Waterfall City, a smart city in Johannesburg, has emerged as the continent's fastest-growing mixed-use lifestyle precinct. Photographer: Waldo Swiegers/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The cities in which we live today cannot see their edges. Citizens in the centre, the suburbs, and the outskirts are out of sight of one another. The 15-minute city is a different kind of place, instead of endless horizons, it represents compact neighbourhoods as the theatre for urban life. The 15-minute city is an emerging model from the urban global discourse conceived by Carlos Moreno, professor at Pantheon-Sorbonne University, and was first piloted by the City of Paris in 2016. In this model, Moreno proposes an urban setup where all the primary urban services and amenities are accessed by walking within a timeframe of not more than 15 minutes. The concept is hyper-literal, meaning that people need not conduct all their activities within a 15-minute walk. The preferable mode of transport concerning this model is soft mobility, that is cycling and walking. With every aspect of the city organised in a 15-minute radius, Moreno opines that urban residents would have sufficient time for themselves, and for building and cultivating stronger social relationships, leading to more livable cities. However, this has not been possible in current urban setups, because people are trapped in traffic and the placement of critical infrastructure like road networks has always been in favour of vehicular flow, rather than humans. This results in only a few cities dedicating lanes for cyclists or walking paths. Four principles make up a 15-minute city and these are proximity, density, diversity, and digitisation. This paper intends to explore how Waterfall City, through the four principles, has been able to fulfil the 15-minute city building blocks.
The proximity dimension focuses on ensuring that urban residents can access urban services and amenities quickly, without spending money on travel and without having to spend unwarranted time in traffic. Furthermore, the proximity aspect enables residents to not only access services and amenities but also has much influence on how they can take care of themselves in areas like health and recreational activities. Through the proximity dimension, there can be a subtle reduction of vehicles in urban areas. Density is also regarded as a pivotal aspect in the fulfilment of the concept, particularly in actualising proximity. Density refers to the number of people that a given neighbourhood can comfortably accommodate without straining or underusing the available resources, infrastructure, and space. One of its benefits is that it enables the concentration of basic amenities within a defined radius, assisting the city to ensure that it is sufficiently equipped. This further assists in achieving an equal distribution of resources, services, and infrastructural development within urban areas. Moreno asserts density is important in solving rampant socio-economic inequalities that bedevil most contemporary urban areas.
Diversity is identified as a crucial principle in 15-minute city building and is understood from both the physical environment and those who occupy the city. Diversity in the physical environment alludes to the aspect of mixed-use neighbourhoods, where basic amenities and services are readily accessible. This means that the neighbourhood should comprise, at the minimum, residential, commercial, government, health, learning, and entertainment components. With those, the residents can comfortably pursue social functions. The second aspect of diversity is neighbourhoods that accommodate and encourage diverse cultures from different backgrounds. Fashioning cities that embrace, facilitate, and encourage cultural diversity has the potential to spur numerous benefits in the social, economic, governance, and other sectors. Digitisation is the last block of the four principles. It is a mandatory element to ensure that digital products such as sensors, cameras, and other devices are used to enhance urban security. Thus, propelling activities such as walking, and cycling into attractive and common practices. Technology further encourages novel construction methods and the use of alternative energies such as solar.
Waterfall City, a smart city in Johannesburg, has emerged as the continent’s fastest-growing mixed-use lifestyle precinct. This smart city, rooted in the core values of connection, commerce, care and community, offers integrated live-work-shop-play environments that are secure, ecologically sensitive, convenient, and easily accessible within a 15-minute radius. As a mixed-use development, it features everything expected from a lively modern city, secure residential estates, and retirement villages to private schools, a hospital, five-star hotels, green spaces, and fitness spaces. Furthermore, with its business parks and office parks, Waterfall City has drawn global attention as a premier destination site for corporations seeking modern and strategically located spaces for their African operations. The city also has a range of dining and entertainment options, including the Mall of Africa, the largest mall on the continent, built in a single phase coupled with a fibre optic and wireless communication network and on-site alternative energy provision.
