Citichat February 2009

6 February 2009


City’s Readiness for 2010


I took a small group of folk on a tour of the inner city last Saturday. Must say that they were all tremendously impressed at the changes that have taken place over the past five years or so. However they kept asking me why there were still what clearly were ‘sinkholes’ (really bad buildings) that are allowed to exist in many places in the city, the proliferation of signs and giant billboards on buildings mostly advertising liquor, the chaotic conditions around Joubert Park  (we went to look at the Rea Vaya station prototype), the blatant law-breaking by taxis and the complete absence of the JPMD (this was before the JMPD strike had started!). It’s actually good for me to see the city through other people’s eyes from time to time – one gets so used to certain unacceptable issues that, after a long while, they tend to blend into the background, and you start accepting that this is the normal standard!  
However, as our combi tried to force its way via one of the link roads from Claim into Troye to see the pilot Rea Vaya station, I started to wonder what this area would look like in the now less tha 500 days to the big event. Troye Street is a solid column of frenzy and chaos as combi-taxis dodge, wriggle and shove their way noisily northwards trying to miss the intersecting traffic and the constant stream of pedestrians dodging around and through the traffic. The street has some buildings in awful shape on its eastern edge and the pavements are crowded confusingly with hawkers. It is excitingly chaotic on the one hand and thoroughy depressing, and somewhat intimidating, on the other. The same applies to the southward traffic down King George Street on the western side of Joubert Park. The railway embankments on the south of the Art gallery look like permanent tip sites.  
A drive through central Hillbrow added to my concern regarding the city and its residents’ readiness for the hordes that apparently will descend on us for the World Cup. The new pavements are gritty from a million feet a day nd should be pressure washed once a week at least and the new lights are already being covered in posters. The Centre City upgraded areas in the Central, South Western, Mining and Financial and Newtown areas, ie the central, west and south western sections of the city, are in good shape (except for their pavements and lack of signage) and, provided they are adequately and visibly policed will handle the onslaught. I do trust that we are going to have every street adequately signposted. 
I was interviewed during the week by a journalist who wants to do a series of articles for his Irish newspaper on what their football followers should be going to see when they are here and not watching the game. We discussed a variety of options but I started wondering if we are going to have more integrated offerings and ‘special deals’. For instance if you decide to watch a game on the big-screen on Mary Fitzgerald Square, will the local restaurants, which are many and varied, be selling their wares around the Square, will there be organised entertainment, maybe some decent flea markets so that the visitor or “watcher-on-the-square” can get a ‘holistic’ (hate that word!) day or half-a-day entertainment. Will there be special entry prices and packages for visitors to Museum Africa, the Workers Library and Museum, maybe Sci-Bono, the Art Gallery (back to Joubert Park), the Constitutional Court, etc. Are we training articulate guides to walk people around Newtown, up Main Street to Gandhi Square with all its side streets to show off the Rand Club (will they be allowing visitors to come into there famous bar for an ale?) the Guildhall, Gandhi Square – each with their own unique history? Are we producing maps that are visitor friendly showing coffee shops, restaurants and more important watering holes (and toilets!) and maybe night-clubs where you can or shouldn’t  go? Are we producing maps that provide information on some of our more important political buildings with short histories? Can they walk through parts of the Legislature?  Is there going to be someone charged with training the folk at Kwa Mai Mai and Faraday muthi market that visitors are important to us and to put up with being photographed instead of swearing and chasing away tourists? After all, what a market for their home brewed Viagra!   I really hope someone is masterminding  what I would call “Inner City 2010”. If this is all happening, great! If it isn’t we have surely got a great deal to do – I fear it is the latter as I have seen or heard absolutely nothing in the media. In fact I phoned one obvious target for the soccer visitor to find out if they were having special entry fees and they laughed. Because they sell a product in opposition to one of the major sponsors, they are still trying to find out if they will be allowed to be open! They’ve been asking for over a year! If they aren’t then the city will lose one of its attractions. Well, time is short, we’re on the wrong side of 500 days and it doesn’t take 5 minutes to train city guides and plan a welcoming and organised inner city.      
Going back to my group last Saturday, so much of what they asked about related to the complete lack of bylaw enforcement. “Well” they said, “if the bylaws are clearly not being implemented, why don’t you take the matter further – somewhere up the line?” The problem of course is that there is no re-action when one goes up the line! One of the participants wrote me a thank you note and included the following comment:  
