Neil Fraser
March 10, 2003
THE past two weeks have heralded some important events in the life of the inner city. Amongst others, the demolition of more condemned buildings, the public auction of a number of landmark corporate buildings, the publication for comment of new bylaws for the city, the accelerated write-off of inner city investment announced by the Minister of Finance in the Budget speech, etc.
All worthy of more than just a passing reference and I hope to deal with each over the next few weeks. Another, vital to the inner city's future impetus, is the proposal of an Inner City Regeneration Strategy.
Yet another strategy! Groan! No, not at all. An updating, a restating and a fresh consolidation of what has gone before and a correction to where we're going in the future! When you've been going down a particular track for some time it is useful and necessary to stop and take stock, adjust your bearings if necessary, take a deep breath and move forward again. After all the vision for the inner city was crafted back in 1996/97.
Much work was done around that vision - mission statements, objectives, values, strategies, spatial and economic development plans, et al and, collectively, they have been the 'track' that we have been moving down. But other major considerations have also emerged.
For instance there have been a number of plans for the broader metropolitan area culminating in the Joburg 2030 strategy announced at the beginning of last year. The Council set up structures and processes to flesh out Joburg 2030 and to turn it into an implementable reality. Somewhere along the way it was necessary to revisit inner city progress (or lack of in certain cases) and to ensure that there is a 'fit' with the newer thinking of 2030.
The review was undertaken by the city's Economic Development Unit who are responsible for guiding and overseeing the practical implementation of the 2030 plan. This past week, the "Inner City Committee" was presented with the broad strategy by its 'architect' EDU director, Lael Bethlehem. Her approach was refreshing in its honest acknowledgement of current weaknesses and lacks and some of their causes. The following is the nub of the Strategy.
Following a concise analysis of the inner city's historical and perceived current functions detailing changes in its profile as well as some successes achieved, it was suggested that a certain critical questions still remain to be addressed.
These include - How do we understand the role of the CBD if it is no longer the premier commercial node of the Metropolitan area? What function should it in fact serve? What is our overall strategy for the area? Clearly a more strategic approach is required which needs to be fashioned from answers to other questions such as:
- What is the CBD's? current economic profile?
- What competitive advantages does it have?
- What weakens the area?
- What is the overall strategy for both the CBD and the surrounding residential areas?
- What existing actions support the strategy?
- What new actions can we employ to achieve the strategy?
A succinct current economic profile highlights office space use by corporates, government, small business and non-profits - professional services still including legal, medical and cultural - niche retail at the high-end (Smal Street Mall and the Carlton) lots at the lower end including informal trading - industrial services (City Deep, freight and motor services) - light manufacturing (clothing, jewelry, light goods).
Competitive advantages - the inner city's position as a transport hub and its excellent accessibilty - good (but aging) infrastructure - lower rentals and rates - public investment.
Weaknesses and threats were seen as 'sinkholes', crime, low property values and a history of poor management.
'Sinkholes'? Properties that are slummed, abandoned, overcrowded, poorly maintained, used for illegal or unsuitable uses (shebeens, some clubs, drugs, sweatshops, panelbeaters in homes, etc).
Why sinkholes? Because they "pull down" adjacent properties and city blocks by creating disincentives to private investment and blocking sales.
Whole neighbourhoods can become sinkholes and then negatively impact neighbouring areas. They are vulnerable to organised crime and can develop into no-go zones. They are often owned by the public sector (Drill Hall). Sinkholes are exacerbated by banks' refusal to lend within such areas, poor urban management and poor credit control.
The mirror image of sinkholes are ripple ponds - providing ripple effect investment. They lift the adjacent areas by providing an incentive to private investment. Like sinkholes they can be private (Bank City and Gandhi Square), and public (Metro Mall and Constitution Hill).
A third broad category suggested are 'transitional spaces' - areas between decayed and prosperous areas, the edge of Parktown contiguous to Hillbrow; West Bezuidenhout Valley between Bertrams and Observatory and parts of Joubert Park. It is critical that transitional spaces remain buffers or become ripple ponds and not sinkholes.
This simple classification into sinkholes, ripple ponds and transitional spaces reminded me of David Rusk's book, "Cities without Suburbs". Rusk quotes Prof H.V. Savitch's conclusion in an unpublished work entitled "Ties that Bind: Central Cities, Suburbs and the New Metropolitan Region" - "...suburbs which surround healthy cities stand a better chance of vitality than those that surround sick cities…self-sufficiency at the periphery is not a sufficient defence. The challenge of repair is as much for those outside the centre as for those in it…"
With that background, how does one build an overall strategy? One needs to have an overall goal and then develop specific strategies to meet that goal - specific strategies require programmes, programmes need plans and budgets over time.
An overriding issue leads us to the overall goal, public sector investment at its current levels is unsustainable, so what happens when the current public sector investment tapers off?
Has enough been done to attract sufficient private sector investment to maintain the upward spiral which will result in a steady rise in property values? (Increased values thus increased rates, thus improvement in services, etc?)
The answer is clearly NO and so the proposal is that the Overall Goal of "raising and sustaining private investment leading to a steady rise in property values" can be achieved through five thrusts or strategies:
- Addressing the sinkholes
- Increasing the ripple ponds or ripple-effect investments
- Supporting economic sectors
- Intensifying urban management, and
- Maintaining and upgrading the infrastructure.
We'll look at these five strategies in more detail next week.