The year 1994 marked the dawn of a democratic South Africa. One of the issues it ushered in was that of historical urban space misuse. Urban space is a social outcome, the result of a historical process, an unequal accumulation of time, a presupposition, and a milieu of social production. The distinguishing feature of urban space is exclusion, which causes deformity and the disappearance of urban structure. Exclusion has become a permanent visual reality in cities in which walled and gated communities divide the urban tissue and take up a large part of the urban space. However, in the case of Johannesburg, the Waterfall City development has been accessible not only to the residents of the community but to the broader Johannesburg community. The key accessibility enabler of this innovative mixed-use smart city is its accessibility to major road infrastructure. It is positioned halfway between Johannesburg and Pretoria and is interlinked by the N1 and the R55, and from Sandton. It can be accessed through the N1, and the N3. Situated within the triangular area formed by Woodmead, Kyalami, and Midrand, its prime location greatly enhances the attractiveness of this development. Therefore, the city’s landscape has been strategically positioned to enable inclusive access, making it easier for individuals of all social groups to travel in and around the city.
Drawing on the case of Waterfall City and how it has embraced walkable urbanism in mixed-use living reflects proximity within the area. The entire city is integrated and centred around the Mall of Africa. Within the Mall radius, there are six residential estates, including a hospital, a school, and several office parks. The area is referred to as a walkable and bikeable city because it features bicycle racks and pedestrian walkways and one can actively walk and cycle, vehicle use in the city is optional. The city’s density is proportionate to the infrastructure in the smart city. This is to propel efficient use of services and address all the residents’ needs equally. The city’s 10 residential developments house 12 000 residents in close to 6 000 homes. About 26 000 people work in the city, with continuous growth to becoming the new economic hub of South Africa, contributing over R470 million a year in rates and taxes to the City of Johannesburg. Compared to Steyn City, a smart city in the north of Johannesburg, Waterfall City is effectively cultivating sustainable development in an urban environment through dense mixed land use which promotes inclusivity, accessibility, availability, and quality amenities in proximity.
Waterfall City embodies diversity. The city’s corporate campus has attracted a lot of American companies and local blue-chip brands in leading industries including PwC, Cisco, Accenture, and Attacq. Accenture is one of the first companies that moved from Woodmead to Waterfall in 2018, Cisco followed in 2022.
The Mall of Africa has a diverse culinary experience with upscale restaurants and coffee shops and is also home to renowned international brands such as Hugo Boss, Maxhosa, Jo Malone and Emporio Armani. Waterfall boasts a slew of smart buildings and a world-class optic fibre and wireless communication network, with more than 330 km of installed duct infrastructure and 33 cell masts. Safety and security are a prime driver for estate living and Waterfall continues to focus on creating an environment that is safe not only for its residents but for everyone living and working in the city. With a fully integrated security system that includes access control at every residential estate, business park, logistics precinct, and major retail centres, as well as a 24/7 surveillance and reaction service that is supported by a state-of-the-art management office, Waterfall takes its safety procedures seriously.
The primary objective of 15-minute cities has been to create inclusive and economically vibrant urban spaces by reconnecting people to their neighbourhoods and localising city life. The intention has been to bring activities to the neighbourhoods and not people to the activities, to restore the urban planning concept of proximity. Beyond proximity, the other role of 15-minute cities includes an enhanced land-use mix, the optimisation of land use by allowing for multiple functions in one place, and varied and affordable housing options. The envisioned outcome is the development of complete, self-sufficient neighbourhoods that are designed to ensure safe and convenient ways for citizens and visitors to access the amenities they need in daily life. However, many urbanists have interpreted the 15-minute cities framework as exclusionary and spatially fragmented. The exclusionary lens stems from the fact that only a particular social class can afford to live in these cities, leaving the majority trapped in overpopulated peri-urban areas. For example, in the case of Waterfall, the city is targeting South Africa’s middle class. Continuing to scale this model of urban development requires that people from a variety of backgrounds/income levels can live and work in Waterfall. The other criticism of 15-minute cities has been around practicality, that it would be difficult to reorganise cities that are already populated. Charter cities are said to be the ideal cities to propel the 15-minute cities concept. From the above information one can opine that 15-minute cities are not designed to create socially polarised cities but are designed to create inclusive socially rich neighbourhoods.
Hluma Luvo Ralane is the project coordinator for Africa-US City Relations.