Rebuilding a vibrant street culture and recreating “ubuntu” in a future of social distancing is one of the many complex challenges Open Streets Cape Town is set to solve as the inner city contemplates building social and economic resilience in the face of Covid-19. Here, Kirsten Wilkins, the new MD of Open Streets Cape Town, explains.
The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted two truths about our city. It has revealed injustices that can no longer be ignored, alongside the continued agility of streets to respond, connect and adapt to the fiercest of challenges.
Knitting together these societal truths and a resilient skeleton of mobility space is the question Open Streets Cape Town has been asking itself: how do we adapt to this new future?
If Open Streets Cape Town had chosen a more traditional event-model, we would have sold over 275 000 tickets in our seven years of operation. Our gatherings have always been free, and our focus has always been fixed firmly on a shift to shared public space and realigning streets with the needs of people.
When we analyse our methodologies and which aspect of our work will be resilient in the face of a long-term pandemic response, it is this: social cohesion is at the heart of our movement.
Strava heat map of non-motorised street usage by registered app users.
CONCEPT OF SOCIAL COHESION
Social cohesion as a concept is difficult to pin down and complex to track. It is most noticeable when individuals and groups with different cultures, values, beliefs, lifestyles, and socio-economic resources have equal access to a shared domain of societal life and therefore can be together without conflict. Engineering these serendipities takes finesse and an immense amount of collaborative effort.
Removing cars from streets and giving a neighbourhood a fair and equal chance to pursue expression of identity and freedom of movement in the form of Open Streets Days have underpinned our efforts to transform streets and revealed much about “ubuntu” and the value of social cohesion. On each of the days we fiercely planned to remove cars from the streets, we were rewarded with the elation of communities wanting to truly be together.
Open Streets brings people together to share, re-imagine and move forward with streets as the shared stage on which we re-orientate our actions and re-build ourselves. In the 22 Open Streets days we have hosted so far to transform the city’s streets, we were in fact transforming communities and ourselves.
EFFECTS OF THE LOCKDOWN
In the face of an ongoing response to an invisible pathogen, this transformative potential of streets remains, yet so too have the challenges we face as a city. Every neighbourhood has lost something valuable during the nationwide lockdown; support at weekly religious gatherings; banter at the local pub; cute-meets at the corner spaza. Our daily routines, our established networks, and our safety nets have all changed.
Since Lockdown was initiated on 26 March 2020, the Cape Town Central City has suffered huge economic consequences that have rippled across the metro: thousands of jobs lost, accommodation locations closed, its brochure-worthy confidence questioned, it’s congestion, it’s quirk. All changed.
The challenges ahead for Cape Town’s historic inner city are shared with business districts across the country. Local government and stakeholders need to re-establish confidence, drive footfall and rebuild vibrant street culture in a future of social distancing, proximity management and a loss of trust in what in means to be together.
An Open Streets event in Bree Street in the Cape Town Central City.
SPATIAL SOLUTIONS
These challenges are complex but not unsolvable. Spatial solutions employed in cities around the world such as parklets,” slow streets” and “streateries” are exciting and Instagram-worthy, but should however not distract from the important work of compassionate responses to its people, to homelessness, landlessness, food insecurity, equity and safety.
We need to collectively engage, hold government to account, and participate in addressing these deep-rooted issues that Covid-19 has foregrounded. We need to plan fiercely for these solutions. This is what social cohesion will be built on, and ultimately will draw back the vibrancy of Cape Town’s streets.
We are encouraged by having the chance to meet and work alongside the social worker cohort supporting the Cape Town Central City Improvement District (CCID) at present. It is also hopeful to see the City of Cape Town’s investment into shelter solutions and the rise of the Community Action Network (CAN) to meet the need to feed the hungry. The example set by Reclaim the City to revitalise and reorientate vacant buildings to host vibrant communities such as Cissie Gool House and Community Chest opening it’s office to the homeless set the standard for compassionate reconsideration of well-located land for housing.
Solutions abound and streets are proving to be the stage for this solidarity to take place. The recovery from this pandemic is only just beginning. For seven years, Open Streets has given Cape Town a snapshot of streets without cars. Now it’s time to step forward and realise the dream of streets for people. As we transform ourselves, we will transform our streets.
IMAGES: Open Streets Cape Town