100-538: Greenmarket Square is a historical square in the centre of old Cape Town , South Africa . The square was built in 1696, when a burgher watch house was erected. Many historic buildings surround the square, including the Old Town House, which now houses the Michaelis Collection of art. Over the years, the square has served as a slave market, a vegetable market, a parking lot and more recently,
200-421: A flea market trading mainly African souvenirs , crafts, and curios. Near the centre of the square is a hand-operated pump used to bring clean water to the surface from an underground river that runs through the city. During the apartheid era, Greenmarket Square was often the focus of political protests, due in part to its proximity to parliament, as well as the ethnicity of its traders and shoppers. The square
300-526: A prison where people were isolated, banished, and exiled for nearly 400 years. It was also used as a leper colony, a post office, a grazing ground, a mental hospital, and an outpost. The Cape Peninsula is a rocky and mountainous peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean at the south-western extremity of the continent. At its tip is Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope . The peninsula forms
400-521: A severe water shortage from 2015 to 2018. According to Oxfam , "in the face of an imminent water shortage, the city of Cape Town in South Africa successfully reduced its water use by more than half in three years, cutting it from 1.2bn litres per day in February 2015 to 516m litres per day in 2018." In 2021 Cape Town also experienced a violent turf war between rival taxi firms which led to
500-674: A block of 25th Street . A portion of Third Street in Santa Monica in Greater Los Angeles was converted into a pedestrian mall in the 1960s to become what is now the Third Street Promenade, a very popular shopping district located just a few blocks from the beach and Santa Monica Pier . Lincoln Road in Miami Beach , which had previously been a shopping street with traffic, was converted into
600-478: A city where residents still largely get around in cars. A car-free town, city or region may be much larger. A car-free zone is different from a typical pedestrian zone, in that it implies a development largely predicated on modes of transport other than the car. A number of towns and cities in Europe have never allowed motor vehicles . Archetypal examples are: Other examples are: To assist with transport from
700-623: A few other towns. Industry and commerce is largely in service of the area. After the Cape Peninsula, Helderberg is the next most mountainous part of Greater Cape Town, bordered to the north and east by the highest peaks in the region along the watershed of the Helderberg and Hottentots Holland Mountains, which are part of the Cape Fold Belt with Cape Supergroup strata on a basement of Tygerberg Formation rocks intruded by part of
800-699: A flood of immigration into South Africa. In 1895 the city's first public power station, the Graaff Electric Lighting Works , was opened. Conflicts between the Boer republics in the interior and the British colonial government resulted in the Second Boer War of 1899–1902. Britain's victory in this war led to the formation of a united South Africa. From 1891 to 1901, the city's population more than doubled from 67,000 to 171,000. As
900-423: A large-scale pedestrianised area that relies on modes of transport other than the car, while pedestrian zones may vary in size from a single square to entire districts, but with highly variable degrees of dependence on cars for their broader transport links. Pedestrian zones have a great variety of approaches to human-powered vehicles such as bicycles , inline skates , skateboards and kick scooters . Some have
1000-539: A major gap at the Fish Hoek–Noordhoek valley. In the south much of the area is a low sandstone plateau with sand dunes. Maximum altitude is 1113 m on Table Mountain. The Cape Flats (Afrikaans: Kaapse Vlakte) is a flat, low-lying, sandy area, area to the east the Cape Peninsula, and west of the Helderberg much of which was wetland and dunes within recent history. To the north are the Tygerberg Hills and
1100-448: A number of satellite towns, suburbs and rural areas such as Atlantis , Bellville , Blouberg , Brackenfell , Durbanville , Goodwood , Gordon's Bay , Hout Bay , Khayelitsha , Kraaifontein , Kuilsrivier , Macassar , Melkbosstrand , Milnerton , Muizenberg , Noordhoek , Parow , Philadelphia , Simon's Town , Somerset West , and Strand among others. The Cape Peninsula is 52 km (30 mi) long from Mouille Point in
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#17327977291931200-600: A pedestrian only street in 1960. The designer was Morris Lapidus. Lincoln Road Mall is now one of the main attractions in Miami Beach. The idea of exclusive pedestrian zones lost popularity through the 1980s and into the 1990s and results were generally disappointing, but are enjoying a renaissance with the 1989 renovation and relaunch of the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, California ,