“It is a great pity that all the hard work that has been put into the area is being constantly hindered and undermined by the Johannesburg Metro Police not coming to the table and pulling their weight.  The lack of law enforcement and visible policing is
clearly noticeable as during the four hour tour, we did not encounter any foot patrols or metro police vehicles at all.  Although you explained briefly what the current situation is with the Metro Police Department, I still believe this can be addressed through greater pressure from the public, businesses and from those who have invested a large amount of time and effort to fight urban decay and revitalize the CBD.”
Well, I wish that this was the case, but the situation has been allowed to get out of hand to the extent that I really wonder if it is salvageable. How is it possible for a vital service such as JMPD to get into such a deplorable mess? Last year there was the “shootout” between SAPS and JMPD and we still haven’t heard the results of the investigation. Now we have a strike of JMPD officers who for the first time in their lives seemed to be applyiong zero-tolerance, not at the application of the law, but at their Chief!  
As part of the run-up to the Inner City Summit now a couple of years back, we were asked to do a perception survey on a number of issues and JMPD proved to be seen as the most ineffective service in Council. But nothing happens! We hear of training courses but attitudes don’t change. We hear of zero tolerance but it appears focused on drivers using cellphones and even then……! 
For me the worst example of their “I’m alright Jack came late last year. There have been many, many complaints for years now about the lack of on the spot traffic control in the city that allows taxis in particular to jump robots and block the traffic in the other direction which becomes even worse when the traffic lights are down.  In the northern suburbs, JMPD has condescended to allow a private company to provide traffic wardens to work at busy intersections at peak hours or to take over when traffic lights fail. They do a great job and are friendly, smiling and efficient. 
I was approached by a person who wanted to do the same for the inner city 0- he could do exactly the same service that was being provided in the northern suburbs throughout the inner city – provide as many as a thousand folk who could be  trained by the JMPD and it would cost them nothing. The answer was, “no thanks, we don’t have a problem in the inner city”   
When I was at school, admittedly a long, long time ago, I distinctly remember that at every assembly the headmaster would talk about the perception of the school resting on just one boy. That boy would inevitably be someone in school uniform who had not offered his seat to an adult on the bus or train. If that happened, he thundered every week, the name of the school would be damned! The reverse of that story unfortunately doesn’t work. The perception that most people have of the JMPD is that they are generally useless – yes, once in a while someone writes to the media giving thanks to an officer who has provided assistance beyond the call of duty, or we hear of some special heroism that we all laud and are thankful for, but these rare and intermittent shining examples do not have the effect of covering the entire force with glory! The inner city, in particular, has suffered from years of lack of adequate enforcement, maybe, just maybe, someone is going to investigate the current complains of corruption, nepotism, favouritism etc etc and start building a force the citizen’s can be proud of and who are proud of their own achievements. A great city shouldn’t settle for less! 
My other bit of news is that my wife and I have decided, after months of debating, to move to the little town of Montagu for our ‘twilight years”. It is a big wrench because Johannesburg has become so much part of me over the last quarter of a century, but I will be hitting my three-score-years-and-ten shortly and want the time and peace to be able to do some serious writing about my favourite city, Johannesburg, warts and all. So, I am not retiring (I’m not the retiring type and believe that even the word is of colonial origin!), will be retaining my business interest and will be visiting Jozi on a monthly basis. After next week, Citichat will come out on a monthly basis, the first ‘monthly’ being in March. 
All the best, neil 
Neil Fraser is a partner in Neil Fraser & Associates which trades as ‘Urban Inc.’ an urban consultancy dedicated to the revitalisation and regeneration of cities and of the inner city of Johannesburg in particular. He can be contacted at (083) 456 0242 or (011) 444 4895 or by e-mail at neil@urbaninc.co.za   Views and opinions expressed in Citichat are not necessarily those of Urban Inc. 
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WALKING TOUR ‘BRAAMFONTEIN RIDGE’


SATURDAY, 7th FEBRUARY


Explore the forgotten buildings which adorn what was once government ridge.  Institutions yes, but boring they are not.  From the Children’s Memorial Institute with its tiny Jewish and Christian chapels and the touching Memorial Hall honouring the soldiers of the Transvaal who died in World War 1 to the colonnade of the Measles Ward which is now a lively veranda for Braampark.  Daisy de Melker’s ghost glides through the wards, but after dark when we will not be looking!  It’s uphill work with a fine view at the top.  Meet William Gaul and Val Hammerton at 14h00 and park at the Children’s Memorial Institute (Gate 13), corner Joubert Street and Empire Road.  The cost is R55 for members and R75 for non-members – booking is at Computicket.  For information telephone Eira Bond (weekdays 9 am – 1.00 pm) on (011) 482-3349