Magpie Vol 5

70 VOL 1. NOVEMBER 2012

“The CID (City Improvement District) model in Cape Town is explicitly not a

privatisation model. The CCID does not substitute

the role of the City of Cape Town, but provides complementary ‘top-up’

services, funded through an additional levy on property

owners.” – Cape Town Partnership, September

2009.

agenda

VOL 1. 71 NOVEMBER 2012

BRIAN DAVIDS, 64, was born in District Six in 1948. He is studying a newspaper with several black-and-white photographs on the front page. In one, there is a plain block building he identi-fies as the old washhouse. In another, there are two children smiling on the steps of St. Mark’s Church. It is fitting that these images are in news-print monochrome.

“District Six was colour-blind,” he says. “It was a potpourri of cultures.” “I’ve always been drawn to the City Bowl. My

mother used to walk up Government Avenue while she was pregnant with me. Even today, I find myself drawn back to this place. It’s in my blood.”When asked his opinion about the District Six

Redevelopment Project, Mr Davids is unde-cided. “It’s a nice idea. I’m sure many people are open to integration. We’re not an island anymore.” Mr Davids is one of a sentimental older generation of former residents for whom integration is impossible, for whom the old Dis-trict can exist only in fond memory. He prefers to remember the District as it was in its better days. “I wouldn’t want to return. The soul and spirit of the place is gone.”“I’d imagine most claimants would be pension-

ers who would want to leave their children and grandchildren with a legacy, but they wouldn’t be able to afford the [R225 000] levy. It’s not feasible to uproot people again. Most don’t have the resources to make the move.”Mr. Davids would like to see homeless people

off the streets as well as proactive job creation for the able-bodied unemployed (he gestures at a pair of young men napping on the lawn). He feels that foreign ownership and empha-

sis on private interests in urban development schemes distracts from the immediate needs of locals. “Inclusivity is a buzzword, nothing more. It’s not really like that. The old District Six was a commu-nity that welcomed you inside. Today, we put up bars on our windows to keep people out.”

from the park bench

SPACE POLITICS

Corporate investment may be the buzzword in the metropolis, yet the subject of spatial inequality assumes a convenient ta-boo.The partnership acknowledges that stakeholders and levy-payers need to address issues of homelessness, unemploy-ment and drug use in the CBD to aid urban regeneration, but the true interests served by the expenditure remain dubious. The Long Street Residents’ Association (LSRA) recently chal-

lenged the financial priorities of the scheme, raising the issue that noise levels, pollution and parking had not been adequately ad-dressed. LSRA co-ordinator Byron Qually is concerned about the CCID’s contract with the City, commenting that the organi-sation remains elusive when questioned about its performance. About the initiative’s latest watchword, Qually feels it appears to be “more of a marketing gimmick than a reality”.“The notion of inclusivity is very difficult to define, particularly in a

South African context,” he adds.

HOSPITALITY FOR THE HOMELESS: Shop-owners in Adderley Street resort to draconian anti-vagrant measures to keep the city’s homeless from camping out in their window nooks.

“Inclusivity is a buzzword, nothing

more.”

agenda

THE DISTRICT SIX REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT is off to a delayed start in the City Bowl. The project, which has set its sights on returning the historic site of District Six to the families of its former residents, is the topic of searing criticism. The cripplingly high levy fee and the question of successful reintegra-tion into a much-changed city currently eclipse the scheme as it battles to reach its target of 950

houses by February 2014.

DELAYED PROMISES: An ANC election poster from its 2000 presidential campaign vows to return District Six to its former residents.

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A WORLD (CLASS) CITY?

Author David Mcdonald scratches his head over claims of Cape Town’s ‘world city status.’ “[It is] so pervasive an ex-pression that it is now used to describe virtually anything a major city has to offer,” he says in his book World City Syndrome: Neoliberalism and Inequality in Cape Town (Kalahari.com). Glossy property brochures echo this sentiment, enticing

prospective buyers with bombastic descriptions of Euro-American loft living in an African city. However, many resi-dents on street level feel the spatial design and infrastructure of the City favours the formal sector, stifling informal traders with restrictive by-laws. Faranak Miraftab, Professor of Urban Planning of the Uni-

versity of Illinois has criticised the City’s neoliberal strategies for being too consumer-focused and market-driven. “The CIDs [Central Improvement Districts] in Cape Town restruc-ture urban space to serve an ideal of a world class city integrated into the global economy, at the cost of the city’s social and spatial integration,” she writes. Closer to home, head of Stellenbosch University’s School

of Public Management and Planning Professor Mark Swill-ing has singled out the scheme for its apathy toward the ur-ban poor: “Of the 20 000 new residential units built in Cape Town each year, two-thirds are for the (mostly subsidised) poor, while the remaining third is for the private market,” Swilling said.

In response to all the international flattery in recent years, Cape Town has blossomed with artisans, crafters and small creative businesses hoping to live up to the ovations. The city is a thriving organism, a natural amphitheatre of spatial conflict, anonymities and hubs, rich and poor. The affluent centre brushes with the periphery, gliding on the

rough tectonic plates of the city’s clamorous public his-tory. San Francisco State Uni-versity graduate and urban planner Erika Lew, whose second favourite city is Mos-cow, writes: “Our surround-ings shape how we feel. Understanding how we relate to [them] is an important aspect in our quest to make our cities more liveable.”

