Greening Nyanga: Developing a Community Park in a Complex Urban Environment in Cape Town, South Africa
Greening Nyanga: Developing a Community Park in a Complex Urban Environment in Cape Town, South Africa
PDFAuthors: Megan Lukas-Sithole
Volume/Issue: Volume 23: Issue 2
Published online: 18 Nov 2020
Pages: 96–100
Abstract
Green, recreational spaces are lacking in most low-income urban areas of Cape Town, South Africa. Public open spaces that do exist are often considered nuisance plots, as they attract anti-social behaviour. Thus, there is a dire need to create green, recreational spaces in such areas to provide the benefits of parks to the community members who live there. Nuisance plots are unsafe and should be developed into safe, convivial, and beautiful spaces for local communities to utilise. Using the development of a community park in the Cape Town township of Nyanga as a case study, this paper demonstrates the communality and contestations involved in the planning and implementation of green infrastructure in an urban landscape marred by socioeconomic inequalities. Sourcing data from nine months of ethnographic fieldwork, this paper aims to i) show the importance of inclusive planning and decision-making through participation of all stakeholders in urban design and spatial planning projects; ii) to highlight the complexities and social contestations of such projects, and the need to consider the social relations of an area during the planning and implementation phases; and iii) to emphasise the importance of incorporating sense of place and belonging in design and planning decisions.
Keywords: community park, inclusive governance, green infrastructure, socioeconomic inequality, place-making
References
AALTO, H. – ERNSTSON, H. 2016. Of plants, high lines and horses: Civic groups and designers in the relational articulation of values of urban natures. In Landscape and Urban Planning, 2016, 157, pp. 309–321.
ARENDSE, W. – PATEL, Z. 2014. No Messing in Bonteheuwel: The role of social capital and partnership building in sustainable community development. In Town and Regional Planning, 2014, 65, pp. 1–11.
AWOTONA, A. – JAPHA, D. – PRINSLOO, I. 1995. Townships in Cape Town: case study area profiles. The Integration and urbanisation of existing townships in the Republic of South Africa, 1995.
BROWN-LUTHANGO, M. – REYES, E. – GUBEVU, M. 2017. Informal settlement upgrading and safety: experiences from Cape Town, South Africa. In Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, vol. 32, 2017, no. 3, pp. 471–493.
CHIESURA, A. 2004. The role of urban parks for the sustainable city. In Landscape and Urban Planning, 2004, no. 68, p. 129–138.
COCKS, M. – ALEXANDER, J. – MOGANO, L. – VETTER, S. 2016. Ways of Belonging: Meanings of “Nature” Among Xhosa-Speaking Township Residents In South Africa. In Journal of Ethnobiology, vol. 36, 2016, no. 4, pp. 820–841.
FAST, H. 1995. Ponooks, Houses, and Hostels: A History of Nyanga 1946–1970, with a Special Focus on Housing. Cape Town : University of Cape Town, 1995.
FIELD, S. 2007. Sites of Memory in Langa. In Field, F. – Meyer, S. – Swanson, R. Imagining the City. Cape Town : HSRC Press, 2007, pp. 21–36.
GANDY, M. 2006. Urban Nature and the Ecological Imaginary. In Heynen, N. – Kaika, M. – Swyngedouw, E. eds. In the Nature of Cities: Urban Political Ecology and the Politics of Urban Metabolism. Oxon : Routeledge, 2006, pp. 63–74.
HALPENNY, E. 2010. Pro-environmental behaviours and park visitors: The effect of place attachment. In Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2010, no. 30, pp. 409–421.
KIL, N. – HOLLAND, S. – STEIN, T. 2014. Place Meanings and Participatory Planning Intentions. In Society & Natural Resources: An International Journal, 2014, pp. 475–491.
LEMANSKI, C. 2017. Unequal citizenship in unequal cities: participatory urban governance in contemporary South Africa. In International Development Planning Review, vol. 39, 2017, no. 1, pp. 15–35.
McFARLANE, C. 2018. Fragment urbanism: politics at the margins of the city. In Environment and planning d: society and space, vol. 36, 2018, no. 6, pp. 1007–1025.
PARNELL, S. – ROBINSON, J. 2012. (Re)theorizing Cities from the Global South : Looking Beyond Neoliberalism. In Urban Geography, vol. 33, 2012, no. 4, pp. 593–617.
PARNELL, S. – WALAWEGE, R. 2011. Sub-Saharan African urbanisation and global environmental change. In Global Environmental Change, 2011, 21, pp. S12–S20.
UN-HABITAT. 2014. The State of African Cities 2014: Re-imagining sustainable urban transitions. Nairobi : United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), 2014.
VENTER, Z. – SHACKLETON, C. – VAN STADEN, F. – SELOMANE, O. – MASTERSON, V. 2020. Green Apartheid: Urban green infrastructure remains unequally distributed across income and race geographies in South Africa. In Landscape and Urban Planning, 2020, no. 23, pp. 1–12.
WILSON, J. – PEREIRA, T. 2012. Water demand management‘s shadow side: Tackling inequality and scarcity of water provision in Cape Town. Cape Town : Environmental Monitoring Group, 2012.