Socially Activated, Safe Public Spaces in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa

South African cities, particularly Cape Town and Johannesburg, experience rapid urban growth. The result is often one of insecure living conditions in low income ‘townships’ in urban South Africa coupled with a high crime rate. Less attention is given to the space inbetween buildings or the public space, ensuing ‘left-over’ dangerous urban spaces. This side event presents two case studies in the South African context of Cape Town and Johannesburg. Violence Prevention through Urban Upgrading (VPUU) is a comprehensive area-based community development programme that aims towards safe and integrated sustainable communities, citizenship, pride and the improvement of quality of life for residents in low income neighbourhoods in the Western Cape, South Africa. The presentation expands on experimental learning and real life examples from the VPUU programme reviewing the co-design, coproduction and activation of public space in VPUU Safe Node Areas. A tool kit for socially activated, safe public spaces based on the VPUU Urban Design Guidelines forms the framework for future intervention and training workshops with community, government and stakeholders. The City of Johannesburg through its departments and agencies (Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo; Department of Public Safety and Johannesburg Development Agency) has partnered with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) Inclusive Violence and Crime Prevention Programme (VCP) and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) Global Public Space Programme in initiating a project to demonstrate an integrated approach to public space design and management that involves sector contributions from different city departments as well as engagement with residents and other park users in designing a safe, inclusive and sustainable public space through participatory tools and methods. It seeks to develop a sound governance model for integrated urban development that can be used in the City of Johannesburg and in other cities world-wide.