For Cape Town, this may be a little too much neo-liberal-ism. Haussmann’s vision of modern Paris was much the same. His revelation of a city cleansed of slums and medi-eval crudity pushed many to the margins and eroded his-torical memory. The inner city, with its cosmopolitan archi-tecture and manifold histories, follows an inclusive model that is perhaps as quintessential as Haussmann’s. It is be-ing made worthy, but worthiness is relative. It will be worthy of the European sires who designed its landmarks. Worthy of the investors and property tycoons ready to pierce its skyline with iridescent glass blocks, and of the slaves who toiled to build its foundations.

In the Mother City, memorials were built to appease the dead and in the spirit of democracy, a gateway arterial road leading into the City Centre was renamed Nelson Mandela Boulevard. With a rubber-stamp seal of inclusiv-ity, Cape Town continues to brand itself. Its efforts are a pe-culiar combination of rosy optimism, goodwill, denial and superstition, mustered into a romantic vision for an urban utopia in a city etched with social fault-lines.

“The City recognises the need to meet the many housing, employment, transport and lifestyle challenges presented by the on-going urbanisation trend.”

FROM THE MAYOR’S DESK Patricia de Lille, current Executive

Mayor of Cape Town pledges government committment to inner-city improvement in Cape Town:

HOW IS YOUR CITY WORKING FOR YOU?

say somethingdo you feel this list has been adequately achieved? @mgp

The City of Cape Town published its 5-Year-Plan in 2007 and promised to achieve the following by the end of 2012:

Improved, eco-friendly urban infrastructure Better energy-saving solutions for all CapetoniansMore health, social and community initiatives in the City and surroundsImproved public transport

Integrated housing and settlementsReduced crime rates for a safer CityA more transparent government

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Only 3 % of the CCID’s budget is used for social development, while 51%

goes into city security.

FOR THE RECORD

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I AM A TACTIVIST

Print is a meditative medium. As I peruse the sleek pages of Harp-er’s Bazaar, I feel a profound sense of ownership. My maga-

zine. My newspaper. Just you and I. I surrender myself to the printed word. I admire the crispness of the typeface, the architectural typography, squint-ing at the accuracy of the leading. And then there’s that familiar unwieldiness of the broadsheet. Call me old-fashioned, but I live for the feel of paper. In fact, I’m just about ready to fight for that sublimely tactile sensation. I am a tactivist.

In a time where scrolling is the new pag-ing and users are always online, multiple formats create new possibilities for con-nection. Rabin Yaghoubi, president of comparison engine ‘Find the Best’ has a name for this phenomenon: the “way-too-much-information age”. Yet, here we stand, at the cusp of a full-

scale intellectual revolution and we’re virtually illiterate. Of course, there is no shortage of words in the digital world. There are so many, in fact, that even powerful search engines designed sole-ly for filtering information struggle to navi-gate the ever-expanding web. This kind of illiteracy is not as much a

matter of scarcity as it is a simple mat-ter of science. We no longer know how to read the printed word as it was first intended. It is as if the evolutionary pro-cesses that govern our genetics are steadily phasing out our former cognitive abilities, adapting our bodies and minds for interactive media, LED screens and speed-typing. Paper publications, like good wine, are

meant for leisurely enjoyment. But, un-like the tart vintage that grows woodier over the years, print has little prospect of

achieving such a fine bouquet. For print media, ageing gracefully is not an op-tion. For global corporations, the wayward

Internet offers something beyond the capabilities of print. Dare I say it? Social media. Print publications are not interactive, nor

are they instant. As Twitter updates itself at a dizzying pace, magazines and newspapers age, becoming less rel-evant by the hour. Earlier this year, Encyclopaedia Britan-

nica nobly admitted defeat after 244 years in print. With the last shreds of dignity its leather binding could hold, the trusted guardian of the printed word mi-grated to the web. While newspapers may seem too static

to satisfy the infolust of the digital age, there is gaping potential for print and online media to strike up a civil, perhaps even mutually beneficial relationship. As online interactions generate dialogue that drives readers back to the slick feel of a paper publication, print media entice readerships with additional information that can be accessed online. Despite soothsaying spoilsports pre-

dicting the demise of print media, there is much room for invention. For some cen-turies, the ever-noble print industry has withstood momentous advances in tech-nology. The arrival of the penny press led to the economic miracle of double-sided printing. That’s one cent on the penny press versus six on any other – a substantial profit for the year 1830. From then on the free press blossomed

on an unrivalled scale, engaging ordi-nary citizens and hosting political de-bate, all while maintaining perfect gram-mar. Then the World Wide Web came along and made Google its autopilot.