1300-905: A strong wind from the south-east, known locally as the south-easter or the Cape Doctor , so called because it blows air pollution away. This wind is caused by a persistent high-pressure system over the South Atlantic to the west of Cape Town, known as the South Atlantic High , which shifts latitude seasonally, following the sun, and influencing the strength of the fronts and their northward reach. Cape Town receives about 3,100 hours of sunshine per year. Pedestrian zone Pedestrian zones (also known as auto-free zones and car-free zones , as pedestrian precincts in British English , and as pedestrian malls in
1400-459: A total ban on anything with wheels, others ban certain categories, others segregate the human-powered wheels from foot traffic, and others still have no rules at all. Many Middle Eastern kasbahs have no motorized traffic, but use donkey - or hand- carts to carry goods. The idea of separating pedestrians from wheeled traffic is an old one, dating back at least to the Renaissance . However,
1500-688: Is a removable barrier, controlled by a residents' organisation. In Amsterdam, Waterwijk is a 6-hectare neighborhood where cars may only access parking areas from the streets that form the edges of the neighborhood; all of the inner areas of the neighborhood are car-free. Many cities close certain streets to automobiles, typically on weekends and especially in warm weather, to provide more urban space for recreation, and to increase foot traffic to nearby businesses. Examples include Newbury Street in Boston , and Memorial Drive in Cambridge, Massachusetts (which
1600-848: Is along a river). In some cases, popularity has resulted in streets being permanently closed to cars, including JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park , San Francisco ; Griffith Drive in Griffith Park , Los Angeles ; and Capel Street in Dublin. Several studies have been carried out on European carfree developments. The most comprehensive was conducted in 2000 by Jan Scheurer. Other more recent studies have been made of specific car-free areas such as Vienna's Floridsdorf car-free development. Characteristics of car-free developments: The main benefits found for car-free developments: The main problems related to parking management. Where parking
1700-553: Is based mainly on experience in North West Europe, where the movement for car-free development began. Within this definition, three types are identified: The more common form of carfree development involves some sort of physical barrier, which prevents motor vehicles from penetrating into a car-free interior. Melia et al. describe this as the "limited access" type. In some cases, such as Stellwerk 60 in Cologne , there
1800-404: Is centered on Strøget , which is not a single street but a series of interconnected avenues which create a very large pedestrian zone, although it is crossed in places by streets with vehicular traffic. Most of these zones allow delivery trucks to service the businesses there during the early morning, and street-cleaning vehicles will usually go through these streets after most shops have closed for
1900-473: Is located in the centre of the city bowl area of Cape Town's city centre between St George's Mall to the south east and Long Street to the square's north west. Strand Street is located to the north of the square and Wale Street to the South. The area in front of the front door of the Old Town House on the square is regarded as the historical centre of Cape Town. Shortmarket Street and Longmarket Street border
2000-568: Is not controlled in the surrounding area, this often results in complaints from neighbours about overspill parking . There were calls for traffic to be reinstated in Trafalgar Square , London, after pedestrianization caused noise nuisance for visitors to the National Gallery . The director of the gallery is reported to have blamed pedestrianization for the "trashing of a civic space". Local shopkeepers may be critical of
2100-719: Is the legislative capital of South Africa . It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa . It is the country's second-largest city, after Johannesburg , and the largest in the Western Cape . The city is part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality . The city is known for its harbour , its natural setting in the Cape Floristic Region , and for landmarks such as Table Mountain and Cape Point . In 2014, Cape Town
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#17327977291932200-532: Is the valley of the Steenbras River, in which the Steenbras Dam was built as a water supply for Cape Town. The dam has been supplemented by several other dams around the western Cape, some of them considerably larger. This is almost entirely a conservation area, of high biodiversity. Bellville , Brackenfell , Durbanville , Kraaifontein , Goodwood and Parow are a few of the towns that make up
2300-541: The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 . The city became the capital of the newly formed Cape Colony , whose territory expanded very substantially through the 1800s, partially as a result of numerous wars with the amaXhosa on the colony's eastern frontier. In 1833 slavery was abolished in the colony freeing over 5500 slaves in the city, almost a third of the city's population at the time. The Convict Crisis of 1849, marked by substantial civil upheaval, bolstered
