CITICHAT 29/2007 - 27 July 2007
Charter Challenges – Implementation and Monitoring
My question as to whether no news was good news last week in relation to the Inner City Regeneration Charter has been answered. It’s good news! A final Charter document and certain institutional structures were evidently approved at last week’s Mayoral Committee meeting. Changes to the draft Charter document made available at the Summit appear to be some omissions, some additions and revised commitment dates. Now the entire focus must change to implementation, and, looking at some of the commitments, I should add the word, fast. I personally think that the Charter is one of the bravest actions the City has ever embarked on – in fact I know no other city in the country that has been prepared to set out aspirations for the inner city, developed together with the private sector/civil society, in such clearly quantifiable and measurable form. All commitments are clearly spelt out in the document, if it achieves its targets it must be soundly lauded, if it doesn’t the credibility of the Council will forever be suspect..
Most important therefore is the issue of how implementation will be achieved and the form of monitoring that is going to take place – these was alluded to in the draft Charter document but what is being proposed is now clearly set out. Firstly the issue of monitoring and oversight:
“1. Inner City Section 79 Committee
This Committee is already established in accordance with City policies. In relation to the Inner City Regeneration Charter its responsibilities are to:
• Provide political oversight in respect of the Inner City programme, its activities and progress;
• Receive and consider reports after consideration by Mayoral Committee and before Council;
• Where required, call for special reports from the Programme Manager on progress with the implementation of the programme and carry out inspections in loco.
2. Mayoral Inner City Sub-committee
This structure will:
• Keep key MMCs as members, and the City Manager as attendee, abreast of all developments in the implementation of the Inner City Regeneration Charter;
• Rapidly resole implementation blockages and disputes;
• Give political-executive guidance on strategies to solve problems and speed up delivery where required.
3. The Charter Partnership Forum
The Charter Partnership Forum will be established by agreement between the City and Inner City stakeholders, who will subscribe to the agreement to establish the Forum, and its roles and functions. The Forum would be managed by the Programme Manager, who would take responsibility for ensuring reports from the City and stakeholders on issues covered in the Terms of Reference for the Forum.
The Forum will meet on a quarterly basis to:
• Champion the Inner City;
• Monitor and evaluate overall progress on action plans to implement Charter commitments, whether by the City or stakeholders;
• Give stakeholders an opportunity to raise issues of concern and propose remedial actions;
• Enable all stakeholders to formulate strategies for problem solving and identify and build areas of further common action and collaboration between the City and stakeholders.
The Forum’s membership would be made up as follows:
City of Johannesburg representatives:
• The Executive Mayor and Mayoral Committee;
• The Chair of the Inner City Section 79 Oversight Committee
• The City Manager;
• Relevant Executive Directors and Managing Directors of Entities;
• The Regional Director of Region F;
• The Programme Manager.
Stakeholders, who would be sectorally organized and would nominate representatives to the Forum through their own structures:
• The Johannesburg Inner City Business Coalition, the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and other business forums and chambers;
• The Property Owners and Managers Association;
• Community based organizations, with representation from a range of NGOs, CBOs, Faith-based organizations, and residents organisations;
• Institutions of higher learning;
• Street traders / micro retailers;
• Taxi associations;
• Provincial Government;
• Ward-committees in the Inner City as represented by their ward councilors.”
So that’s the monitoring and oversight situation which certainly appears to be a good balance between political oversight and civil society monitoring. What about on the ground implementation? Well, the document goes on to detail the management structures as follows:
“The responsibility for co-ordination of the successful implementation of the programme is located in the Department of Development Planning and Urban Management (DPUM), with individual programmes the responsibility of the relevant line departments. Urban Management remains the responsibility of Region F, restructured to ensure additional capacity and authority to implement the intensive urban management required for the Inner City.
The Inner City Programme Manager
The Inner City Programme Manager will report to the Executive Director: DPUM in terms of functional matters. Political reporting by the Programme Manager on the programme is to the Mayoral-subcommittee, the Mayoral Committee and the Section 79 Oversight Committee. The Inner City Programme Manager will also ensure the channeling of progress reports into the Charter Partnership Forum.
The Inner City Programme Manager will take responsibility for ensuring delivery of the following outputs:
• The formulation and adoption of integrated action / business plans that ensure effective delivery on the City’s Charter commitments;
• Co-ordinated and integrated implementation of these plans;
• An integrated and co-ordinated Inner City budget;
• The inclusion of Inner City programme in the IDP;
• Strong and effective partnerships that support the successful implementation of the overall programme;
• The profiling and positioning of the inner city as a desirable place to live, work and invest in.
Management Teams
The Inner City Programme Manager will be supported by two teams, a Programme Strategic Team and an Extended Programme Management Team.
The Programme Strategic Team will assist the Programme Manager in ensuring the:
• Overall integration and cohesiveness of Charter business plan and CoJ and partners programmes and projects;
• Integration of various CoJ planning processes, in particular, the Charter/RUMP/RSDF/IDP;
• Identification of, and formulation of solutions and innovative policy responses to, problems;
• Identification and tracking of outcomes, impacts and unintended consequences of programmes.
The Extended Programme Management Team will be responsible for:
• Monitoring progress;
• Monitoring budgets and spending;
• Addressing blockages and disputes;
• Managing integration and co-ordination of sub-programmes and projects within sub-programmes;
• Considering new interventions;
• Inputting into the overall business plan.
Cluster Team Leaders
Team Leaders are located within the line departments or municipal entities that take responsibility for particular clusters of projects arising from the Charter. They will:
• Co-ordinate the project managers within a cluster;
• Provide support and leadership to project managers;
• Manage their own project/s;
• Manage the inter-relationships of projects within clusters/sub-programme;
• Engage in cluster/line department budgeting processes;
• Report to and participate in the Extended Programme Management Team.”
