Neil Fraser
December 8, 2003
I REALLY don't mean to drag out this year-end review but I don't think that such a review would be balanced without recording some of the negatives for which there just hasn't been space in the last five issues.
And the negatives all revolve around 'Quality of Life' issues. Quality of life issues do not relate to one particular group, or race or gender, quality of life issues have nothing to do with whether you are rich or poor - quality of life issues are those issues that impact on everyone's citizenship.
In Citichat 34/2003 I referred to articles that preceded the New York implementation of a 'zero tolerance' approach that argued that what might appear to be trivial irritations actually give the impression that things are falling apart and leads one to feeling vulnerable about greater possible harms.
A typical comment of that time; "If the city doesn't care about one aspect of its citizens' lives it probably doesn't care about others." In fact, as was later proved, ignoring aggressive begging, lackadaisical refuse collection, public drinking, excessive noise, urinating in the street and de facto decriminalized drug selling led directly to soaring crime. "The devil-may-care atmosphere emboldened wrongdoers and a pervasive demoralization made ordinary New Yorkers anxious, pessimistic, alienated from civic life, slow to go into the city for pleasure, and quick to leave town for good."
Disorder gives the citizens of a city a sense that things are falling apart, that society is doomed, that there is no order in the universe nor in local government!
I have dealt with a few of these quality of life issues previously in more detail so will just summarise my particular concerns here. However, there is one issue that I haven't tackled before and it is not just inner city related but rather metro wide.
The systematic and relentless rape of the environment
A couple of weeks ago we, the CJP, applied for permission from the council to erect notices in Braamfontein advertising a public hearing in regard to our CID application for that area. We are required to do this per Provincial Government legislation. We were advised that the council has sub-let the responsibility for street pole notices to a private company. The company in turn advised us that we would have to pay for displaying the notices - notices that we are required to erect through legislation!
About a month back, a member of our staff was advised by a 'street pole company' that they had 'bought' the rights from the council for all street pole advertising throughout the metro area! All street pole advertising would henceforth have to be channelled through them and may only be displayed on the 'holders' they are now fixing to all poles.
Just think back - first it was giant billboards multiplying like rabbits along the sides of our major highways - "nothing you can do", we were told, "the national roads department approves these".
Then, like any highly infectious disease, the proliferation soon spread along municipal roads - every little space that could be filled was hunted down, identified and 'bought' by the rapacious billboard companies and soon these too sported the behemoths.
Then the strain gestated into small 'pole ads' but after the first rash appeared that seemed to tail off. With hindsight it is clear that what was happening during this time was that a new and larger version as well as a more advanced species were mutating and these are now appearing everywhere in the form of larger 'holders' as well as an illuminated variety. The latter has clearly been designed to ensure that our night time driving is an equally unpleasant experience that during the day.
To make matters worse there clearly are other strains of 'poster pox' that are immune to treatment or attention as they do not have to comply with such requirements as placing their messages on the holders adorning our poles.
So we have complying adverts on holders and then a plethora of other non-complying posters adorning the same poles! Surely the deal that was done should include the requirement that the pole-ad company removes other illegal posters! That raises the issue of media posters. The media evidently has carte blanche to foul our streets (although the new national daily is actually using the prescribed holders, well done!). And now electioneering posters are starting to pollute our environment even more and will do so in increasing numbers for the next four months! What makes this worse is that we are going to be subjected to the pictures of the candidates who, let's face it, will never be elected for their looks anyway!
But back to the media for a sec. I have never seen public pole posters blazing newspaper headlines in cities outside of South Africa. In London they are fixed to the newspaper vendors' stalls usually at the entrances/exits to the underground.
In New York the newspaper headlines are visible to all, neatly displayed in the newspaper vending machines on street-corners. Clearly neither the British nor American press have to resort to in-your-face half-truths or sensationalism on pole posters to con the public into buying their product - and there are far more newspapers there than here. Have you noticed how our media are quick to play the role of environmental champion yet are the biggest perpetrators of public space blight! Ah, freedom of the press, immunity of the press!
I think that 2004, our 'decade of democracy' celebration, will be an appropriate year to challenge the authorities through the Constitutional Court if necessary as to our right as citizens to live in a public environment free from the detritus that is forced on us.
The Urban Poor
The urban poor constitute a huge dichotomy and practical difficulty for which we don't appear to have developed a specific plan. We have thousands of people living in unacceptable and often unsafe conditions in the inner city which impacts negatively on their quality of life and also negatively on the fabric of the city itself.
We have to find suitable accommodation for them without removing them from the opportunities that only a city can offer. It is a huge problem because they constitute the poorest sector of our community.
33% of our metro population is housed in what is termed 'less than adequate accommodation' but percentages hide the real figures for that translates to just under a million people. 14,8% of households live in informal settlements, that translates to nearly half a million people and another 13.6% representing nearly another half a million households are located in backyard shacks.
Another recent report states that we have 954.605 persons in employment in the metro but that nearly half that figure or 400 000 potentially economic active people, are unemployed. Now whilst these figures relate to the metro area they do not include the huge numbers of 'illegal' immigrants who live in the inner city.
'Joburg 2030' has the following as one of the tenets or elements of its long term strategy "The starting premise is that a better city and a better quality of life for its citizens is fundamentally based on the ability of the city's economy to grow." There can be no argument with that statement. My concern though, is how the poorest of the poor and that huge number of unemployed people are being specifically addressed or are they just being by-passed?
Our challenge, as the process of change accelerates, must now be to address the extremely difficult but critical issue of preparing the urban poor so that they can be absorbed into the economy with the same vigour that we addressed the regeneration of the city. That preparation must deal with the issue of appropriate shelter and appropriate skills if we are to succeed. We need a plan, a BIG and BOLD plan!
