Geordin Hill-Lewis in conversation with Ann Bernstein
- Geordin Hill-Lewis, the Mayor of Cape Town, joined Ann Bernstein to reflect on leadership, governance, and reform in a complex city.
- Hill-Lewis pointed out that the City of Cape Town spends more on infrastructure than Tshwane, Johannesburg, and Ekurhuleni combined. He also emphasised that they did not start by upgrading infrastructure in the ‘leafy suburbs’, but rather with the Khayelitsha Wastewater Works. He called on Capetonians to recognise that the only way the city and country can work is when the quality of life for everyone improves.
- The Mayor expressed frustration about substandard services that private contractors often provide, especially in informal settlements where people have as much right to a basic level of cleanliness and tidiness as anyone else. He believes that accountability is often lacking in the way contracts with these providers are designed and monitored.
- To tackle spatial inequality, the City of Cape Town has leveraged small parcels of city owned land in well-located parts of the city to deliver affordable housing. According to the Mayor, the city has released more land in the past three years than in the ten years before that.
- Geordin-Hill Lewis reminded everyone that the recently passed Municipal Planning By-Law, which will encourage micro-developers to supply housing that will densify the city, was inspired by CDE’s 2020 report, Building Better Cities.
- The mayor does not agree that BnBs should be restricted to keep housing affordable. If you ban those, you will need more hotels. And he argues that: “Cape Town has 600 000 unemployed people, and many of them could find jobs in a fast-growing tourism economy. Getting as many of these people as possible out of unemployment and into work must be our number one priority.”
- The city has introduced a ‘stupid rule button,’ placed on the desks of officials to enable them to flag any policy or procedure they deem unnecessary. Once they press the button it is automatically escalated to a senior manager. If the manager can’t explain the purpose of the rule within 14 days, they have to get rid of it.