Clearly the Programme Manager has a critical role to fulfill, will have to have both political and line management support and excellent administrative skills. I would imagine that he/she will have to be an incredible diplomat whilst being a hard taskmaster/mistress and will walk a fine line between politicians and officials – rather like a trapeze artist crossing a shark infested tank!
So what are the immediate commitments? Well the next few months include
…… July 2007
• A Regional Urban Management Plan (RUMP) for the UDZ area will have been approved and will be available publicly.
• An operational Plan for continuous, integrated block-by-block operations/blitzes by multi-disciplinary teams of by-law enforcement and service delivery specialists will be completed.
• Finalisation of and making public a full 3D model of the Inner City of Johannesburg for telecommunications infrastructure planning.
……. August 2007
• A first phase Inner City Housing Action Plan
• At least 500 beds for emergency accommodation and decant facilities
• Identification of 20 key economic firms in order to learn about their practical issues/problems
……..September 2007
• Demonstration network projects (including one in the Inner City).
• Facilitation of the re-opening of the Alexander Theatre. (that’s one that can be ticked off according to media reports!)
• A database of civil society organizations operating in or near to the Inner City.
• Convening of an Inner City Sectoral Advisory Forum of creative and cultural businesses, organisations, institutions and initiatives.
• Completion of the Hoek Street Market
• A consolidated BPO precinct plan concretizing and clustering BPO activity by delineating buildings in the Inner City.
• A further minimum 1000 BPO seats developed and hopefully occupied in the Inner City.
• A final decision on the closure of the Doornfontein and Jeppe Stations will be made public.
………October
• A coherent programme of support for improvement districts
That’s a good start although the really meaty, critical issues of residential accommodation, upgrading the public environment, transportation, informal trading, by-law enforcement kick in later – but we’ll start looking at those next week.
Personally I think that one of the greatest challenges the inner city faces over the next decade is the provision of housing particularly for the lowest income or homeless people of the city. In this regard the report in yesterday’s Star was misleading as it stated that “The city is looking at establishing some 75 000 units for transitional housing aimed at the very low income earners getting between R800 and R1200 per month.” That is not correct! The Charter clearly states “The City of Johannesburg will work with all partners and stakeholders to lead an Inner City Housing Plan that provides or ensures at least 50 000 (and ideally 75 000) new residential units by 2015, either in the Inner City or near to it. On rough estimates of demand it is projected that some 20 000 of these units must be affordable to households in lower income bands if the collective problem of a stressed Inner City residential environment is to be solved. This does not mean that the Inner City is to become a dormitory for the poor. The City of Johannesburg envisages the creation of the largest mixed income community in the country, built on the basis of inclusionary housing “
However, more on that next week, ciao, neil
Friday, July 27, 2007
Friday, July 20, 2007
Zurich House Jhb Citichat 20 July 2007
CITICHAT 28/2007 - 20 July 2007
Good news and no news!
I see preparatory work has started at the “gateway to Braamfontein”, the corner of Ameshoff and Bertha (Jan Smuts) Streets, for the erection of a large new piece of public art. Some months ago a Braamfontein Art Committee selected Clive van den Berg’s Eland as a winning entry in a public art competition and it will be erected shortly from the look of current progress on the site.
But, most exciting, is that work has also started on what will be one of the inner city’s very FIRST new private sector commercial developments in aeons. The area to the west of the Magistrates Courts has been used for parking purposes for many years but was bought some time back with plans to develop it as an office park. The first of the buildings in this area has been tied up and construction work is underway. Refurbishing, extensions or additions to existing buildings, conversions from commercial to residential or commercial to institutional or even new institutional buildings as is happening throughout the inner city are all well and good, but what can be more positive for the inner city revitalisation process than a brand spanking new commercial building?
Up until now, the south west end of the inner city has been pretty crumby! North of it is Newtown which has had a considerable amount of attention over the past few years resulting in a whole bunch of exciting initiatives – although there appears to have been a deceleration in some of the City’s efforts – no visible action on the Transport House redevelopment nor on the JDA’s Central Place projects! At Newtown’s eastern junction with the traditional CBD there has been a lot more positive performance all coming out of the private sector – the refurbishing of the AA building for FNB; the refurbishing of 11 Diagonal Street for ABSA and the completion of the redevelopment of the Turbine Hall site for AngloGold Ashanti.
Between this Diagonal Street precinct and the Magistrates Court area lies a vibrant retail area of local Indian ownership with some magnificent old buildings, mostly in need of a good coat of paint. Then, down Commissioner Street is the traditional Chinatown – the urban design framework completed now some years back – hopefully to be resuscitated with the exciting development on its southern border.
An office park on the vacant land to its south promises a massive upgrading to the current urban environment. Open parking ground is not the kind of activity area that one needs in rebuilding a city and this particular area has been quite desolate for decades. I believe it was home to the Hubert Davies group many years ago which would mean that this was mainly an industrial area.
New buildings will bring people, new activities and new life to the area. So it’s all good news for the inner city.
On the other end of the scale is no news good news? Had an e-mail from someone last week asking me for a copy of the final Charter document and how he could be involved in the process. Being completely ‘out of the loop’ for the past few weeks I must admit that I had to think twice before admitting that I hadn’t yet seen such a document – but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t one!, I just don’t know at the moment, but will find out where we are and, hopefully report progress on that front in next week’s Citichat.
Cheers, neil
Good news and no news!
I see preparatory work has started at the “gateway to Braamfontein”, the corner of Ameshoff and Bertha (Jan Smuts) Streets, for the erection of a large new piece of public art. Some months ago a Braamfontein Art Committee selected Clive van den Berg’s Eland as a winning entry in a public art competition and it will be erected shortly from the look of current progress on the site.