2400-766: The Battle of Salt River , the Portuguese admiral Francisco de Almeida and sixty-four of his men were killed and his party was defeated by the "Goringhaiqua" in Dutch approximate spelling) using cattle that were specially trained to respond to whistles and shouts. The Gorinaiqua were one of the Khoikhoi clans who inhabited the area. In the late 16th century French, Danish, Dutch and English, but mainly Portuguese, ships regularly continued to stop over in Table Bay en route to
2500-718: The Cape Supergroup , of which parts of the Graafwater and Peninsula Formations remain, were uplifted between 280 and 21S million years ago, and were largely eroded away during the Mesozoic. The region was geologically stable during the Tertiary, which has led to slow denudation of the durable sandstones. Erosion rate and drainage has been influenced by fault lines and fractures, leaving remnant steep-sided massifs like Table Mountain surrounded by flatter slopes of deposits of
2600-704: The Far East . Jan van Riebeeck 's arrival on 6 April 1652 established the VOC Cape Colony , the first permanent European settlement in South Africa. Cape Town outgrew its original purpose as the first European outpost at the Castle of Good Hope , becoming the economic and cultural hub of the Cape Colony . Until the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the development of Johannesburg, Cape Town was
2700-500: The Fort de Goede Hoop (later replaced by the Castle of Good Hope ). The settlement grew slowly during this period, as it was hard to find adequate labour. This labour shortage prompted the local authorities to import enslaved people from Indonesia and Madagascar . Many of these people are ancestors of modern-day Cape Coloured and Cape Malay communities. Under Van Riebeeck and his successors, as VOC commanders and later governors at
2800-639: The Gay Village in Montreal . Algonquin and Ward's Islands, parts of the Toronto Islands group, are also car-free zones for all 700 residents. Since summer 2004, Toronto has also been experimenting with " Pedestrian Sundays " [1] in its busy Kensington Market . Granville Mall in Halifax, Nova Scotia was a run-down section of buildings on Granville Street built in the 1840s that was restored in
2900-590: The Northern Suburbs of Cape Town. In current popular culture these areas are often referred to as being beyond the " boerewors curtain," a play on the term " iron curtain ." UNESCO declared Robben Island in the Western Cape a World Heritage Site in 1999. Robben Island is located in Table Bay, some 6 km (3.7 mi) west of Bloubergstrand, a coastal suburb north of Cape Town, and stands some 30m above sea level. Robben Island has been used as
3000-612: The Southern Suburbs , close to the mountains, rainfall is significantly higher and averages closer to 1,000 mm (39.4 in). Summer, which lasts from December to March, is warm and dry with an average maximum of 26 °C (79 °F) and minimum of 16 °C (61 °F). The region can get uncomfortably hot when the Berg Wind , meaning "mountain wind", blows from the Karoo interior. Spring and summer generally feature
3100-635: The Table Mountain group sandstones that were deposited on the eroded surface of the granite and Malmesbury series basement about 450 million years ago. The sand, silt and mud deposits were lithified by pressure and then folded during the Cape Orogeny to form the Cape Fold Belt , which extends in an arc along the western and southern coasts. The present landscape is due to prolonged erosion having carved out deep valleys, removing parts of
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3200-810: The Third Street Promenade ; the creation of the covered, pedestrian Fremont Street Experience in Downtown Las Vegas ; the revival of East 4th Street in Downtown Cleveland ; and the new pedestrian zone created in the mid-2010s in New York City including along Broadway (the street) and around Times Square . During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, some cities had made the pedestrianization of additional streets to encourage social distancing and in many cases to provide extra rooms for restaurants to serve food on patios extended into
3300-408: The 1730s rural style thatch-roofed dwellings around the square began to be replaced by flat-roofed single and multiple story houses. In 1761, the watch house was demolished and the Old Town House built in the site, which now houses the Michaelis Collection of art. This building functioned as the city hall and Burgher Watch House for a period of time. Nearly all the single-storied buildings round
3400-481: The 1990s at the request of the retailers. Half of Kalamazoo's pedestrian mall has been converted into a regular street with auto traffic, though with wide sidewalks. Mackinac Island , between the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan, banned horseless carriages in 1896, making it auto-free. The original ban still stands, except for emergency vehicles. Travel on the island is largely by foot, bicycle, or horse-drawn carriage. An 8-mile (13 km) road, M-185 rings
