apartheid period brought great destruction of parts of inner city and fast duplication of modern pattern to aggressively rearrange and stratify residents according to their racial identities and economic conditions. The Africans and Coloureds were forced to move to the fringes of town far away from the availability of economic opportunities in the Central Business District (Kay 2007). The urban scenario and 19


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landscape of Cape Town centre had been through huge demolish and reconstruction driven by the apartheid policies. Under the apartheid planning regime, all the constructions, developments and policies were aimed for special segregation and racial relocation, leading to an image of fragmented cities. The enormous road construction project as well as railway lines expansion started and large industrial areas were built on outskirts of the city in the 1960s for strategically separate areas. Overall open space strategy during this period was only for creating big green barriers without any functions. Conversely, it was actively implemented to improve the pedestrian system in city central area and the waterfront for touristic development in the 1980s. Apparently, the apartheid planning and policies did not really build up an orderly society without conflicts between different races. Without accessibility to economic opportunities from furthest fringe areas, large informal settlements emerged around major urban areas in the 1980s (Oakes 1995). In the 1990s, urban sprawl with great growth of its population coupled with unemployment and inequity caused the boom of informal economy and violence levels. African resistance movement fighting for equality, freedom and human rights was widespread that gradually pushed the apartheid politics toward the end.

4) Metropolitan planning and public space strategies during the post-apartheid period: 1994-2014 4.1- Planning and open space strategy change for an integrated development 1994 is a crucial important year of political transition in South Africa, where Nelson Mandela was democratically elected as the first president of the new government and claimed the end of apartheid regime. A massive reconstruction program aimed at promoting built environment, social integration and economic growth were embarked, which was known as the Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP). Since then, a series of redevelopment programs and legislative acts have been implemented for correcting the spatial, social and economic fragmentations resulted from apartheid planning. The nature of urban planning during this stage was redefined for meeting basic needs and creating an equitable, integrated environment (Kay 2007; Watson 2002). Following political transition of new South African government, Cape Town entered the period of contemporary development. With systematic and strategic implementation of metropolitan planning, more public space was created to form a more liveable built environment. Accordingly, a lot of redevelopment plans and spatial frameworks were proposed to improve the urban landscape and integrate the public open space as a whole. One of the major plans was the Metropolitan Spatial Development Framework (MSDF), 20


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which was previously entitled as Metropolitan Development Framework (MDF) and later on was known as Cape Town Spatial Development Framework (SDF/CTSDF), to instruct better planning Cape Town for future. The earliest MSDF was drafted for a deconcentrated development of Cape Town to deal with large unsanitary, informal settlements and economy resulting from rapid population growth in the late 1980s (Figure 14). Through several revisions, in 1996, the MSDF Technical Report was officially issued, providing an approach to planning based on ideas of urban integration and redistribution (Watson 2002). Figure 14: Guide Plan provision for the Nonetheless, it lacked of implementation; deconcentration of Cape Town (Watson 2002, p.21; meanwhile, Cape Town has been struggling Department of Development Planning 1988). with serious social problems such as HIV/AIDS, a surge in violent drug-related crime and xenophobic violence. City government has put in great effort on improving safety and urban restructure since 2000s, where Central City Improvement District (CCID) formed and Integrated Development Plan (IDP) was carried out. In 2006, an internal strategic discussion document: ‗Planning for Future Cape Town‘ was published, with information collation and analysis on the key development and environmental trends, challenges and opportunities facing Cape Town. It outlined a holistic, long-term view for broader regional development and management (Pieterse 2010). In the next six years, the planning document had been through three round of public participation with hard work seeking for mutual understanding and collaborative initiative between city and province government. The latest SDF was approved in 2012, guiding the city to become more integrated, equitable and sustainable as well as provide all residents with equal access to resources, opportunities and amenities (Department of Spatial Planning and Urban Design 2012). Another change driven from the Dignified Places Program and SDF are the significance of urban public space. According to Pieterse (2010, p.102), it was prioritised as ― the most important form of social infrastructure in urban settlements, connecting communities and becoming part of people‘s mental map of the city― . The open space framework proposed was to set up a citywide system of public open spaces and market squares, associated with transportation interchange points (Figures 15&16). The open space strategy here sought for better quality, social equity and economic opportunities of an integrated built environment. 21


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Public open spaces are supposed to become the container of social and economic activities, including formal and informal events, which are the centres of urban living (City of Cape Town 2014; Pieterse 2010). This is the first spatial planning considering of the overall transport system and public interest in alignment to open space arrangements.

Figures 15 & 16: 1 Transportation infrastructure is also one of the key components contributing to open space framework and defining the urban structure of Cape Town. The above figures show the hierarchically designed infrastructure in Cape Town, which is divided by different scales of road. Besides, airports, railways and harbours also play an important role to determine the structure of this city (Pieterse 2010, p.102; Department of Spatial Planning and Urban Design 2012).

Figure 17: The open space strategy considering integrated development with social and economic activities associated with transport system (Pieterse 2010, p.103).

