Creating Integrated Public Spaces
By Ronald Eglin
The creation of good public spaces has huge potential to help us transform our settlements and society.
Public spaces, in the general sense as used in this article, are any spaces (indoors and outdoors) where the public has some form of access. It includes spaces owned by municipalities, such as streets, public car parks, municipal markets, public transport interchanges, municipal and community halls and sports fields, waterfronts, parks, etc.; and owned by various government structures, like school buildings and sports fields, clinics, libraries, post offices, police stations, etc.; as well as spaces owned by the private sector, like churches, shopping centres and sports stadiums.
Public spaces are social spaces; they are the spaces where people interact and mingle with each other. They are spaces where parents socialise and grandparents gossip; where children play, lovers court, and students learn. They are the spaces where communities can celebrate national sporting victories and mourn the passing of a local celebrity.
Public spaces can also contribute to community economic development. If public spaces are good, people will want to be in them; pedestrian activity will be high, with high densities of customers attracting private sector investment into neighbouring properties, thereby further attracting higher pedestrian movement and creating a virtuous circle. Space for smaller informal traders and community projects can also be set aside within these spaces.
Public spaces help neighbourhoods develop a sense of community and identity; they can differentiate one neighbourhood from another. Different spaces can start to reflect the character and identity of the local people who use that space.
Public spaces can significantly help to build bridges between different income, cultural and race groups. If they are strategically located between neighbourhoods and accommodate a range of activities that cater for different tastes and needs, public spaces can help create the rainbow nation we are so proud of.
Public spaces are not living up to this potential. They are often places of grime and crime, where residents are scared to venture. Some public spaces are overcrowded and noisy, others are underused and dangerous. Many actually push private investment away. One public space usually looks just like the next—dreary and boring. Public spaces are often located within a neighbourhood dominated by a specific income or racial group. People from other income and/or racial groups often do not feel ‘welcome’ in such areas. Residents from a higher income area do not feel the need to visit areas frequented by poorer sectors of society. Conversely, the poor also often feel unwelcome in expensive shopping centres and gated communities of the more wealthy.
This article makes two suggestions for how public spaces can be promoted, one at the scale of local blocks and streets, and the other at the scale of broader neighbourhoods.
Local Pocket Parks
In the Xhosa cultural tradition, there are many events marked by households from weddings, funerals, coming of age ceremonies, birthdays, graduations, etc., that usually occur in the (rural) homestead – or Ikhaya - of the affected family. Often tents are erected to accommodate all the people involved. In more urban contexts where space is limited, these events often have to spill over into the street or be moved to a nearby community hall or space that is often not close to the house of the affected family.
Consideration needs to be given to the creation of smaller ‘pocket’ parks that are embedded within neighbourhoods, say every three or four blocks, where such cultural events can take place and where the local neighbourhood can interact. These parks can be used by the local community as an extension of their households. They can be places for children to play and for social interaction. The urban house – or Indlu – can start to become an urban home – Ikhaya – that becomes more than just a building where one stays but becomes a phycoligical space or home where one lives.
Funding for such spaces can be obtained by allocating a small portion of each household’s housing subsidy towards a ‘neighbourhood’ subsidy. In other words, housing (or settlement) projects would include a neighbourhood grant component on top of the existing services and housing components. Where possible the community should decide how to spend this neighbourhood component.
The municipality would be responsible for the maintenance of these spaces in consultation with local residents associations and ward committees. The local community can be drawn in to help secure and maintain these spaces. Pocket parks do not have to be expensive, all that is required to start a pocket park is to set aside some land, plant a few trees and maybe erect a small fence. After all, many local soccer matches rely only on a small piece of open space and a pile of shoes to mark the goal posts.
Neighbourhood Centres
We should be using public spaces to build communities and build settlements. The way that spaces are designed can be used to re-structure settlements. Public spaces should be spaces of integration and not of segregation. They should be spaces where people want to be and feel welcome. As a country we need to invest far more in our public spaces so as to contribute to social cohesion. We can’t use public spaces to force people to be together, but we can use them to make it easier for people to interact.
Neighbourhood centres are destinations where people naturally gather. They do not have to be a single building or a single park. They can be the size of a few blocks where public investment (e.g. in community halls, taxi interchanges, municipal markets, etc.) is focused and crowded into neighbourhoods. Neighbourhood centres are in effect bundles of public (and private) spaces clustered together. These neighbourhood centres can become like a ‘great place’ or an iKomkhulu. In rural areas the Ikomkhulu is the home of the chief and his family, where traditional councils and courts gather and where imbizo’s or general community meetings and celebrations are held. They function as a home for everyone in the village. Ikomkhulu are often located on the edge or beginning (gateway) to a village where outsiders and passersby can access the space. Within neighbourhood centres, halls and open space can be set aside and used for general community meetings – or imbizo’s - and other significant events.