3500-546: The 1994-5 Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas and recent pedestrianization of various streets in New York City . These pedestrian zones were more closely tied to the success of retail than in Europe, and by the 1980s, most did not succeed competing with ever more elaborate enclosed malls. Almost all of this generation of pedestrian malls built from 1959 through to the 1970s, have disappeared, or were shrunk down in
3600-579: The 19th century came to an end, the economic and political dominance of Cape Town in the Southern Africa region during the 19th century started to give way to the dominance of Johannesburg and Pretoria in the 20th century. In 1910, Britain established the Union of South Africa , which unified the Cape Colony with the two defeated Boer Republics and the British colony of Natal . Cape Town became
3700-498: The Atlantic Ocean with significant precipitation and strong north-westerly winds. Winter months in the city average a maximum of 18 °C (64 °F) and minimum of 8.5 °C (47 °F). Winters are snow and frost free, except on Table Mountain and on other mountain peaks, where light accumulation of snow and frost can sometimes occur. Total annual rainfall in the city averages 515 mm (20.3 in) although in
3800-630: The Cape was considered a " Coloured labour preference area", to the exclusion of " Bantus ", i.e. Black Africans. The implementation of this policy was widely opposed by trade unions, civil society and opposition parties. It is notable that this policy was not advocated for by any Coloured political group, and its implementation was a unilateral decision by the apartheid government. During the student-led Soweto Uprising of June 1976, school students from Langa , Gugulethu and Nyanga in Cape Town reacted to
3900-471: The Cape, a wide range of agricultural plants were introduced to the Cape. Some of these, including grapes, cereals, ground nuts, potatoes, apples and citrus, had a large and lasting influence on the societies and economies of the region. With the Dutch Republic being transformed into Revolutionary France 's vassal Batavian Republic , Great Britain moved to take control of Dutch colonies, including
4000-605: The Indies. They traded tobacco, copper, and iron with the Khoikhoi clans of the region in exchange for fresh meat and other essential travelling provisions. In 1652, Jan van Riebeeck and other employees of the United East India Company ( Dutch : Verenigde Oost-indische Compagnie , VOC) were sent to the Cape Colony to establish a way-station for ships travelling to the Dutch East Indies , and
4100-608: The Stellenbosch district. The Helderberg area of Greater Cape Town, previously known as the "Hottentots-Holland" area, is mostly residential, but also a wine-producing area east of the Cape Flats, west of the Hottentots Holland mountain range and south of the Helderberg mountain, from which it gets its current name. The Helderberg consists of the previous municipalities of Somerset West, Strand, Gordons Bay and
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4200-583: The Stellenbosch granite pluton. The region includes the entire catchment of the Lourens and Sir Lowry's rivers, separated by the Schapenberg hill, and a small part of the catchment of the Eerste River to the west. The Helderberg is ecologically highly diverse, rivaling the Cape Peninsula, and has its own endemic ecoregions and several conservation areas. To the east of the Hottentots Holland mountains
4300-501: The United States and Australia) are areas of a city or town restricted to use by people on foot or human-powered transport such as bicycles, with non-emergency motor traffic not allowed. Converting a street or an area to pedestrian-only use is called pedestrianisation . Pedestrianisation usually aims to provide better accessibility and mobility for pedestrians, to enhance the amount of shopping and other business activities in
4400-658: The Western Cape province. The official boundaries of the city proper extend between the City Bowl and the Atlantic Seaboard to the east and the Southern Suburbs to the south. The City of Cape Town , the metropolitan municipality that takes its name from the city covers the Greater Cape Town metropolitan area , known as the Cape Metropole, extending beyond the city proper itself to include
4500-535: The area or to improve the attractiveness of the local environment in terms of aesthetics, air pollution, noise and crashes involving motor vehicle with pedestrians. In some cases, motor traffic in surrounding areas increases, as it is displaced rather than replaced. Nonetheless, pedestrianisation schemes are often associated with significant falls in local air and noise pollution and in accidents, and frequently with increased retail turnover and increased property values locally. A car-free development generally implies
4600-460: The area, arrived in 1488 and named it "Cape of Storms" ( Cabo das Tormentas ). It was later renamed by John II of Portugal as " Cape of Good Hope " ( Cabo da Boa Esperança ) because of the great optimism engendered by the opening of a sea route to the Indian subcontinent and East Indies . In 1497, Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama recorded a sighting of the Cape of Good Hope. In 1510, at
