The first in a series of pieces by the Editor of Future Cape Town, Rashiq Fataar.
It takes every kind of people and idea to create a Liveable City.
Becoming a city for people requires a complex mesh of ideas, strategies, individuals and organizations, geared towards a single goal.
The implications are that we need to think hard, not only about our urban form as we did through our most recent Tall Buildings Week (which sparked good feedback) but that we also think hard about the basics missing from everyday life for most Capetonians e.g. sanitation. These elements of a liveable city absolutely have to be in place, if we are to become a great place to live.
Becoming a more liveable city means we cannot create a dichotomy, which only serves to categorize or box our urban challenges, (and there are many) encouraging complacency about the needs of a real developing and modern city. We should guard against this.
We need to instill a sense of vigor in citizens, that attracts broad debate about innovation in basic services for the poor and marginalized, while discussing the expansion of our transport system, while debating the structure of a model to finance a cruise terminal through amended gambling legislation.
The components of a liveable city are plentiful, and there is no single perfect puzzle which can be built. We cannot and should not remove ourselves from areas of constructive debate which we are less comfortable with, in the process creating cocoons of thoughts and ideas which so often stunts our growth as a City and deprives us of our much needed progressive urban agenda.
Let progress be our watchword, and let progress be what we favour. The puzzle of a liveable city is a real time construction project, which should be shaped by all of us.