But, most exciting, is that work has also started on what will be one of the inner city’s very FIRST new private sector commercial developments in aeons. The area to the west of the Magistrates Courts has been used for parking purposes for many years but was bought some time back with plans to develop it as an office park. The first of the buildings in this area has been tied up and construction work is underway. Refurbishing, extensions or additions to existing buildings, conversions from commercial to residential or commercial to institutional or even new institutional buildings as is happening throughout the inner city are all well and good, but what can be more positive for the inner city revitalisation process than a brand spanking new commercial building?
Up until now, the south west end of the inner city has been pretty crumby! North of it is Newtown which has had a considerable amount of attention over the past few years resulting in a whole bunch of exciting initiatives – although there appears to have been a deceleration in some of the City’s efforts – no visible action on the Transport House redevelopment nor on the JDA’s Central Place projects! At Newtown’s eastern junction with the traditional CBD there has been a lot more positive performance all coming out of the private sector – the refurbishing of the AA building for FNB; the refurbishing of 11 Diagonal Street for ABSA and the completion of the redevelopment of the Turbine Hall site for AngloGold Ashanti.
Between this Diagonal Street precinct and the Magistrates Court area lies a vibrant retail area of local Indian ownership with some magnificent old buildings, mostly in need of a good coat of paint. Then, down Commissioner Street is the traditional Chinatown – the urban design framework completed now some years back – hopefully to be resuscitated with the exciting development on its southern border.
An office park on the vacant land to its south promises a massive upgrading to the current urban environment. Open parking ground is not the kind of activity area that one needs in rebuilding a city and this particular area has been quite desolate for decades. I believe it was home to the Hubert Davies group many years ago which would mean that this was mainly an industrial area.
New buildings will bring people, new activities and new life to the area. So it’s all good news for the inner city.
On the other end of the scale is no news good news? Had an e-mail from someone last week asking me for a copy of the final Charter document and how he could be involved in the process. Being completely ‘out of the loop’ for the past few weeks I must admit that I had to think twice before admitting that I hadn’t yet seen such a document – but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t one!, I just don’t know at the moment, but will find out where we are and, hopefully report progress on that front in next week’s Citichat.
Cheers, neil
Friday, July 13, 2007
Residential vs Open Space Citichat 13 July 2007
CITICHAT 27/2007 - 13 July 2007
Residential demand but what about green space?
The past two weeks or so has seen the media highlighting various aspects related to increasing problems in the provision of residential accommodation.
A report on rentals revealed substantial increases being experienced nationwide but particularly in Johannesburg and East London and this is evidently just the start. ‘Trafalgar’s’ property index has grown from 100 in 2003 to 129.3 this year translating into rental increases of 30% over three-and-a-half years. ‘Just Letting’s’ figures reveal rental increases of 9.8% in the first four months of this year compared to the same period last year. So what’s driving rentals higher?
Apart from rampant urbanisation (almost 300 000 people have flocked to the inner city to find a place to live (Engineering News 10th July) the constant rises in rent were inevitable, said various property experts due to
• The steady pace of economic growth which had resulted in more people being offered jobs
• Household formation, or demand for rental accommodation, appeared to be far outstripping the creation of new stock supply.
• Rental demand was being driven by the rapid reduction in household sizes, from 4.48 people in 1996 to 3.69 people in 2005.
• A rise in number of households to 13 million from 9 million in the same period as well as rental demand from young people.
• Rising house prices have pushed first-time home buyers off the property ladder while the rate of development of new apartments and other rental stock had slowed down because of rising interest rate, building and land costs.
This latter issue of rising land costs has been very apparent from the value at which existing properties have been sold under auction over the past year or two in the inner city. Properties are fetching far higher figures than would ever have been contemplated a couple of years back and I still believe that the market has a greater upside. That however isn’t good news when it comes to providing housing accommodation in the inner city. Taffy Adler, CEO of the Johannesburg Housing Company, in last week’s Mail and Guardian, pointed out that the purchase and conversion cost of the ex Landdrost Hotel eight years ago was nearly half that of Cresthill. The problem is that rentals aren’t quite as elastic and, whilst middle income can probably still afford reasonable increases – the lower income is still hopelessly stuck. As Taffy said, even his own company, the city’s biggest provider of social housing, is not catering for the poorest of the poor. One of the issues raised by Taffy (e-daily of Sunday Times 4th July) is that “local councils, provincial authorities, national departments, such as public works, and parastatals like Transnet, are disposing of land to the highest bidder on public auction – this places centrally situated land and buildings beyond the reach of the poor as it makes it impossible for any developers to offer accommodation at a reasonable price.”
One of the culprits behind this attitude is of course the ‘scorecard’ system adopted by the public authorities by which employees are judged and bonused – not a great incentive to keep public property prices down or do deals with developers if you are being paid in accordance with how much you actually bring in! Taffy’s plea for public owned land to be part of a pro-poor approach by all levels of government is spot on if we are going to dent the huge backlog in housing for the poor.
Sure, the City is coming to the party with its commitment (as an outcome of the Inner City Summit and Charter process) to provide 70 000 accommodation units by 2014 of which 20% will be earmarked for the urban poor (Engineering News 10 July) but these are to be, hopefully, provided by the private sector in response to an incentive scheme. In addition, the City is currently “rehabilitating three old buildings to serve as temporary shelters” which figure “is likely to triple in the next 12 months”.
But with all the hype and media articles about responding to residential accommodation needs, I still don’t see statements about housing provision for whatever level of income being coupled with the provision of social facilities and open space. Already the city has absorbed 10 000 more living units in the past five years with a further 5 000 underway – at just 2 persons a unit that means 30 000 extra people being accommodated, but I don’t see any increase in facilities! Even desely packed New York City, planning 250 000 additional housing units by 2030, “will open 290 schoolyards as public playgrounds and create public plazas in every community.” Housing, health and open space are integrally linked.