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A TIMELINE OF PRINT MEDIA

the crystal-ball verdict

The Internet is a feral beast. Some consider it an uneditable place populated by anarchy, tabloid sensationalism, phishing, YouTube celebrities and the occasional insight. In this jumble sale of intersecting content and terrible grammar, the problem of editorlessness is an epidemic, par-ticularly for journalists. Where print editors are se-lective about what they publish, online content is a virtual free-for-all. The lack of editorial structure online makes quality content difficult to produce and even trickier to track down.

In fact, online content isn’t worth your time at all – and that’s how it plans to stay. If it were, there would be no use for it. The Internet reader scans information at hypersonic speed, with a time limit of mere seconds per glance. Since we’re no longer in print mode, our standard become digi-tal. We take for granted the ability to backspace edit, to correct mistakes in an instant. We’ve become an erroneous generation of media pro-ducers, too reliant on the crutch of real-time edit-ing. Print is final. There’s no margin for error.

Recycled content and lack of authorship are two of the Internet’s greatest pitfalls. Fortunately for print media, these are easily crossable. Unable to compete with the Internet, publications turn to content production as their newfound forte. The traditional press are fast becoming manu-facturers, creating innovative ways of conveying information and persuading consumers to par-ticipate, to be creative, to watch, listen and speak and to use the Internet as a platform for this en-gagement. With its democratic appeal and easy

cut-and-paste tool, the Internet has attracted a swarm of amateur journalists. In a little-controlled space where just about any opinion can be made heard, typing is prolific but writing is rare. Bloggers crowd the web, yet very few are experts on what they’re writing about. And because anybody can comment on just about anything, opinions which would otherwise never have been tolerated in ye olde days of print now vie for the most ‘likes’.

THEDEATHOFTHEEDITOR

THERISEOFTHECONTENT FACTORIES

inventory

a (brief) word onself-publishingSelf-publishing is a powerful antidote to the bad

taste left behind by a polite rejection letter. From

writing and editing to cover design and market-

ing, the do-it-yourself author really does do it all.

The merger between authorship and independ-

ent publishing is an intimate one, challenging

the canon of literary snobbery. Better still, should

your indie e-book or niche fiction title hit the retail

bestseller list, the royalties skip the agent and

come straight to you. And you get to keep the

full copyright, too.

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The print medium is a true, complete art. Online media provide the quick fix solution. Instant, yet only marginally satisfying. The impatient Internet reader flicks through brows-ers at phenomenal speed and leaves want-ing more. Print completes the innate desire for tactile consumption. It offers the anticipation of receiving your subscription in the mail instead of scanning an article once and losing it to an intricate waste-paper bin of content. If you were reading this online, well, you probably wouldn’t have made it to the end before your ever-browsing brain wandered elsewhere. Research shows that consumers still read

magazines, but demand more supplemen-tary content such as e-newsletters and blogs.

We’re a generation of info-lusters. Anything we can get, we’ll take. And nobody’s ruling out print. In fact, print may be just what we need, an escape from the tick of your key-board, the impersonality of an eye-straining screen, or the ever-bleeping alerts from your smart-phone. Print is quiet. If you’re looking for something worthy of what

little concentration power you have left, invest in a quality magazine. Print is a trusty medi-um, not unlike a good friend, someone who speaks your language with flawless punc-tuation. And it makes a business of knowing you well.

Generation AO, or the Always-Online Gen-eration, is a term coined by Professor Janna Anderson at Elon University for those born in the early 2000s. These are the tech-savvy post-millenials whose own offspring will likely never read a newspaper, aside from viewing one behind glass at Dublin’s Na-tional Print Museum, with a label that reads ‘Example of the final edition of The New York Times, popular broadsheet circulated be-tween 1851-2014.’ Generation AO is a brood of superhuman

multitaskers that are always connected to one another, the Internet forming their exter-nal brains like cybernetic implants. Before this begins to sound like the screen-

play of a sequel to Cyborg, picture this: the

delightfully malleable human brain whirring into overdrive with each new piece of data it receives. The brain you knew as a child fades away. Abacus counting and quiet spelling tests

are replaced by a processing engine of savant ability. Alongside its aptitude with all things tech, Generation AO will exhibit a thirst for instant gratification and quick fixes, a loss of patience and a decline in deep-thinking ability. That’s science-speak for the stagnation of the literary canon and the demise of the art of book publishing alto-gether. In short, we are losing our ability to think. And if we cannot think, said philoso-pher Descartes, we are nothing.

THEBIRTHOFTHECYBORGS

BACKTOPALPABLEPLEASURES

AA Gill @Mr_AA_Gill @mgp ‘print media is 4 looozers. tmblr 4 lyf!! i aint even listnen to h8trs.’ I hope that suits your thesis.

View conversation

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digital

is online!MAGPIEthe

SCAN

THE BLOGMagpie’s digital counterpart is a platform for active reader engagement. We post daily, from competitions, behind-the-scenes stories, free printables and exclusive interviews.

mgpmagazine.blogspot.com

You’ll find these QR codes throughout this volume, giving you instant access to online content while perusing the ink and paper version of Magpie. Simply scan the code with your mobile device and connect to reader reviews, exclusive how-to articles, directory listings, video streaming and more.

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dedicated to Sylvia Maria, who never wasted anything.

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Magpie Vol 5