Future Cities

Historic cities, contemporary cities, and cities of the future are about more than just built density. Buildings downtown simply set the stage for action, interaction and the everyday life that creates a city.

Just as it is important to plan a city, it is important to remember that the life can also be planned out of a city. The idea of regulation of cities and public spaces still seems to excited planners, almost 18 years after the end of Apartheid. These planners are obsessed with the creation of instant high streets, plazas and promenades - connecting no place to nowhere. Authentic cities grow organically over time. This fixation with the creation of over regulated plastic spaces has spurned “instant cities” -developments like Montecasino, and Melrose arch. These pastiche, stuck on ‘emblems of cities’, are void of authenticity or evolved context - the urban ideal of the chronically dispossessed. We seem to have forgotten that more important than merely how a city looks, is how it works – a city cannot exist in the designed confines of an entrance and exit boom gate!

While the suburban North of Johannesburg is increasingly dominated by new buildings; housing projects, shopping malls and office parks - each development outdoing its neighbor in the stakes for dullness, and regimentality, old buildings downtown give the city energy, vibrancy and authenticity. Old building stock also offers the opportunity for re -exploration, adoption and re-use – key factors in future sustainable world city development.

It’s frustrating that some architects and planners still see the property boundary as the end of their design responsibility. This tendency leads to the creation of buildings which contribute little or nothing to the urban environment.

The renowned American Urbanist Jane Jacobs, said “Think of a city and what comes to mind? Its streets”. A city is not simply a collection of buildings created in a void, with streets as a left over space between – the city is a living organism, and as its main public spaces, the streets, are its arteries. In the early 2000’s Urban Ocean, the now jaded pioneers of downtown cool, used Jacob’s quote in a sales brochure– ultimately, they were predicting their own demise. At that stage the streets of Johannesburg were empty, uninviting, and unsafe- the rebirth of a city starts on the street, not the other way around.

When people say that a city is dangerous – perceived or real, they mean that they don’t feel safe on their pavement. 

Sandton Central, is a prime example of a collection of buildings which do not create a city, even though some of the office blocks in the district are architecturally interesting, they are created in an unwalkable, unsustainable vacuum. You can’t force people to use streets that they have no reason to use, and Sandton certainly has no street culture.  

Even new Sandton Buildings, like the iconic 17 Alice lane, turn their backs on the street. Instead of stairs to a lobby, this building is set back from the street, behind a giant concrete car park. Considering the current international trend toward sustainable, walkable urban environments, it seems that Sandton Central is developing on a course towards obsoletion.

Johannesburg Central is a well connected, pedestrian orientated node; the bustling city streets have brought life back to the CBD. Downtown streets are social spaces, community nodes, explosions of colour, energy, and daily interaction. A good example of a successful city retails area - Kerk Street, is a vibrant padestrianised urban mall, here the formal and informal thrive alongside each other – office workers, shoppers, school children and city residents walk, browse, interact, and create a sustainable city.

Through narrowing the trafficable street area, the upgraded Main Street Mall in the financial district now offers wide, New York-esque sidewalks. Broad pavements provide space for pedestrians  -this has in turn spurred the re emergence of downtown café culture -office workers desk bound for decades, too afraid to walk on their own pavements, now venture back into the city streets, creating a node alive with daily activity and interaction. The opportunities for a regenerated city- so far as streetlife goes – endless.

If streets are the arteries of the city, parks and urban squares should be where the city comes alive. Beyers Naude Square, Johannesburgs’ premier civic space, seems to have the makings of a successful urban oasis; it is well located, in a mixed use node, with office, civic and residential buildings on its periphery, which should ensure almost 24 hour usage, yet the space remains empty and unused. Rather than stimulating visual and sensual delight, the square exudes a feeling of dullness, emptiness and blankness. A park is like giant green convenience store – it needs to offer goods in demand in order to attract users and activity – Beyers Naude Square certainly falls miles short in this respect. Why create more parks in downtown Johannesburg when the ones we already have are poorly planned, badly maintained and underutilsed? There is tremendous possibility to ensure the sustainability and renewed redevelopment of the city through the creation of successful urban squares and parks. The city needs to tackle existing unsuccessful urban green space, ensuring that this goal becomes a reality.  

Johannesburg needs to be seen as a living organism; it is difficult to chart the trajectory of where the city is heading, but certainly the future of downtown is vibrant, creative, dynamic and sustainable!

Johannesburg embodies authenticity, grit, inclusivity, multicultural diverse democratic flavor, rich historical context, unexplored experiences, new and authentic environments, patina, history, reinvention, rebirth, exploration, and discovery. How long will we continue to accept the fake, the copy, The Truman Show, the commercially driven knock off, when the authentic original is right in front of us and ripe for the taking? The city is finally transforming from a place for people with nowhere else to go, into the destination for a generation with the world on our doorstep!