The key words in modern cityspeak are all about green, healthy, sociable, civic and inclusive – they make up what a recent publication calls “The Humane Metropolis”. “Nature in the city,” wrote Anne Spirn (“The Granite Garden”) “must be cultivated, like a garden, rather than ignored or subdued.”
Neal Peirce of the Washington Post Writers Group says “That means renewed attention to welcoming urban parks, from entire “green necklace” systems within metro areas to the emerald-green sanctuary of small vest pocket parks. Community gardens, green roofs, street trees and planted medians all count -- and today more than ever as antidotes to the “urban heat island” phenomenon and the spread of global warming-inducing greenhouse gases.
The “Humane Metropolis” approach promotes shared streets and spaces, the protection and creation of all possible natural areas -- parks, greenways, forest tracts -- fostering a shared sense of “ecological stewardship”, urban gardening and farm markets. It also supports efforts toward environmental justice, so that low-income areas are not burdened with undue, damaging pollution.
“And of course they aim to create welcoming, green places in cities, nature within urban places, bringing people together to rub shoulders, recreate, have fun – and, with luck, even get to know each other. Adding, they hope, social justice; as Ford Foundation official Carl Anthony writes, “Issues of race and poverty, social and environmental justice, must be central to the way we envision a truly humane metropolis, bringing together people and nature in the 21st century.”
Joeys humane? I think it’s possible but we must plan for it.
Name origins
Had an interesting e-mail from David Campbell from the UK regarding Citichat 25 - “Caramba! We’re actually Portuguese in name!” – he writes:
“I did my Civil Engineer's Site Training, 1962-1964, in the City of London under a Scots Engineer, Robin Anderson.
I arrived in Jo'burg in January 1967 and worked on the design of the Motorway. I wrote to Robin concerning the work.
His reply surprised me and, I think, rather startled Miss Smith, the City Librarian who was writing her book on Jo'burg street names.
More or less verbatim it read:
“I see you're in my Uncle Alec's little dorp. I believe there's a street there named after him. When I was a wee lad, Marshall of Clackmannon dangled me on his knee and said, "Young Anderson, never you forget it was Oom Paul, Johan Rissick (sic), your Uncle Alec and me - we started Johannesburg. Johan Rissick was getting married the following Saturday, so we named it after him as a wedding present."
Miss Smith wrote to Robin who confirmed the story. His father had Uncle Alec's diary - a school notebook which Alec had sent back to his Mother.
She then queried the wedding with the Rissik family. They stated that he did not marry until ten years later; although they have always claimed the City was named after him. She had no explanation for the situation.
Mystery!! My only explanation is that the bride had a change of heart and did not arrive at the kirk. Which man, ten years down the line, would tell his new bride that she was second choice??
Anderson and Marshall are both well-known names in Jo'burg. Why should Marshall have given Robin such a story? Robin had never been to South Africa.
Nobody here accepts Robin's story. But the circumstances, and the "straight from the horse's mouth" source, give it the ring of truth to me.
Can anybody throw any light on the wedding?
David Campbell”
From my little bit of research, the Rissik family evidently arrived in South Africa in 1876 when Johann was 19 – in 1891 an article appeared in “The Press Weekly Edition” which states that Rissik had “burdened himself with the pleasant chains of matrimony about a year ago” which would make his marriage and the ‘naming of Johannesburg’ 1890. However a booklet by Charles Cowen, three years earlier in 1887, referred to Johann Rissik as the Johann of Johannesburg.
It would generally seem that the story is unlikely although I was interested to find that Marshall, who had bought the area south-west of the mining camp (Marshalltown) was married to Johann Rissik’s sister and one source book states that Marshall was “probably tipped off about the location of the mining camp”.
Hirschson’s theory (Citichat 25) is that the city was in fact named later than 1886 but that the references to Johann Rissik and Johannes Joubert were all put out on instruction from Kruger as smokescreens to divert the English desire to prove that Kruger was conniving with the Portuguese which would have given them the excuse to declare war earlier than happened.
Anybody got any thoughts or comments, let me know.
Cheers, neil
Residential demand but what about green space?
The past two weeks or so has seen the media highlighting various aspects related to increasing problems in the provision of residential accommodation.
A report on rentals revealed substantial increases being experienced nationwide but particularly in Johannesburg and East London and this is evidently just the start. ‘Trafalgar’s’ property index has grown from 100 in 2003 to 129.3 this year translating into rental increases of 30% over three-and-a-half years. ‘Just Letting’s’ figures reveal rental increases of 9.8% in the first four months of this year compared to the same period last year. So what’s driving rentals higher?
Apart from rampant urbanisation (almost 300 000 people have flocked to the inner city to find a place to live (Engineering News 10th July) the constant rises in rent were inevitable, said various property experts due to
• The steady pace of economic growth which had resulted in more people being offered jobs
• Household formation, or demand for rental accommodation, appeared to be far outstripping the creation of new stock supply.
• Rental demand was being driven by the rapid reduction in household sizes, from 4.48 people in 1996 to 3.69 people in 2005.
• A rise in number of households to 13 million from 9 million in the same period as well as rental demand from young people.
• Rising house prices have pushed first-time home buyers off the property ladder while the rate of development of new apartments and other rental stock had slowed down because of rising interest rate, building and land costs.
