| Abstract | Open Streets Cape Town |Photo by Sinobia MakapelaStreets hold memories and stories, both individual and collective, and these stories help cement the path of generations to come.This is particularly the case in South Africa, where apartheid policy entrenched divisions that were both physical and emotional.In the 1950s, the state passed a number of laws enforcing the separation of races on a large scale.Residential neighborhoods were developed far apart from each other and separated by “buffer zones” such as freeways, and non-white areas weren’t permitted to have any permanent features, which meant that the majority of the population enjoyed very few social amenities.In the twenty years since apartheid has been formally dismantled, very little has changed in the way we actually live and move.Cape Town is one of the richest cities in Africa.This is business as usual in a city whose poverty and division you never have to see if you simply speed past it on the freeway.Today the popularity of these events—which were inspired by Bogotá’s recreational program Ciclovía—is spreading quickly across the metropolitan region.Indeed, an article in a local newspaper (the Cape Argus) from the 1940s shows how some neighborhoods created traffic-free streets, even then, for the purpose of play.They argued that Cape Town already had a proliferation of outdoor activities, that the city was too spread out and the weather was unpredictable.The people of Cape Town craved the…
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