Ever since the start of post-apartheid period, Cape Town has been through political transition, institutional negotiation, economic surge and social problems. Although the new liberal democratic government promulgated many policies and plans for integrated 22


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development, these plans have not virtually been employed in urban spatial transformation. During this time, apart from Cape Town City Bowl, plenty of planning information of overall city region can be accessed from planning department while the lack of maps recording substantial spatial variation can be found. The figures shown below give the comparison between the first (MSDF: Technical Report 1996, Figures 18-21) and the latest (SDF 2012, Figures 22, 23) version of Cape Town‘s spatial planning strategies.

Figure 18: Spatial problems and opportunities in Cape Town (Watson 2002, p.104; Technical Report 1996).

Figure 19: The divided city: the diagram illustrated some areas with better access to social and economic opportunities and some areas without. Cape Town was therefore classified into two categories: the arms and the CBD were characterised as ‗areas of opportunity‘ while the Cape Flat was the area ‗lacking opportunity‘(Watson 2002, p.106; Technical Report 1996).

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Figure 20: Three possible scenarios for Cape Town. Following the existing condition analysis and case studies, Cape Town planners proposed the model development pattern of Curitiba as planning direction of the Cape Town Region. It suggested improving public transport network as an economic driver (Watson 2002, p.109; Technical Report 1996).

Figure 21: The 1996 Metropolitan Spatial Development Framework (Watson 2002, p.99; Technical Report 1996). Nevertheless, with even stronger transport lines as spatial barriers and the lack of public investment, this framework did not solve the fragmentation spaces resulting from apartheid planning. 24


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Figure 22: 2012 Cape Town Spatial Development Framework aimed at an compact urban development (Department of Spatial Planning and Urban Design 2012). 25


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Strategy 1 Natural assets

Strategy 2 Multidirectional accessibility grid

Strategy 3 Areas of land use intensification

Strategy 4 Growth edges and directions

Strategy 5 Destination places

Figure 23: Five major strategies of the latest Cape Town Spatial Development Framework, which took public open space into planning consideration (Department of Spatial Planning and Urban Design 2012).

4.2- Event-oriented change in response to urban planning and landscape On the other hand, major events happened during the post-apartheid period were the other drivers changing Cape Town‘s urban landscape (Table 1). With strategic urban improvement, Cape Town won the right to host the FIFA World Cup in 2010, which created the Green Point Park as a great legacy of this mega-event. Then it was awarded the World Design Capital of 2014. In order to support these events and maintain the event legacies, there were a series of projects in relation to shaping parts of the city, such as the 2010 Green Goal Action Plan and The Quality Public Spaces Program. From the events mapping, it indicates that major developments were merely around the city centre. However, with the upgrade of transport network, better accessibility of surrounding areas has provided more opportunities for organising events and activities (Figures 25).

Figure 24: The image of Cape Town after 2010 FIFA World Cup, with the stadium and Green Point Park as the legacy of this event. (Image source: findingafricablog.blogspot.com) 26


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2014 WDC events Quality Public Spaces Program 2010 FIFA World Cup legacy (Green Goa; Action Plan) Transport infrastructure upgraded for World Cup Informal events/activities (calculated by cyber flow)

Figure 25: The diagram shows the mapping of major events of Cape Town associated with environmental improvement programs. (Data references: City of Cape Town 2014; wdccapetown2014.com; capetowngreenmap.co.za; floatingsheep.org) 27


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5) Conclusion and evaluation During different development times, the urban landscape has been transformed leaving symbolic legacies and showing evidence of the political, cultural, social and economical changes in spatial planning, which recorded the expansion and evolution of Cape Town. In the recent 20 years, Cape Town had dramatic spatial improvement due to hosting and bidding mega-events as well as actively integrated and strategic planning. Although the city had been through huge spatial change during the whole racial segregation period, it is inevitable to link Cape Town with its apartheid history, which has given it unique genealogies of space and identity. Under such contrast urban morphology transition and spatial legacies recording different city development history coupled with cultural diversity and its naturally geographical advantage, Cape Town now shows its own identity to the world. With a series of huge investments on place making and transport infrastructure improvement for holding 2010 FIFA World Cup and other events, the city actively proves itself as a world class city. Post-apartheid planning aimed at an integrated development can be seen in several reversions of SDF and from actively seeking public participation. However, the issue is still being discussed about whether or not the new planning strategy and spatial improvement really mitigate the tension between the Blacks and Whites and improves integrated city development. Since the latest SDF was issued in 2012, the city has yet to see corresponding changes. Besides major developments in central city area, the informal settlements and fragmented development resulting from apartheid period are still embedded in the city space. It seems the government has to make more effort in dealing with the fringe areas and social equity for persuading its residents to share the same perspective in the social and economic improvements as a world class city.

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Useful websites: http://www.capetown.gov.za/en/Planningportal/Pages/default.aspx http://www.capetownpartnership.co.za/ http://www.slideshare.net/CTP http://www.wdccapetown2014.com/ http://www.capetown.gov.za/en/GreenGoal/Pages/default.aspx http://capetownmappingproject.org/ http://tanap.net/content/activities/documents/resolutions_Cape_of_Good_Hope/index.htm http://www.sahistory.org.za/ http://www.capetown.at/heritage/index.htm http://capeinfo.com/cape-town-history http://www.cape.info/cape-town-general/cape-town-history/cape-town-history.php

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