This latter issue of rising land costs has been very apparent from the value at which existing properties have been sold under auction over the past year or two in the inner city. Properties are fetching far higher figures than would ever have been contemplated a couple of years back and I still believe that the market has a greater upside. That however isn’t good news when it comes to providing housing accommodation in the inner city. Taffy Adler, CEO of the Johannesburg Housing Company, in last week’s Mail and Guardian, pointed out that the purchase and conversion cost of the ex Landdrost Hotel eight years ago was nearly half that of Cresthill. The problem is that rentals aren’t quite as elastic and, whilst middle income can probably still afford reasonable increases – the lower income is still hopelessly stuck. As Taffy said, even his own company, the city’s biggest provider of social housing, is not catering for the poorest of the poor. One of the issues raised by Taffy (e-daily of Sunday Times 4th July) is that “local councils, provincial authorities, national departments, such as public works, and parastatals like Transnet, are disposing of land to the highest bidder on public auction – this places centrally situated land and buildings beyond the reach of the poor as it makes it impossible for any developers to offer accommodation at a reasonable price.”
One of the culprits behind this attitude is of course the ‘scorecard’ system adopted by the public authorities by which employees are judged and bonused – not a great incentive to keep public property prices down or do deals with developers if you are being paid in accordance with how much you actually bring in! Taffy’s plea for public owned land to be part of a pro-poor approach by all levels of government is spot on if we are going to dent the huge backlog in housing for the poor.
Sure, the City is coming to the party with its commitment (as an outcome of the Inner City Summit and Charter process) to provide 70 000 accommodation units by 2014 of which 20% will be earmarked for the urban poor (Engineering News 10 July) but these are to be, hopefully, provided by the private sector in response to an incentive scheme. In addition, the City is currently “rehabilitating three old buildings to serve as temporary shelters” which figure “is likely to triple in the next 12 months”.
But with all the hype and media articles about responding to residential accommodation needs, I still don’t see statements about housing provision for whatever level of income being coupled with the provision of social facilities and open space. Already the city has absorbed 10 000 more living units in the past five years with a further 5 000 underway – at just 2 persons a unit that means 30 000 extra people being accommodated, but I don’t see any increase in facilities! Even desely packed New York City, planning 250 000 additional housing units by 2030, “will open 290 schoolyards as public playgrounds and create public plazas in every community.” Housing, health and open space are integrally linked.
The key words in modern cityspeak are all about green, healthy, sociable, civic and inclusive – they make up what a recent publication calls “The Humane Metropolis”. “Nature in the city,” wrote Anne Spirn (“The Granite Garden”) “must be cultivated, like a garden, rather than ignored or subdued.”
Neal Peirce of the Washington Post Writers Group says “That means renewed attention to welcoming urban parks, from entire “green necklace” systems within metro areas to the emerald-green sanctuary of small vest pocket parks. Community gardens, green roofs, street trees and planted medians all count -- and today more than ever as antidotes to the “urban heat island” phenomenon and the spread of global warming-inducing greenhouse gases.
The “Humane Metropolis” approach promotes shared streets and spaces, the protection and creation of all possible natural areas -- parks, greenways, forest tracts -- fostering a shared sense of “ecological stewardship”, urban gardening and farm markets. It also supports efforts toward environmental justice, so that low-income areas are not burdened with undue, damaging pollution.
“And of course they aim to create welcoming, green places in cities, nature within urban places, bringing people together to rub shoulders, recreate, have fun – and, with luck, even get to know each other. Adding, they hope, social justice; as Ford Foundation official Carl Anthony writes, “Issues of race and poverty, social and environmental justice, must be central to the way we envision a truly humane metropolis, bringing together people and nature in the 21st century.”
Joeys humane? I think it’s possible but we must plan for it.
Name origins
Had an interesting e-mail from David Campbell from the UK regarding Citichat 25 - “Caramba! We’re actually Portuguese in name!” – he writes:
“I did my Civil Engineer's Site Training, 1962-1964, in the City of London under a Scots Engineer, Robin Anderson.
I arrived in Jo'burg in January 1967 and worked on the design of the Motorway. I wrote to Robin concerning the work.
His reply surprised me and, I think, rather startled Miss Smith, the City Librarian who was writing her book on Jo'burg street names.
More or less verbatim it read:
“I see you're in my Uncle Alec's little dorp. I believe there's a street there named after him. When I was a wee lad, Marshall of Clackmannon dangled me on his knee and said, "Young Anderson, never you forget it was Oom Paul, Johan Rissick (sic), your Uncle Alec and me - we started Johannesburg. Johan Rissick was getting married the following Saturday, so we named it after him as a wedding present."
Miss Smith wrote to Robin who confirmed the story. His father had Uncle Alec's diary - a school notebook which Alec had sent back to his Mother.
She then queried the wedding with the Rissik family. They stated that he did not marry until ten years later; although they have always claimed the City was named after him. She had no explanation for the situation.
Mystery!! My only explanation is that the bride had a change of heart and did not arrive at the kirk. Which man, ten years down the line, would tell his new bride that she was second choice??
Anderson and Marshall are both well-known names in Jo'burg. Why should Marshall have given Robin such a story? Robin had never been to South Africa.
Nobody here accepts Robin's story. But the circumstances, and the "straight from the horse's mouth" source, give it the ring of truth to me.
Can anybody throw any light on the wedding?
David Campbell”
From my little bit of research, the Rissik family evidently arrived in South Africa in 1876 when Johann was 19 – in 1891 an article appeared in “The Press Weekly Edition” which states that Rissik had “burdened himself with the pleasant chains of matrimony about a year ago” which would make his marriage and the ‘naming of Johannesburg’ 1890. However a booklet by Charles Cowen, three years earlier in 1887, referred to Johann Rissik as the Johann of Johannesburg.
It would generally seem that the story is unlikely although I was interested to find that Marshall, who had bought the area south-west of the mining camp (Marshalltown) was married to Johann Rissik’s sister and one source book states that Marshall was “probably tipped off about the location of the mining camp”.