4700-481: The balcony of Cape Town City Hall , hours after being released on 11 February 1990. His speech heralded the beginning of a new era for the country. The first democratic election , was held four years later, on 27 April 1994. Nobel Square in the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront features statues of South Africa's four Nobel Peace Prize winners: Albert Luthuli , Desmond Tutu , F. W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela . Cape Town has undergone significant changes in
4800-424: The best governed province and city in the country. Of South Africa's 257 municipalities, only 38 received a clean financial audit in 2022 from the Auditor-General . Of those, 21 were in the Western Cape. The city's economy has diversified, with growth in sectors such as finance, real estate, and tourism. The establishment of the City Centre Improvement District (CCID) has been particularly successful in revitalizing
4900-423: The car parks in at the edge of car-free cities, there are often bus stations, bicycle sharing stations, and the like. The term car-free development implies a physical change: either build-up or changes to an existing built area. Melia et al. (2010) define car-free developments as "residential or mixed use developments which: This definition (which they distinguish from the more common "low car development")
5000-413: The city center, bringing businesses and people back into the area. This initiative has transformed public spaces such as Greenmarket Square , Company's Garden , and St George's Mall, attracting both locals and tourists. In 2014, Cape Town was named World Design Capital of the Year. Cape Town was voted the best tourist destination in Africa at the 2023 World Travel Awards in Dubai and continues to be
5100-509: The city centre. The legacy of Apartheid means Cape Town remains one of the most racially segregated cities in South Africa. Many Black South Africans continue to live in informal settlements with limited access to basic services such as healthcare, education, and sanitation. The unemployment rate remains high at 23% (though nearly 10 points lower than the nationwide average), particularly among historically disadvantaged groups, and economic opportunities are unevenly distributed. Cape Town faced
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#17327977291935200-399: The colonial possessions of the VOC. Britain captured Cape Town in 1795 , but it was returned to the Dutch by treaty in 1803. British forces occupied the Cape again in 1806 following the Battle of Blaauwberg when the Batavian Republic allied with Britain's rival, France, during the Napoleonic Wars . Following the conclusion of the war Cape Town was permanently ceded to the United Kingdom in
5300-455: The day and night. In Buenos Aires , some stretches of Calle Florida have been pedestrianised since 1913, which makes it one of the oldest car-free thoroughfares in the world today. Pedestrianised Florida, Lavalle and other streets contribute to a vibrant shopping and restaurant scene where street performers and tango dancers abound, streets are crossed with vehicular traffic at chamfered corners . Paquetá Island in Rio de Janeiro
5400-414: The deaths of 83 people. Since the 2010s, Cape Town and the wider Western Cape province have seen the rise of a small secessionist movement . Support for parties "which have formally adopted Cape independence" was around 5% in the 2021 municipal elections . Cape Town is located at latitude 33.55° S (approximately the same as Sydney and Buenos Aires and equivalent to Casablanca and Los Angeles in
5500-619: The earliest modern implementation of the idea in cities seems to date from about 1800, when the first covered shopping arcade was opened in Paris . Separated shopping arcades were constructed throughout Europe in the 19th century, precursors of modern shopping malls. A number of architects and city planners, including Joseph Paxton , Ebenezer Howard , and Clarence Stein , in the 19th and early 20th centuries proposed plans to separate pedestrians from traffic in various new developments. The first "pedestrianisation" of an existing street seems to have taken place "around 1929" in Essen , Germany. This
5600-400: The early 1950s, with little landscaping or planning. By 1955 twenty-one German cities had closed at least one street to automobile traffic, although only four were "true" pedestrian streets, designed for the purpose. At this time pedestrianisation was not seen as a traffic restraint policy, but rather as a complement to customers who would arrive by car in a city centre. Pedestrianisation
5700-577: The early 1980s, the Alternative Liste für Demokratie und Umweltschutz (which later became part of Alliance 90/The Greens ) unsuccessfully campaigned to make West Berlin a car-free zone. In the Netherlands , the inner city of Arnhem has a pedestrian zone ( Dutch : voetgangersgebied ) within the boundaries of the following streets and squares: Nieuwe Plein, Willemsplein, Gele Rijdersplein, Looierstraat, Velperbinnensingel, Koningsplein, St. Catharinaplaats, Beekstraat, Walburgstraat, Turfstraat, Kleine Oord, and Nieuwe Oeverstraat. Rotterdam 's city center
