Nearly thirty years later, in 2004, on a visit to Mexico City, I experienced the same feeling. In fact, I wrote in Citichat in October of that year “The city’s downtown is called El Centro……In the early 20^th century it suffered all the negative effects of decentralisation when the wealthy residential inner-city communities moved to newer areas that allowed for easier security provision. In addition, in the 1950s, El Centro suffered a major blow when the university moved out of the area to a decentralised campus. Their buildings were generally abandoned and the area became infested with squatters and informal traders, crime sharply increased and the downtown went into what was prophesied as ‘terminal decline’. More recently, Mexico’s richest businessman, Carlos Slim, established a private initiative known as the Fundacion del Centro Historico into which he initially invested $300 million and developed a long term regeneration plan for the city centre. The Fundacion initially bought seventy historic buildings and set about a major refurbishment programnme to turn them generally into middle to high income residential. Then he brought the city government into the act in upgrading the infrastructure - pavements, beautiful period lampposts, etc as well as providing a new Centro police force complete with CCTV system and relocating all the informal traders - they are now banned from El Centro! The result is a highly walkable public environment amongst some truly beautifully restored historic buildings. The refurbed residential has in turn attracted new restaurants and high quality retail.”

This visit to Mexico City reminded me again of the extent that one person’s influence on a city can exert through ownership of a substantial area when combined with energy and vision.

On Thursday last week I had the privilege of walking a quadrant of the city with lawyer/property developer Gerald Olitzki. Gerald has maintained a geographic focus on a large area centred around Gandhi Square but now stretching well beyond it. When I first met him in the mid ‘90s it was to discuss his proposal for rejuvenating the then named van der Byl Square. Over the last decade, he has made a remarkable impact on this area of the city slowly working towards his ultimate dream and quietly demonstrating the power of a focused and visionary approach.

Read more: The power of one and other Spring thoughts

One of the interesting aspects of visiting Jozi one week a month is that one’s senses are much more heightened to what is and isn’t happening in the city. So my last week’s visit was a really interesting one with a number of issues to share with you.

First of all, “the walls have come tumblin’ down” and, although Beyers Naude Square is still a work in progress, one can already experience the emergence of the positive urban space it once was instead of the urban design calamity imposed on us. From some mail I received, it appears the ‘Eddy Magid plan’ was probably approved either late in 1988 or early 1989 and the structures went up soon thereafter. Can you believe it, they have been blighting the city for 20 years! Mind you the City did decide to move out of the CBD in the early 1950s and accomplished this in the early 1970s so 20 years may in fact be a good time-frame for local government delivery! We started working on trying to get the Rissik Street Post Office refurbished in 1994/5, so I guess we’ll still have to wait a few years for any action there as 20 years will take us up to 2014/15! And no, I don’t have any news and the building looks sadder and more and more dilapidated every time I see it! 

Talking of dilapidated, the Barbican building diagonally opposite to the RPO is nothing but a big disappointment. On the one hand one almost expects the public sector to take decades to get off their bottoms, but for an historic building like the Barbican, in the hands of one of South Africa’s major financial houses, The Old Mutual, to have been allowed to decay as it has, is nothing short of disgraceful. That the organization also advertises itself as “green thinking” and “environmentally aware” shows that it has no respect for the citizens of this great city let alone its shareholders. I mentioned in Citichat at least a year ago that I’d seen the plans and model of what had been proposed for the Barbican and the surrounding “Palace” site of which it is part. It includes new retail and commercial space with a large provision for parking which is desperately needed in the inner city. That the owners were waiting for a major client to take the commercial space before proceeding is understandable especially in the current climate but why they don’t go ahead with the parking, retail and restoration of the Barbican itself, is beyond me. 

Read more: Parking and other mid-year musings

The 6^th Inner City Partnership Forum was held two weeks back – a well attended meeting. The Forum, which meets approximately quarterly, arises from the signing of the Inner City Charter back in 2007 and was established, amongst other reasons, so that all parties could keep their finger on the progress of the deliverables committed to in the Charter. I recall saying at the very first Forum meeting, probably now some eighteen months ago, that it is a very  brave Mayor and Council who commit publicly in writing to such a large sweep of issues each with an end-date over a number of years!

Read more: Halleluja, the walls are tumblin’ down!