Disorder and lack of enforcement
"Disorder serves as a precursor for crime and is linked more closely to crime than other characteristics of an area, including poverty. Muggers and robbers believe they reduce their chances of being caught or even identified if they operate on streets where potential victims are already intimidated by prevailing conditions."
What happened to zero-tolerance? It was by dealing with minor quality-of-life issues that New York recovered its sense of pride because the authorities 'cared' sufficiently to deal with the small stuff that let the perpetrators of the big stuff know that they were not likely to succeed. Bratton, ex police chief of New York City says: "They (the police) were openly giving freedom of the streets to the drug dealers, the gangs, the prostitutes, the drinkers and the radio blasters. A sense of fear and anarchy pervaded many neighbourhoods.
The traditional order-keeping forces, the responsible adults in these communities, played less of a role as their own fear and uncertainty grew. They - along with the wrongdoers - had gotten the message that even the cops didn't care, and they were understandably hesitant to put themselves on the line."
If we are to move from reactive to preventative policing it will be through the visible presence of police on the pavements dealing with and not cocooned in zooty squad cars that drive past public disorder with alacrity. It is through physical presence that people are persuaded to behave because it reduces opportunities for crime to happen.
But, do the metro police really care? On Monday of this week the city-centre unusually experienced the presence of dozens of metro police on a jay walking campaign. Great stuff - however whilst I was waiting for the traffic light to change, combi taxis were stopping on the corner and, in fact right across the intersection to allow passengers to disembark. The Metro Police Officer impassively ignored the infringements - he was here to fine jay walkers!
Civility
"In civility lies the difference between a well-ordered and disordered liberal democracy. Civility is the virtue that makes civil society - that collection of voluntary associations, neighbourhood groups and other non-governmental institutions such as congregations and families - work. And a strong civil society sets the foundation for effective markets, economic opportunity and a genuine sense of empowerment and community…."
We are experiencing a steep decline in civic consciousness which results in interest and ultimately involvement in civic type associations dropping dramatically.
We were a nation who mobilized on a massive scale against oppression, human indignity, social injustice but now appear to be content to accept what appears to be a steady drift towards anarchy because that move is one perceived to be towards freedom and autonomy. Research shows clearly that anarchy results in drastic increases in violent crime, the numbers of prisoners in a society, drug abuse and teenage promiscuity and these are the issues we are experiencing.
Public space
"Improving our public space is not about creating a sanitised sterile, shrink-wrapped world. It is about creating living, sustainable and inclusive communities - communities where people feel they have a stake in their future."
I think we've lost an understanding of what public space means. A lovely essay by Roger Scruton on 'Why Lamposts and Phone Booths Matter' reminded me of the richness that public space is supposed to bring to the urban fabric - that public spaces collectively are the public face of a city.
- It is through its streets that a city impresses its character on those who live in it and vindicates the society that it exists to sustain.
- The design of a city street was never, in the great epochs of civilization left to chance. Objects placed on the street for the benefit of passers by expressed and confirmed the sense of a common, legitimate and public way of life.
- The buildings that fronted onto streets conveyed messages without words, you were drawn to entrances through good design - the use and meaning of a building were laid before the public in a series of visual cues that both expressed and endorsed the common understanding of the purpose of civic life. (Today, bad architecture fronting onto our streets is exacerbated by dozens of signs, both legal and illegal the latter usually misspelled but all screaming for our attention - my addition)
- Street furniture has become subservient to function
- Street lighting is a gauge of security, a sign that the city has eyes. Modern street lighting is totalitarian, Orwellian; everything below it is pallid and impersonal.
Preserving our heritage
Our institutions that are supposed to guard our heritage appear to be more than just a little ineffectual which can be seen from a quick look around the city.
Just note the number of buildings that are being allowed to decay - demolition by neglect - both private and public sector owned. Many of our Art Deco buildings are so neglected as to be eyesores rather than the attraction that they would be in any other city.
Within a few city blocks of where we work are the old CNA building and Shakespeare House, the Barbican and the Rissik Street Post Office - the first three privately owned and the latter - besides the Fort, the only significant 19th Century government building left in the city - publicly owned.
All are in the most dreadful state and are blots on the cityscape making the area look no better than a slum. If we are unable or unwilling to manage such visually prominent buildings what hope is there that the new rash of developers buying up some of our truly beautiful historic buildings for conversion to residential are going to toe the line when altering their new acquisitions? It all comes back to a zero tolerance approach and a strict enforcement regime and these are areas in which we haven't distinguished ourselves.
So, five senses to pursue in 2004
A sense of place - we need to differentiate ourselves and express the particularity of our city.
A sense of identity - cultural and physical attributes are critical to differentiation.
A sense of evolution - the physical fabric of a city must reflect its functional, cultural aesthetic and historical evolution.
A sense of ownership - one American Mayor wrote that a good city has always been one that teaches citizenship in the deepest sense of the word, and such cities are not only teachers but are themselves always learning how to be better cities.
A sense of community - an acknowledgement of the obligations to and interconnectedness with the other residents of the place.
Donovan Rypkema, the Washington urbanist, identified these five senses that have a considerable impact on the economic health of cities, we would do well to carry them in front of us as we go into a new year.
Hard copy consolidated Citichat end of year review
The 2003 end of year review, Citichats 41 to 46, have been illustrated and consolidated in a single hard copy and are available free to those Citichat readers who provide me with their postal addresses. If you want multiple copies to distribute to friends or staff (a great way to tell people what's happening in the city centre) there will be a small charge dependant on numbers. Contact me directly at
neilf@cjp.co.za