5800-406: The east and joins the peninsula to the mainland. The Cape Town region is characterised by an extensive coastline, rugged mountain ranges, coastal plains and inland valleys. The extent of Cape Town has varied considerably over time. It originated as a small settlement at the foot of Table Mountain and has grown beyond its city limits as a metropolitan area to encompass the entire Cape Peninsula to
5900-409: The effect of pedestrianization on their businesses. Reduced through traffic can lead to fewer customers using local businesses, depending on the environment and the area's dependence on the through traffic. A large number of European towns and cities have made part of their centres car-free since the early 1960s. These are often accompanied by car parks on the edge of the pedestrianised zone, and, in
6000-607: The entire bottom of False Bay exposed. During this period an extensive system of dunes was formed on the sandy floor of False Bay. At this time the drainage outlets lay between Rocky Bank Cape Point to the west, and between Rocky Bank and Hangklip Ridge to the east, with the watershed roughly along the line of the contact zone east of Seal Island and Whittle Rock. Cape Town has a warm summer Mediterranean climate ( Köppen : Csb ), with mild, moderately wet winters and dry, warm summers. Winter, which lasts from June to September, may see large cold fronts entering for limited periods from
6100-428: The eroded material overlaying the older rocks, There are two internationally notable landmarks, Table Mountain and Cape Point , at opposite ends of the Peninsula Mountain Chain, with the Cape Flats and False Bay to the east and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The landscape is dominated by sandstone plateaux and ridges, which generally drop steeply at their margins to the surrounding debris slopes, interrupted by
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#17327977291936200-591: The first in the U.S. in 1959). Since then growth was rapid, such that by 1980 a study found that most British towns and cities had a pedestrian shopping precinct; 1,304 in total. In Istanbul , İstiklal Caddesi is a pedestrian street (except for a historic streetcar that runs along it) and a major tourist draw. Some Canadian examples are the Sparks Street Mall area of Ottawa , the Distillery District in Toronto , Scarth Street Mall in Regina , Stephen Avenue Mall in Calgary (with certain areas open to parking for permit holders) and part of Prince Arthur Street and
6300-430: The growing suburban shopping malls of the time. In the 1960s and 70s, over 200 towns in the United States adopted this approach. The Downtown Mall in Charlottesville, VA is one of the longest pedestrian malls in the United States , created in 1976 and spanning nine city blocks. A number of streets and malls in New York City are now pedestrian-only, including 6½ Avenue , Fulton Street , parts of Broadway , and
6400-417: The historic center within the Small Ring (the ring road built on the site of the 14th-century walls ), including the Grand-Place/Grote Markt , the Place de Brouckère/De Brouckèreplein , the Boulevard Anspach/Anspachlaan , and the Place de la Bourse/Beursplein . Central Copenhagen is one of the oldest and largest: it was converted from car traffic into a pedestrian zone in 1962 as an experiment, and
6500-400: The island, and numerous roads cover the interior. M-185 is the only highway in the United States without motorized vehicles. Fire Island in Suffolk County, New York is pedestrianised east of the Fire Island Lighthouse and west of Smith Point County Park (with the exception of emergency vehicles). Supai, Arizona , located within the Havasupai Indian Reservation is entirely car-free,
6600-460: The larger cases, park and ride schemes. Northern Avenue , located in the Kentron district of central Yerevan , is a large pedestrian avenue. The avenue was inaugurated in 2007 and is mainly home to residential buildings, offices, luxury shops and restaurants. In Belgium , Brussels implemented Europe's largest pedestrian zone (French: Le Piétonnier ), in phases starting in 2015 and will cover 50 hectares (120 acres). The area covers much of
6700-486: The largest city in southern Africa. The metropolitan area has a long coastline on the Atlantic Ocean , which includes False Bay, and extends to the Hottentots Holland mountains to the east. The Table Mountain National Park is within the city boundaries and there are several other nature reserves and marine-protected areas within, and adjacent to, the city, protecting the diverse terrestrial and marine natural environment. The earliest known remnants of human occupation in
6800-404: The late 1970s. The area was then closed off to vehicles. In the United States , these zones are commonly called pedestrian malls or pedestrian streets and today are relatively rare, with a few notable exceptions. In 1959, Kalamazoo was the first American city to implement a "pedestrian mall" in its downtown core. This became a method that some cities applied for their downtowns to compete with
