Inner city rejuvenation makes progress
By Roy Cokayne
Pretoria - South African cities are slowly coming to terms with their inner city problems, according to a new report.
Pretoria is showing signs of moving out of the crisis in which it has been embroiled for several years but Johannesburg still requires time to learn those lessons, says the Trafalgar Inner City Report.
Released yesterday, the latest report says Durban and Cape Town have turned the corner as city management demonstrated its willingness to invest in large-scale projects that tackled the problems of poverty and unemployment to generate economically useful inner city residents.
Port Elizabeth and East London have problems linked to geography and investor reluctance but even these cities are moving in the right direction for rejuvenation, it says.
Neville Schaefer, the chairman of specialist property management company Trafalgar, stressed that inner cities around the world shared the same problems.
"Each one has experienced a time … where the degradation and neglect has created cesspools of slum lands rife for building hijackers, greedy slum lords and yet still home to thousands of people desperately seeking a better life."
Schaefer said there was a universal approach to a universal problem. When communities worked together, the result was an improvement in the apartment block, the city block, the area and the precinct.
Trafalgar managing director Andrew Schaefer said city improvement districts had a universal track record for resolving crime and grime, and when business played its part, supporting homeless eradication and employment creation initiatives, the effect was exponentially greater.
Balancing the demands for social housing for the poor and the private sector's need to generate profits was a worldwide issue. Legislating a proportion of developments as inclusionary housing aimed at lower income recipients was not without precedent.
The report says the growth of city shack settlements leaves little doubt that most migrants are trekking to urban areas for jobs and better access to schools and hospitals.
This flood is straining the infrastructure as the government spruces up the country ahead of the 2010 soccer World Cup but proposed law changes are affecting squatter communities and the homeless, it says.
Average sectional title flat prices in Sunnyside in Pretoria have grown from R45 000 in 2002 to R287 000, the report notes. Johannesburg's Berea prices have risen from R55 000 to R133 000 in that time.
The difference is attributed to Pretoria's core residential population being public servants, who have above-average skills and education, stay for longer in one place and have government-supported funding to buy property.
The Johannesburg central business district (CBD) is far bigger and more complex. Its 200 000-strong population probably has a much higher proportion of transitional residents, it says.
But the CBD is becoming the first-choice home suburb for the upwardly mobile venturing into Johannesburg.
Durban has the foundations of a world class city, it says, but its performance has been constrained by the lack of partnerships, excessive focus on major capital projects and too little attention to real urban management systems that alter the quality of living and working environments.
Cape Town's inner city partnership's innovative programmes are paying dividends. Business and the city have collaborated on social and economic processes, responding to grass roots issues.