Nearly 300 000 people move through Cape Town’s train station and taxi rank every day, travelling from the outer suburbs to the central city for work. This primary arrival point is also the gateway for many migrants from rural South Africa and other African countries into an advanced urban economy, where they seek better opportunities. The large distances from the centre to the periphery mean that travelling hours are long for most commuters, and that a significant amount of their income is spent on commuting.
Spaces of movement always present an incredible trading opportunity, especially for the lowest income groups, and it is around this hub that the majority of Cape Town’s traders are concentrated.
Adjacent to the station lies the Grand Parade, Cape Town’s oldest and largest public square and market place. It was here that Jan van Riebeeck first established his fort in 1652 – the site was chosen for its close proximity to the beach as well as a fresh water stream – marking the beginning of Dutch colonial rule. The Parade has a martial character and has always been the primary site for large public gatherings in the city. It is surrounded by other large colonial artifacts, such as the Castle of Good Hope to the south (also Dutch VOC), the neoclassical City Hall and the Drill Hall to the west, and the modernist station and central bus terminus to the east (apartheid). In 1990, shortly after his release from prison, Nelson Mandela stood on the balcony of the City Hall overlooking the parade and made his first public address to a large enthusiastic crowd. This is also where he delivered his inaugural speech as President of the Republic in 1994 … forever transforming the meaning of the site in the public imagination. During the 2010 World Cup, crowds regularly gathered here to watch soccer matches and, more recently, it has been frequented by service delivery protesters.
Despite its historic significance, strategic position and size, the parade does not live up to its potential as an everyday public space. This is partially because it is cut off from the city by roads on three sides, which means that it has dead edges and therefore forms a convenient parking lot. However, the problem is not only spatial. It is also crippled by management policies, which govern who can use the space and how. Its primary function is as a trading space: on a Wednesday and a Saturday, about 1 000 individuals arrive before dawn to set up their stalls and convert it to a vibrant flea market. The rest of the week small-scale traders occupy the edges of the site.
The spatial system used by the majority of the traders is a portable metal framework that gets erected in the morning and dismantled at the end of the day. The goods and metal poles are kept in big lockable metal trolleys that are stored in a warehouse nearby. Plastic sheets provide some shade and shelter from the rain. In many cases, the trolley is laid on its side to form a table. Goods are then hung from the metal structures and displayed on the tables. The beauty of this system is that it allows for the maximum amount of flexibility and spatial arrangements. Stalls can grow or shrink incrementally depending on need and available resources.
Eighty percent of the Grand Parade traders are foreign migrants. The traders’ profit margins are low, as the majority of traders earn a maximum daily profit of under R500. It is however noticeable that the more established traders (Wednesday and Saturday market) earn more. Many of these are locals who have been trading on the Parade for over 30 years. But for the smaller stalls, things are more difficult. A key factor is that the monthly storage costs are extremely high. For many the process of wheeling the trolley from the storage facility to the Parade is too arduous. Some Tanzanian refugees have identified this as their gap in the market and charge R30 to push the trolleys and assist the stall owner with setting up. Many female traders have to rely on this expensive system. Another major concern raised by the traders’ associations is the lack of secure tenure, since they don’t have long-term leases. They are therefore unable to plan in advance or find corporate sponsors as partners. This limits their ability to make improvements to the space, rent their own storage facilities at better prices or invest in new spatial systems.
Individual traders do better when they have a direct contract with the city and a demarcated bay on which they are allowed to trade. This gives them security of tenure and allows them to plan and grow their businesses. The authorities currently manage informal trading by imposing strict limits, tight regulation, and vigorous law-enforcement, which reduces the occurrence of illegal trading tremendously. Although the city’s policies clearly articulate the various principles that should encourage the growth and development of the informal sector, the reality is that much more could be done to turn these into a reality. But how such complex systems are to be managed is of course the key issue at hand. Cape Town’s glossy image as a prestigious international tourist destination does not sit comfortably with the messy realities of an emerging African metropolis. Then, of course, there is the fear that if the informal sector is not tightly controlled, it will compromise the formal sector in Cape Town.
Management of our public spaces needs to acknowledge that the public realm is a process and not a fixed end-state, which needs to be continuously re-imagined, by citizens and authorities alike. As urban theorist and architect John Habraken states in his book, The Structure of the Ordinary: “If the built environment is an organism, it is so by virtue of human intervention: people imbue it with life and spirit of place. As long as they are actively involved and find a given built environment worth renewing, altering, and expanding, it endures”. The process of finding the right balance between over- and under- regulation is crucial, because it affects the livelihoods of the most needy portion of the population, many of whom have had to leave their countries of origin in order to survive.
Bettina Woodward is a professional architect. She obtained a master’s degree in architecture from the University of Witwatersrand and a master’s degree in city design and social science from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
References:
Andrag, B. (2011) Transport and trade: A critical analysis of the informal sector at Cape Town Station. MSc thesis.
Cities Programme, Department of Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Habraken, N.J. (1998) The Structure of the Ordinary: Form and Control in the Built Environment. Cambridge and London: MIT Press.
Photographs by Bettina Woodward