Neighbourhood centres – or great places – need to become destinations where people want to go and be seen. They need to become places where the private sector wants to set up businesses. They are a form of decentralised central business district that is scattered throughout an urban area.
Such ‘great places’ need to be linked into a network of public transport (e.g. bus, train and taxi) routes and nodes, with the interchanges between transport types (e.g. from pedestrian to taxi or from train to bus) providing the pedestrian movement needed for the continued success of such centres. These neighbourhood centres could be located every 700 metres or so, so that residents in the area are able to access a public transport node within an easy walking distance.
Those neighbourhood centres that are promoted need to be those that help integrate rather than separate different neighbourhoods. Neighbourhood centres can become ‘knuckles’ or nodes between previously separated neighbourhoods.
In the past, many neighbourhood centres were located at the centre of a racially or income defined neighbourhood. They were introverted in the sense that they served a specifically defined grouping. The neighbourhood centres of the future need to become more extroverted in nature, drawing their users from a broader catchment of different groupings.
There are some government programmes that look at investment in public spaces, like the Neighbourhood Development Partnership Grant from National Treasury and the Municipal Infrastructure Grant from the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs. The Department of Human Settlements also has its Social and Economic Facilities Grant. There are also a range of other grants from different departments dealing with post offices, parks, taxi and bus interchanges, etc.
The key for using all these grants to restructure our settlements is to ensure that this state investment is crowded into strategically identified focus areas – or neighbourhood centres – thereby creating ‘great places’.
Concepts like business (or neighbourhood) improvement districts, where rates collected from surrounding identified businesses and residents is reinvested in maintaining and improving the public spaces in that area, need to be explored for the management and maintenance of such spaces. Other ideas like twinning ‘higher income’ neighbourhood centres to ‘lower income’ centres should also be explored as a form of income redistribution ensuring that all ‘great places’ – in low and higher income areas - are well maintained.
The creation of good public spaces has huge potential to help us transform our settlements and society.
Public spaces, in the general sense as used in this article, are any spaces (indoors and outdoors) where the public has some form of access. It includes spaces owned by municipalities, such as streets, public car parks, municipal markets, public transport interchanges, municipal and community halls and sports fields, waterfronts, parks, etc.; and owned by various government structures, like school buildings and sports fields, clinics, libraries, post offices, police stations, etc.; as well as spaces owned by the private sector, like churches, shopping centres and sports stadiums.
Public spaces are social spaces; they are the spaces where people interact and mingle with each other. They are spaces where parents socialise and grandparents gossip; where children play, lovers court, and students learn. They are the spaces where communities can celebrate national sporting victories and mourn the passing of a local celebrity.
Public spaces can also contribute to community economic development. If public spaces are good, people will want to be in them; pedestrian activity will be high, with high densities of customers attracting private sector investment into neighbouring properties, thereby further attracting higher pedestrian movement and creating a virtuous circle. Space for smaller informal traders and community projects can also be set aside within these spaces.
Public spaces help neighbourhoods develop a sense of community and identity; they can differentiate one neighbourhood from another. Different spaces can start to reflect the character and identity of the local people who use that space.
Public spaces can significantly help to build bridges between different income, cultural and race groups. If they are strategically located between neighbourhoods and accommodate a range of activities that cater for different tastes and needs, public spaces can help create the rainbow nation we are so proud of.
Public spaces are not living up to this potential. They are often places of grime and crime, where residents are scared to venture. Some public spaces are overcrowded and noisy, others are underused and dangerous. Many actually push private investment away. One public space usually looks just like the next—dreary and boring. Public spaces are often located within a neighbourhood dominated by a specific income or racial group. People from other income and/or racial groups often do not feel ‘welcome’ in such areas. Residents from a higher income area do not feel the need to visit areas frequented by poorer sectors of society. Conversely, the poor also often feel unwelcome in expensive shopping centres and gated communities of the more wealthy.
This article makes two suggestions for how public spaces can be promoted, one at the scale of local blocks and streets, and the other at the scale of broader neighbourhoods.
