Exciting! City experts in Jozi to plan future
Thanks to one of our favourite local sites, Joburg.org, for always keeping us in touch with what’s happening in our city. Apparently a whole lot of urban planning honcho’s are here at the moment helping city developers plan the future of Johannesburg – it’s so exciting living in such a time of change – particularly in a city with such incredible potential. Appropriately, the conference is taking place at the Civic theatre in Braamies and will focus on the inner city transformation, drawing from actual success stories and existing examples of cities that have cinderella’d like Birmingham, Vancouver and Paris.
More from the City of Johannesburg website here – George Matlala reports:
Foreign experts have been invited to discuss their cities’ urban planning challenges and successes, so that Joburg can learn from their experiences.
URBAN planners from some of the world’s largest and most successful cities are expected to attend a four-day conference to discuss turning Johannesburg into a world-class city.
Nine representatives from cities such as New York, Paris, Vancouver and Birmingham, will be in Johannesburg to participate in its International Conference on Planning, running from Sunday, 17 June to Wednesday, 20 June. It is being held at the Civic Theatre in Braamfontein.
According to Phillip Harrison, the executive director in the City’s department of development planning and urban management, the main aim of the conference is to learn how other big cities have handled the challenges of development. “We want to learn what has made their cities so successful.”
The team comprises of urban planners, academics and representatives of the city council of Birmingham, England and a regional planning agency in Paris, France. They will share their experience in inner city regeneration, precinct development and sustainability, and strategic planning of projects. The conference will explore practical ways of rejuvenating the Joburg inner city. From Joburg, there will be members of City departments and agencies, including the Johannesburg Development Agency, and representatives from the University of the Witwatersrand’ s school of architecture and the South African Cities Network.
Inner city regeneration
On Monday, there will be a case study looking at how Birmingham and Vancouver, in Canada successfully developed their inner cities, Harrison says, noting that it will give delegates an opportunity to learn more about the development of Joburg’s inner city.
The following day delegates will split into working teams that will tour the inner city to check development progress and problems.
With work on sports stadiums and Gautrain stations steaming ahead, the City hopes to learn how the French handled and sustained developments related to the 1998 Fifa World Cup™, held in that country.
Harrison says it is important to ensure sustainability of the projects after the tournament. “We must learn from other big cities,” he says. The gathering will be a platform to learn way to deal with challenges such as urban growth.
On the last day of the conference – Wednesday, 20 June – guests will submit reports on their experiences and recommend ways for Johannesburg to approach its particular challenges.