Hirschson’s theory (Citichat 25) is that the city was in fact named later than 1886 but that the references to Johann Rissik and Johannes Joubert were all put out on instruction from Kruger as smokescreens to divert the English desire to prove that Kruger was conniving with the Portuguese which would have given them the excuse to declare war earlier than happened.
Anybody got any thoughts or comments, let me know.
Cheers, neil
Friday, July 6, 2007
Urban Name Changing Citichat 6 July 2007
CITICHAT 26/2007 - 6 July 2007
What’s in a name?
When I wrote about the possible Portuguese background to the name ‘Johannesburg’ last week I was sharing from Niel Hirschson’s “The Naming of Johannesburg” and not really thinking about name changes to our towns, cities and streets per se. Since then I have read a number of articles about this controversial issue, and, as I’m still confined to bed, have had some time to try to get my mind around it.
Name changes are nothing new, they happen for a variety of reasons – sometimes to reflect a change in community; to honour politicians or local heroes or replace the names of those who have disgraced themselves or fallen from favour; streets are often renamed to recognise international cause celebres, etc etc. But the most widespread changes take place following political regime changes sometimes brought about by war or conflict. This has been the situation through a large part of the African continent following various countries gaining their independence from their colonial ‘masters’. A very high proportion of cities and towns in Russia experienced name changing after the October Revolution of 1917; Polish cities were renamed in 1945 after the end of WWII; in 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, many cities reverted to their original names. Thus Saint Petersburg, a name dating back to 1703, became Petrograd in 1914 then Leningrad in 1924 but finally(?) reverted to Saint Petersburg again in 1991. Sometimes I guess you’d be lucky (Grushyovskaya became Gornoye Grushyovskoye then later became Alexandrovsk-Grushyovsky but now is just plain Shakhty) other times you might not be so fortunate – what was Shakthy is now Gusinoozyorsk! Try saying that when you’ve had one vodka too many!
Sometimes the motivation is language based – for instance the picturesque little south-western town in County Kerry, Ireland, called Dingle (where Ryan’s Daughters was filmed) has recently, “in the interests of protecting and promoting the Irish language” had its name changed by Government to “An Daingean” (pronounced “on dang-un”). Business was furious as the “Dingle brand”, carefully built up over decades, was instantaneously lost. The outcry was so fierce that Kerry Council, who unilaterally changed the name in the first place, is now holding a referendum. As only local government can do, it is giving citizens a simple ‘democratic’ choice. Either “An Daingean” or “Dingle-Daingean ui Chuis”! One local describes the situation as “political correctness gone nuts”!
Some name changes are strictly commercial. “Hot Springs” in New Mexico changed its name to “Truth or Consequences” when the host of a radio show of that name announced that he would broadcast the show from the first place that changed its name to that of the show; “Halfway”, Oregon accepted money to change its name to match the web-site “Half.com” and Buffalo, Texas has changed its name more than once in support of neighbouring Dallas’ football team - from Buffalo to “Blue Star, Texas and five years later to “Green Star, Texas! Don’t ask!
The effect of name changing is of course not that dramatic to people without a direct link to the place. Can’t remember world riots about Upper Volta’s change to Burkina Faso; the Gold Coast to Ghana; Ceylon to Sri Lanka; Siam to Thailand; Peking to Beijing; Calcutta to Kolkata; Bombay to Mumbai! But then we don’t hear much about the debates that might have taken place in those places in the build up to the change, if anything.
There is of course legislation that is supposed to provide direction at all three levels of government. The following are the criteria adopted by the Joburg Metro for the allocation of names to new and existing public places, streets and townships, criteria which are in line with the policy of the National Place Names Committee:
1. There should be no duplication or near duplication of already approved names in the City of Joburg; Names of which the spelling or pronunciation is so close to existing names that it may result in confusion should be avoided;
2. The names of well Known places in other countries and names of countries should be avoided;
3. The names should not be too long or clumsy;
4. The name should not be offensive to any community or section of the community, blasphemous, indecent, offensive, vulgar or ugly;
5. The names should promote goodwill and reconciliation;
6. The names may be in any of the eleven official languages;
7. The names shall assist in building a sense of ownership and community;
8. The names shall be in keeping with the theme of the area;
9. The names should not be discriminatory or derogatory in terms of race, colour, religion, sex, political affiliation or other social factors;
10. Names of living persons should be avoided; unless in exceptional circumstances, with the approval of full Council;
11. No street shall be named after a practicing councillor or politician;
12. Names should not be used which could be regarded as an advertisement for a specific product, service or company;
13. The name is seen to increase the marketing potential and investment attractiveness of the area.
14. Names promote the character of the area.
That name changes will start accelerating in our country during the next few years (and that the changes will be fiercely contested) are givens. We recently had the OR Tambo hassle, the Tshwane issue seems to still not be fully resolved (or the geographic extent of the name not fully understood); there is major niggle in Ethekwini and now anger, graffiti and defaced name signs accompany the changes in in Potchefstroom whilst Louis Trichardt/Makhado goes through a roller-coaster ride from one name to the other and back again!
So the ‘Comment’ in the Star of July 3rd “Name-change process not open” by Sonwabile Mancotywa,, CEO of the National Heritage Council of SA, came as a welcome voice of reason. Mancotywa suggests that we have at least progressed from debating the necessity of change to the choice of name to be honoured or erased. I think he is correct, though I suspect that there remain many hard-liners who haven’t yet accepted the necessity for change – as he rightly points out with such people it isn’t the process they are fighting, it is the actual names being ‘imposed’ on them. Nevertheless, they are in the minority and, over time, will be overtaken by what is right.