6900-407: The legislative capital of the Union, and later of the Republic of South Africa . By the time of the 1936 census , Johannesburg had overtaken Cape Town as the largest city in the country. In 1945 the expansion of the Cape Town foreshore was completed adding an additional 194 ha (480 acres) to the City Bowl area to the city centre. Prior to the mid-twentieth century, Cape Town was one of
7000-400: The most important tourist destination in the country. Cape Town has been named the best travel city in the world every year since 2013 in the Telegraph Travel Awards. The legacy of apartheid's spatial planning is still evident, with significant disparities between affluent areas and impoverished townships . 60% of the city's population live in townships and informal settlements far from
7100-638: The most racially integrated cities in South Africa. In the 1948 national elections , the National Party won on a platform of apartheid (racial segregation) under the slogan of " swart gevaar " (Afrikaans for "black danger"). This led to the erosion and eventual abolition of the Cape's multiracial franchise . In 1950, the apartheid government first introduced the Group Areas Act , which classified and segregated urban areas according to race. Formerly multi-racial suburbs of Cape Town were either purged of residents deemed unlawful by apartheid legislation, or demolished. The most infamous example of this in Cape Town
7200-607: The mountain. To the immediate south of the city, the Cape Peninsula is a scenic mountainous spine jutting 40 km (25 mi) southward into the Atlantic Ocean and terminating at Cape Point . There are over 70 peaks above 300 m (980 ft) within Cape Town's official metropolitan limits . Many of the city's suburbs lie on the large plain called the Cape Flats , which extends over 50 km (30 mi) to
7300-415: The newly available spaces. In the United States, New York City closed up to 100 miles (160 km) of streets to cars across the city. In Madrid , Spain , the city pedestrianized 19 kilometres (12 miles) of streets and 235,000 square metres (58 acres) of spaces in total. The COVID-19 pandemic gave also birth to proposals for radical change in the organisation of the city, in particular Barcelona , being
7400-399: The news of the protests against Bantu Education by organising gatherings and marches of their own. A number of school buildings were burnt down and the protest action was met with forceful resistance from the police. Cape Town has been home to many leaders of the anti-apartheid movement . In Table Bay , 10 km (6 mi) from the city is Robben Island . This penitentiary island was
7500-621: The night. It has grown in size from 15,800 square metres (3.9 acres) in 1962 to 95,750 square metres (23.66 acres) in 1996. A number of German islands ban or strictly limit the private use of motor vehicles. Heligoland , Hiddensee , and all but two of the East Frisian islands are car-free; Borkum and Norderney have car-free zones and strictly limit automobile use during the summer season and in certain areas, also forbidding travel at night. Some areas provide exceptions for police and emergency vehicles; Heligoland also bans bicycles. In
7600-432: The north to Cape Point in the south, with an area of about 470 km (180 sq mi), and it displays more topographical variety than other similar sized areas in southern Africa, and consequently spectacular scenery. There are diverse low-nutrient soils, large rocky outcrops, scree slopes, a mainly rocky coastline with embayed beaches, and considerable local variation in climatic conditions. The sedimentary rocks of
7700-503: The northern hemisphere) and longitude 18.25° E. Table Mountain , with its near vertical cliffs and flat-topped summit over 1,000 m (3,300 ft) high, and with Devil's Peak and Lion's Head on either side, together form a dramatic mountainous backdrop enclosing the central area of Cape Town, the so-called City Bowl . A thin strip of cloud, known colloquially as the "tablecloth" ("Karos" in Afrikaans ), sometimes forms on top of
7800-454: The once continuous Table Mountain Group sandstone cover from over the Cape Flats and False Bay, and leaving high residual mountain ridges. At times the sea covered the Cape Flats and Noordhoek valley and the Cape Peninsula was then a group of islands. During glacial periods the sea level dropped to expose the bottom of False Bay to weathering and erosion, with the last major regression leaving
7900-802: The only community in the United States where mail is still carried out by mule. Supai is located eight miles from the nearest road, and is accessible only by foot, horse/mule, or helicopter. Culdesac Tempe , a 17-acre (0.069 square kilometers) car-free district in Tempe, Arizona , is intended to be the nation's first market-rate rental apartment district to ban its tenants from owning cars. Bikes and emergency vehicles are allowed. It has received significant investments from executives at Lyft and Opendoor . Argentina's big cities, Córdoba , Mendoza and Rosario , have lively pedestrianised street centers ( Spanish : peatonales ) combined with town squares and parks which are crowded with people walking at every hour of