Local Pocket Parks
In the Xhosa cultural tradition, there are many events marked by households from weddings, funerals, coming of age ceremonies, birthdays, graduations, etc., that usually occur in the (rural) homestead – or Ikhaya - of the affected family. Often tents are erected to accommodate all the people involved. In more urban contexts where space is limited, these events often have to spill over into the street or be moved to a nearby community hall or space that is often not close to the house of the affected family.
Consideration needs to be given to the creation of smaller ‘pocket’ parks that are embedded within neighbourhoods, say every three or four blocks, where such cultural events can take place and where the local neighbourhood can interact. These parks can be used by the local community as an extension of their households. They can be places for children to play and for social interaction. The urban house – or Indlu – can start to become an urban home – Ikhaya – that becomes more than just a building where one stays but becomes a phycoligical space or home where one lives.
Funding for such spaces can be obtained by allocating a small portion of each household’s housing subsidy towards a ‘neighbourhood’ subsidy. In other words, housing (or settlement) projects would include a neighbourhood grant component on top of the existing services and housing components. Where possible the community should decide how to spend this neighbourhood component.
The municipality would be responsible for the maintenance of these spaces in consultation with local residents associations and ward committees. The local community can be drawn in to help secure and maintain these spaces. Pocket parks do not have to be expensive, all that is required to start a pocket park is to set aside some land, plant a few trees and maybe erect a small fence. After all, many local soccer matches rely only on a small piece of open space and a pile of shoes to mark the goal posts.
Neighbourhood Centres
We should be using public spaces to build communities and build settlements. The way that spaces are designed can be used to re-structure settlements. Public spaces should be spaces of integration and not of segregation. They should be spaces where people want to be and feel welcome. As a country we need to invest far more in our public spaces so as to contribute to social cohesion. We can’t use public spaces to force people to be together, but we can use them to make it easier for people to interact.
Neighbourhood centres are destinations where people naturally gather. They do not have to be a single building or a single park. They can be the size of a few blocks where public investment (e.g. in community halls, taxi interchanges, municipal markets, etc.) is focused and crowded into neighbourhoods. Neighbourhood centres are in effect bundles of public (and private) spaces clustered together. These neighbourhood centres can become like a ‘great place’ or an iKomkhulu. In rural areas the Ikomkhulu is the home of the chief and his family, where traditional councils and courts gather and where imbizo’s or general community meetings and celebrations are held. They function as a home for everyone in the village. Ikomkhulu are often located on the edge or beginning (gateway) to a village where outsiders and passersby can access the space. Within neighbourhood centres, halls and open space can be set aside and used for general community meetings – or imbizo’s - and other significant events.
Neighbourhood centres – or great places – need to become destinations where people want to go and be seen. They need to become places where the private sector wants to set up businesses. They are a form of decentralised central business district that is scattered throughout an urban area.
Such ‘great places’ need to be linked into a network of public transport (e.g. bus, train and taxi) routes and nodes, with the interchanges between transport types (e.g. from pedestrian to taxi or from train to bus) providing the pedestrian movement needed for the continued success of such centres. These neighbourhood centres could be located every 700 metres or so, so that residents in the area are able to access a public transport node within an easy walking distance.
Those neighbourhood centres that are promoted need to be those that help integrate rather than separate different neighbourhoods. Neighbourhood centres can become ‘knuckles’ or nodes between previously separated neighbourhoods.
In the past, many neighbourhood centres were located at the centre of a racially or income defined neighbourhood. They were introverted in the sense that they served a specifically defined grouping. The neighbourhood centres of the future need to become more extroverted in nature, drawing their users from a broader catchment of different groupings.
There are some government programmes that look at investment in public spaces, like the Neighbourhood Development Partnership Grant from National Treasury and the Municipal Infrastructure Grant from the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs. The Department of Human Settlements also has its Social and Economic Facilities Grant. There are also a range of other grants from different departments dealing with post offices, parks, taxi and bus interchanges, etc.
The key for using all these grants to restructure our settlements is to ensure that this state investment is crowded into strategically identified focus areas – or neighbourhood centres – thereby creating ‘great places’.
Concepts like business (or neighbourhood) improvement districts, where rates collected from surrounding identified businesses and residents is reinvested in maintaining and improving the public spaces in that area, need to be explored for the management and maintenance of such spaces. Other ideas like twinning ‘higher income’ neighbourhood centres to ‘lower income’ centres should also be explored as a form of income redistribution ensuring that all ‘great places’ – in low and higher income areas - are well maintained.