INNER CITY
BY BRENT SMITH
Along with Durban, Cape Town recently joined the Rockefeller Foundation’ s international 100 Resilient Cities( 100RC) project, which seeks to empower cities to withstand the chronic stresses and acute shocks that could lie ahead, even in thriving downtown areas.
The 100RC project defines urban resilience as the“ capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses and systems within a city to survive, adapt and grow no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience”.
Having attended a 100RC workshop earlier this year, the Cape Town Central City Improvement District( CCID) is taking the definition to heart with regards to the Mother City’ s downtown area. Tasso Evangelinos, CEO of the CCID, notes:“ Cape Town’ s participation in the 100RC programme is obviously a citywide, holistic one that covers the entire metropole, but we’ re looking very seriously at how we can also bring the concept of resilience down to the microcosm of the Central City – the traditional CBD of Cape Town – so that we can prepare for future stresses or shocks that could affect our own area.”
While the 100RC programme identifies 11 shocks, from a nuclear incident to civil unrest, the one that stands out for Evangelinos in terms of a vibrant downtown is the possibility of“ financial and / or economic crisis”, while possible stresses( from a list of 37) could include aging infrastructure, crime, homelessness, lack of affordable housing, traffic congestion, uncontrolled urban development and an undiversified economy.
In turn, the 100RC programme identifies seven qualities that a resilient urban area should develop to mitigate against the shocks and stresses. These include the need to be:
• Reflective and resourceful: the ability to learn from the past and use these learnings to inform future decisions, while also finding alternative ways to use existing resources better.
• Robust, redundant and flexible: robust, for example, in terms of developing infrastructure that will not fail catastrophically when design thresholds are exceeded; redundant in terms of purposively creating spare capacity to accommodate disruption; and flexibility in terms of an ability to adopt alternative strategies in response to changing circumstances.
• Inclusive and integrated: ensuring broad consultation, engagement and involvement while at the same time bringing together systems and institutions and the pooling of knowledge and resources.
Says Evangelinos:“ In other words, how can we look at all the lessons of the past that have helped us create a successful downtown area, and use the data we’ ve collected and trends we’ ve identified over the past few years, to create the best possible strategies for the CBD’ s future resilience?”
The data and trends Evangelinos refers to have been collated since 2012 primarily for the CCID’ s annual investment guide, The State of Cape Town
32 AUGUST 2017 SA Real Estate Investor www. reimag. co. za