“You are now entering an Urban Renewal area” proclaim the billboards sprinkled across Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain — Cape Town’s apartheid dormitory towns for African and coloured workers. Yellow urban renewal flags mark many of the new buildings and construction sites.
President Thabo Mbeki launched the Urban Renewal Programme (URP) in 2001 to target development in the eight urban areas with the highest poverty levels in South Africa. Last year R242-million from national, provincial and municipal coffers was spent on the programme. Approximately R200-million will be invested in Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain this financial year.
There has been visible progress. Khayelitsha’s new court marks the first step towards developing a central business district with a shopping centre. The swimming pool bordering the court’s sandy impromptu parking lot is the home of Khayelitsha’s life-saving club. Next door the cricket oval is being watered furiously. Across the road the social services office is already open and a municipal office with a home affairs unit will soon be completed.
Houses and sports facilities are being built in both townships. The Swartklip sports ground, straddling the historically racially separated areas, is touted as a unifying force.
The Mitchells Plain taxi ranks and rail connections, used daily by more than 75Â 000 commuters, are currently being upgraded. The construction of two Khayelitsha railway stations will get under way in mid-2004.
And money is being spent on what officials call “quick win” projects: in 2003 HIV/Aids-awareness programmes reached 8Â 000 youths, while 120 HIV-positive mothers generated income of R194Â 000 through projects based at Khayelitsha clinics. Recent bush-clearing and street-cleaning initiatives cut across township boundaries, improving the quality of life for residents.
But scratch the surface and many old challenges remain.
On one side of the road bulldozers prepare the ground for the next phase of the Kuyasa housing development, an urban renewal anchor project. On the other side dozens of shacks have sprung up, just as fast as the formal houses can be built.
“I want my own place,” said Kwanele Mpoki (27) as he hammered nails into his tin roof. He lives with the constant fear of criminals stealing his meagre possessions, and of being removed by the council. “But if I could get a house there…” he said wistfully, looking across the road and bulldozers to the multi-coloured brick houses.
Altogether 2Â 500 families have already moved into new homes in Kuyasa and another 2 300 will soon follow.
When Mbeki announced the eight urban and 13 development nodes in 2001, the aim was to pull together all spheres of government to coordinate poverty reduction, service delivery and local economic development while at the same time build social cohesion.
In addition to Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain, there are nodes in Alexandra (Johannesburg), Galeshewe (Kimberly), KwaMashu and Inanda (Durban) and Mdantsane and Motherwell in the Eastern Cape.
But it has taken longer than expected to get officialdom on board.
Local and provincial authorities are meant to drive urban renewal, but coordination between them and national government has been problematic as has the lack of skills, particularly at council level.
The 350 projects proposed initially were whittled down to 234 and then 177. But, says Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi, these are all viable and sustainable with a positive impact on communities.
It has been easier to get projects off the ground, for example, in Alexandra because the Johannesburg metropole is better organised than smaller, poorly skilled councils.
The appointment of Cabinet ministers as political champions alongside mayors and provincial representatives has helped speed up implementation, but concerns remain over the lacklustre participation of provincial champions.
There are other challenges: financing protocols will be in place later this year, as will be a uniform monitoring protocol for the monitoring and evaluation unit. Legislation governing inter-governmental relations is pending.
“Everybody is learning by doing,” Mufamadi told the Mail & Guardian. “The success of what we are going to achieve will be held out as lessons in other programmes.”
Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain showcase difficulties, ranging from questionable population statistics, which determine resource allocation, to the political will to implement projects.
Officially there are 329Â 005 residents in Khayelitsha and 289Â 554 in Mitchells Plain. But community workers scoff at these estimates and put the numbers at almost a million in Mitchells Plain and between 800Â 000 and one million in Khayelitsha.
Politically, there was buy-in to the national programme only after the African National Congress/New National Party pact gained control of the Cape Town council after a round of floor-crossing in late 2001.
Prior to this the Democratic Alliance had its own alternative renewal projects. A key test of the political will to implement the programme is the ability to make a success of the DA-sponsored Look-Out Hill, the R8,3-million boardwalk and tourist centre, which still stands deserted.
Until recently politicking has also affected both the Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain development forums, community representative bodies in the URP. Some community-linked tensions remain. One source of tension is the Mitchells Plain Promenade shopping centre, which Mbeki visited during his August presidential imbizo in the Western Cape.
The Mitchells Plain Development Forum, an umbrella body of local organisations, claims a group of businessmen who formed the Mitchell’s Plain Industrial Trust had “hijacked” the project and excluded locals from labour and procurement opportunities.
While urban renewal is clearly making a mark in Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain and bringing in private investment, these gains appear to be swallowed up by social ills like gangsterism and unemployment.
Census 2001 statistics reflect some worrying trends. Unemployment in Ward 98, which includes the Harare and Kuyasa areas, has increased by 184% since 1996.
In 1996 there were just 16 formal houses in the ward. Today there are 3Â 525. Yet the number of informal houses has not decreased proportionately. In fact, the number of shacks has dropped by just 32 since 1996.
In Ward 79, surrounding the Mitchells Plain town centre, the breakdown of the historical divides between the two towns is clear: the number of African residents has increased by 419% since 1996.
Perhaps this is where the hope lies. Ultimately the aim is to integrate both Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain so that areas seen as Cape Town’s stepchildren can grow into sites of viable work and economic opportunities.