NEWSARCHIVE

TOWNSHIPS, CAPE TOWN

Townships around Cape Town form a living environment for about 1.5 million South African people. In an almost endless broad plain, the Cape Flats along the N2 are clearly visible from the public main road.

Brons + partners visited in september the townships of Khayelitsha , Mitchells Plain and Manenberg.  These townships form their own world in the urban landscape of cape Town. As a result of the apartheid in the 1990's, colored people were forced to live outside of the city in sheds of  metal panels and found materials.

However the government tries to improve the living circumstances by building houses, schools, safe houses, libraries, roads, sport fields and lightning, these improvements are still not enough. There appears an unsafe situation, through which very young children get pregnant and drug gangs fight each other in the neighborhoods. As a result of these circumstances regularly people die.

In the township of Manenberg arises the question of the development of the waterfront into a park can contribute to a place of peace, healing and appreciation. Because of the long relationship between Culemborg and Cape Town, Brons +partners landscape architects has been asked to explore the opportunities to diminish social decay by spatial upgrading.