But he succinctly spells out the fundamental issue that lies behind our name-changing – “The choice of names that were either selected or omitted for public entities is indicative of South Africa’s ghastly past. Africans were largely excluded and some names were downright offensive towards them. The few African place-names selected were misspelt and thus distorted of their meaning. This simply added further insult. It showed total lack of respect for the humanity of Africans. That was not surprising, as apartheid rested on the idea that Africans were sub-human. Name-changes therefore seek to restore that dignity by affirming that Africans too, like any peoples anywhere in the world, have a history and historical figures that need recognition. They are not invisible or without any past to speak of. Whites are part of this society and its history. Addressing the injury of Africans, therefore, ought to not make Africans insensitive to the anxieties of their white counterparts. After all, we have committed ourselves to building a united and non-racial society, where each individual and community counts equally.”
Quite rightly, Mancotywa points out that official national guidelines regarding name changing just don’t go deep enough and are focused on procedures without providing criteria for putting on or taking off. Councils can put forward name changes, set up consultative fora and, provided it can’t be proved that ‘sufficient consultation’ did not take place, can go ahead with the changes. The four criteria he recommends are as follows:
1. Whites need to recognise the pain caused by the exclusive, offensive and distorted African place names.
2. The choice of place-names should be guided by our founding values and African identity – place names that violate national values must be erased and not be selected for future use.
3. Events or entities that appeal to us all and that affirm our commonality.
4. New names should extend beyond political personalities. Our past is full of sports-persons, musicians, clergy and community activists that symbolise our values and have a cross-cutting appeal.
I like all of that but would go just a bit further. Firstly, the reasons for the promotion of specific new names at the expense of others should be clearly enunciated – some of the reasons for erasure may well cause hurt in certain sectors of our citizens but will often be the exact reason that causes hurt to those that want the name erased. Honesty is the only way to forge the future and we are all guilty of poor and often inaccurate communication, local authorities in particular. Carefully considered and communicated name changing, given our particular circumstances, can well be a positive force for nation-building and not divisive. Many of us may not even know of the person whose name is to be celebrated. Local authorities should be duty bound to provide a detailed balanced history of the person and their accomplishments so that we may ourselves develop a pride in being associated with the name of that person – the media should be used to explain the rationale and everything possible done to ensure that the people effected by the change at least understand the justification for the change. Another criteria should be an appropriateness between the stature of the person and the scale of the place being renamed - an alleyway in Hillbrow or Braamfontein should not bear the name of one of the country’s great heroes!
The Vienna Memorandum on “World Heritage and Contemporary Architecture – Managing the Historic Urban Landscape” adopted by UNESCO doesn’t directly deal with name changing but has some sensible approaches that we could interpolate from, ie “the future of our historic landscape calls for mutual understanding between policy makers, urban planners, city developers, architects, conservationists, property owners, investors and concerned citizens, working together to preserve the urban heritage while considering the modernisation and development of society in a culturally and historic sensitive manner, strengthening identity and social cohesion. Taking into account the emotional connection between human beings and their environment, their sense of place, it is fundamental to guarantee an urban environmental quality of living to contribute to the economic success of a city and to its social and cultural vitality.”
I suggest that appropriate naming is very much a part of that success and social and cultural vitality, cheers, neil
What’s in a name?
When I wrote about the possible Portuguese background to the name ‘Johannesburg’ last week I was sharing from Niel Hirschson’s “The Naming of Johannesburg” and not really thinking about name changes to our towns, cities and streets per se. Since then I have read a number of articles about this controversial issue, and, as I’m still confined to bed, have had some time to try to get my mind around it.
Name changes are nothing new, they happen for a variety of reasons – sometimes to reflect a change in community; to honour politicians or local heroes or replace the names of those who have disgraced themselves or fallen from favour; streets are often renamed to recognise international cause celebres, etc etc. But the most widespread changes take place following political regime changes sometimes brought about by war or conflict. This has been the situation through a large part of the African continent following various countries gaining their independence from their colonial ‘masters’. A very high proportion of cities and towns in Russia experienced name changing after the October Revolution of 1917; Polish cities were renamed in 1945 after the end of WWII; in 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, many cities reverted to their original names. Thus Saint Petersburg, a name dating back to 1703, became Petrograd in 1914 then Leningrad in 1924 but finally(?) reverted to Saint Petersburg again in 1991. Sometimes I guess you’d be lucky (Grushyovskaya became Gornoye Grushyovskoye then later became Alexandrovsk-Grushyovsky but now is just plain Shakhty) other times you might not be so fortunate – what was Shakthy is now Gusinoozyorsk! Try saying that when you’ve had one vodka too many!
Sometimes the motivation is language based – for instance the picturesque little south-western town in County Kerry, Ireland, called Dingle (where Ryan’s Daughters was filmed) has recently, “in the interests of protecting and promoting the Irish language” had its name changed by Government to “An Daingean” (pronounced “on dang-un”). Business was furious as the “Dingle brand”, carefully built up over decades, was instantaneously lost. The outcry was so fierce that Kerry Council, who unilaterally changed the name in the first place, is now holding a referendum. As only local government can do, it is giving citizens a simple ‘democratic’ choice. Either “An Daingean” or “Dingle-Daingean ui Chuis”! One local describes the situation as “political correctness gone nuts”!
Some name changes are strictly commercial. “Hot Springs” in New Mexico changed its name to “Truth or Consequences” when the host of a radio show of that name announced that he would broadcast the show from the first place that changed its name to that of the show; “Halfway”, Oregon accepted money to change its name to match the web-site “Half.com” and Buffalo, Texas has changed its name more than once in support of neighbouring Dallas’ football team - from Buffalo to “Blue Star, Texas and five years later to “Green Star, Texas! Don’t ask!
