Speech by the Executive Mayor of Cape Town, Alderman
Patricia de Lille, at the opening of the SA Cities’
Network’s Strategic Session
The Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Richard
Baloyi;
The Deputy Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs,
Yunus Carrim;
The Deputy Minister of Public Works, Jeremy Cronin;
The Deputy Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, Lechesa
Tsenoli;
The Chairperson of the South African Cities Network, Parks Tau;
Mayors;
National, Provincial and Local Government Officials;
Members of Academia;
Assembled dignitaries;
Honoured guests;
Ladies and gentlemen;
Good morning, goeiedag, molweni.
It is my pleasure to welcome you to Cape Town today, and an honour to
host the South African Cities Network’s (SACN’s) Strategic Conversation,
as well as the celebration of the organisation’s 10th year.
It is a privilege to have the leading thinkers, innovators and frontrunners
in city strategies and development issues, from both within the country
and abroad, assembled here today.
I believe that the dialogue space provided by the SACN is needed now
more than ever. The challenges that South African cities face are
immense.
We still live with the legacies of the Apartheid spatial planning that
divided our cities, and this has created artificially separated communities
with differing levels of amenities and services.
This is to say nothing of the fundamental injustices embodied in those
divisions and the communities affected.
But, in addition to that legacy, and in certain ways tied to it, we face
other challenges.
These include the scale of the public transportation investment we need
to make in order to bring people together, a decades-long backlog of
infrastructure provision and the full range of socio-economic challenges
that are the result of our history and our public policy choices towards
economic growth in the past few years.
This is in addition to the range of factors that affect all cities, especially
those in the developing world, such as climate change, urbanisation
pressures, and changing trade relationships.
But I believe that just as the challenges facing South African cities are
immense, so too are the opportunities.
South Africa, in its democratic form, is a relatively young place compared
to most other nations.
This being said, an idea of even greater novelty is the South African city.
While we have had these places called ‘cities’ for decades, their
consolidated form is really only a few years old.
And, as I am sure the people in this chamber can agree, the legislative
approach to these cities continues to evolve.
And so, in an era where there appears to be wide-spread academic
consensus that there is global reorientation towards cities as the drivers
of growth, South Africa once again sits at history’s door.
The old economic forces dictated by national trade relationships are
shifting towards more direct relationships between city-regions.
While cities have always been historic anchors of culture, growth and
trade, they have become concentrated points of energy that become
denser in time, and increasingly inter-linked by their expanding circles of
influence.
This is an accelerated shift that is made remarkable in the twenty-first
century by the universal application of this trend.
It is not a South African, Brazilian, or Chinese phenomenon for instance.
It is a global phenomenon.
And given the increased opportunities for accelerated growth in the
developing world, it is causing an historic shift in the traditional balance of
economic and social power.
And so I believe that we in South Africa are on the edge of history.
We are still busy with a number of outstanding questions directly
concerning the nature of cities and the relationships with other spheres of
government and the rest of society.
Indeed, we have a particular constitutional structure that enjoins us to be
governed according to different spheres.
But as we awaken to the idea of cities as anchor tenants of the country,
we have to re-evaluate the nature of cities’ relationships with Stateowned Enterprises, for instance, and other determinants of growth within
our boundaries.
This includes the legislation governing service delivery, components of
which demand review.
Furthermore, we also have to consider the outcomes we wish to reach as
cities.
Do we want to play our part in the roll-out of infrastructure, which has
been made a national priority?
Do we want to truly assume full responsibility as the drivers of economic
and social development in our borders, as the Constitution enjoins us?
If we answer yes to these questions, we have to consider what tools we
need to fulfil our mandate.
This is the importance I see in engagements such as these.
In conclusion, I hope our deliberations here help us find a common and
consistent approach to the challenges we face.
And moreover, I hope we can find where we can agree on common areas
for change.
Once again, I welcome you here to the Mother City, the proud host of this
historic engagement, and wish that you truly feel welcome here.
Thank you.