The effect of name changing is of course not that dramatic to people without a direct link to the place. Can’t remember world riots about Upper Volta’s change to Burkina Faso; the Gold Coast to Ghana; Ceylon to Sri Lanka; Siam to Thailand; Peking to Beijing; Calcutta to Kolkata; Bombay to Mumbai! But then we don’t hear much about the debates that might have taken place in those places in the build up to the change, if anything.
There is of course legislation that is supposed to provide direction at all three levels of government. The following are the criteria adopted by the Joburg Metro for the allocation of names to new and existing public places, streets and townships, criteria which are in line with the policy of the National Place Names Committee:
1. There should be no duplication or near duplication of already approved names in the City of Joburg; Names of which the spelling or pronunciation is so close to existing names that it may result in confusion should be avoided;
2. The names of well Known places in other countries and names of countries should be avoided;
3. The names should not be too long or clumsy;
4. The name should not be offensive to any community or section of the community, blasphemous, indecent, offensive, vulgar or ugly;
5. The names should promote goodwill and reconciliation;
6. The names may be in any of the eleven official languages;
7. The names shall assist in building a sense of ownership and community;
8. The names shall be in keeping with the theme of the area;
9. The names should not be discriminatory or derogatory in terms of race, colour, religion, sex, political affiliation or other social factors;
10. Names of living persons should be avoided; unless in exceptional circumstances, with the approval of full Council;
11. No street shall be named after a practicing councillor or politician;
12. Names should not be used which could be regarded as an advertisement for a specific product, service or company;
13. The name is seen to increase the marketing potential and investment attractiveness of the area.
14. Names promote the character of the area.
That name changes will start accelerating in our country during the next few years (and that the changes will be fiercely contested) are givens. We recently had the OR Tambo hassle, the Tshwane issue seems to still not be fully resolved (or the geographic extent of the name not fully understood); there is major niggle in Ethekwini and now anger, graffiti and defaced name signs accompany the changes in in Potchefstroom whilst Louis Trichardt/Makhado goes through a roller-coaster ride from one name to the other and back again!
So the ‘Comment’ in the Star of July 3rd “Name-change process not open” by Sonwabile Mancotywa,, CEO of the National Heritage Council of SA, came as a welcome voice of reason. Mancotywa suggests that we have at least progressed from debating the necessity of change to the choice of name to be honoured or erased. I think he is correct, though I suspect that there remain many hard-liners who haven’t yet accepted the necessity for change – as he rightly points out with such people it isn’t the process they are fighting, it is the actual names being ‘imposed’ on them. Nevertheless, they are in the minority and, over time, will be overtaken by what is right.
But he succinctly spells out the fundamental issue that lies behind our name-changing – “The choice of names that were either selected or omitted for public entities is indicative of South Africa’s ghastly past. Africans were largely excluded and some names were downright offensive towards them. The few African place-names selected were misspelt and thus distorted of their meaning. This simply added further insult. It showed total lack of respect for the humanity of Africans. That was not surprising, as apartheid rested on the idea that Africans were sub-human. Name-changes therefore seek to restore that dignity by affirming that Africans too, like any peoples anywhere in the world, have a history and historical figures that need recognition. They are not invisible or without any past to speak of. Whites are part of this society and its history. Addressing the injury of Africans, therefore, ought to not make Africans insensitive to the anxieties of their white counterparts. After all, we have committed ourselves to building a united and non-racial society, where each individual and community counts equally.”
Quite rightly, Mancotywa points out that official national guidelines regarding name changing just don’t go deep enough and are focused on procedures without providing criteria for putting on or taking off. Councils can put forward name changes, set up consultative fora and, provided it can’t be proved that ‘sufficient consultation’ did not take place, can go ahead with the changes. The four criteria he recommends are as follows:
1. Whites need to recognise the pain caused by the exclusive, offensive and distorted African place names.
2. The choice of place-names should be guided by our founding values and African identity – place names that violate national values must be erased and not be selected for future use.
3. Events or entities that appeal to us all and that affirm our commonality.
4. New names should extend beyond political personalities. Our past is full of sports-persons, musicians, clergy and community activists that symbolise our values and have a cross-cutting appeal.
I like all of that but would go just a bit further. Firstly, the reasons for the promotion of specific new names at the expense of others should be clearly enunciated – some of the reasons for erasure may well cause hurt in certain sectors of our citizens but will often be the exact reason that causes hurt to those that want the name erased. Honesty is the only way to forge the future and we are all guilty of poor and often inaccurate communication, local authorities in particular. Carefully considered and communicated name changing, given our particular circumstances, can well be a positive force for nation-building and not divisive. Many of us may not even know of the person whose name is to be celebrated. Local authorities should be duty bound to provide a detailed balanced history of the person and their accomplishments so that we may ourselves develop a pride in being associated with the name of that person – the media should be used to explain the rationale and everything possible done to ensure that the people effected by the change at least understand the justification for the change. Another criteria should be an appropriateness between the stature of the person and the scale of the place being renamed - an alleyway in Hillbrow or Braamfontein should not bear the name of one of the country’s great heroes!
The Vienna Memorandum on “World Heritage and Contemporary Architecture – Managing the Historic Urban Landscape” adopted by UNESCO doesn’t directly deal with name changing but has some sensible approaches that we could interpolate from, ie “the future of our historic landscape calls for mutual understanding between policy makers, urban planners, city developers, architects, conservationists, property owners, investors and concerned citizens, working together to preserve the urban heritage while considering the modernisation and development of society in a culturally and historic sensitive manner, strengthening identity and social cohesion. Taking into account the emotional connection between human beings and their environment, their sense of place, it is fundamental to guarantee an urban environmental quality of living to contribute to the economic success of a city and to its social and cultural vitality.”
I suggest that appropriate naming is very much a part of that success and social and cultural vitality, cheers, neil
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