8000-552: The pedestrian zone to other streets. As of 2018, Rotterdam featured three different types of pedestrian zones: "pedestrian zones", "pedestrian zones, cycling permitted outside of shopping hours", and "pedestrian zones, cycling permitted 24/7". Three exceptions to motor vehicles could apply to specific sections of these three zones, namely: "logistics allowed within window times (5 to 10:30 a.m)", "logistics allowed 24/7", and "commercial traffic allowed during market days". In Britain, shopping streets primarily for pedestrians date back to
8100-525: The pedestrianisation of the whole city and the proposal of an inversion of the concept of sidewalk two elements of the Manifesto for the Reorganisation of the city, written by architecture and urban theorist Massimo Paolini and signed by 160 academics and 300 architects. A pedestrian zone is often limited in scope: for example, a single square or a few streets reserved for pedestrians, within
8200-472: The push for self-governance in the Cape. With expansion came calls for greater independence from the UK, with the Cape attaining its own parliament (1854) and a locally accountable Prime Minister (1872). Suffrage was established according to the non-racial Cape Qualified Franchise . During the 1850s and 1860s, additional plant species were introduced from Australia by the British authorities. Notably rooikrans
8300-589: The region were found at Peers Cave in Fish Hoek and have been dated to between 15,000 and 12,000 years old. Various Khoikhoi groups notably the Gorinaiqua lived on these lands for thousands of years. Khoikhoi communities were some of the wealthiest groups in Africa and their lands and cattles would go on to build colonial Cape Town and the rest of South Africa. Bartolomeu Dias . Dias, the first European to reach
8400-479: The site of a maximum security prison where many famous apartheird-era political prisoners served long prison sentences. Famous prisoners include activist, lawyer and future president Nelson Mandela who served 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment on the island, as well as two other future presidents, Kgalema Motlanthe and Jacob Zuma . In one of the most famous moments marking the end of apartheid, Nelson Mandela made his first public speech since his imprisonment, from
8500-517: The south corner of the square, was completed and became the headquarters and printing press of a number of local newspapers such as the Cape Times and Cape Argus . In the 1950s the square was turned into a parking lot. The square and surrounding buildings were declared a national monument in 1961. In the late-1980s the parking lot was replaced with a flea market trading African curios and crafts and rented out to private vendors. In September 1989
8600-574: The south, the Cape Flats , the Helderberg basin and part of the Steenbras catchment area to the east, and the Tygerberg hills, Blouberg and other areas to the north. Robben Island in Table Bay is also part of Cape Town. It is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and False Bay to the south. To the north and east, the extent is demarcated by boundaries of neighbouring municipalities within
8700-562: The square had been replaced with taller buildings by 1845. In 1879 the Central Metropolitan Church was constructed on the square. The square lost its prominence following the completion of the Cape Town city hall in 1905 whereupon trading moved to the Grand Parade opposite the city hall. In the 1930s a number of art deco style buildings were constructed around the square. In 1936 Newspaper House, located on
8800-545: The square on either side with Burg Street running through the middle of the square. In the years following Cape Town's establishment in 1652 a number of streets came into existence above Strand Street (which followed the natural shoreline) and the Company Gardens which initially functioned as a market garden run by the Dutch East India Company to supply ships. The square developed naturally as
8900-483: The square was the centre of the Purple Rain Protest against apartheid . In the mid-1990s until 2007 the square was run by controversial city counsellor Badih Chaaban who held a lease on 83% of the square and owed the city R3.3 million. Chaaban's lease was cancelled in 2007 amid accusations of mismanagement and corruption. South Africa's oldest tobacconist , Sturks Tobacco (opening on 1 August 1793),
9000-504: The thirteenth century. A 1981 study found that many Victorian and later arcades continued to be used. A third of London's 168 precincts at that time had been built before 1939, as were a tenth of the 1,304 precincts in the U.K. as a whole. Early post-1945 new towns carried on the tradition of providing some traffic-free shopping streets. However, in the conversion of traditional shopping streets to pedestrian precincts, Britain started only in 1967 (versus Germany's first conversion in 1929, or
9100-439: The venue for the sale of fresh produce from the garden and surrounding farms. The sale of other goods and services including the sale of slaves followed shortly after. A fountain was established as a key point for townspeople to access drinking water. Following its establishment as a market the square became the administrative and social centre of the town with the construction of a burger watch house in 1696 to provide security. By
9200-539: The west side of False Bay and the Cape Flats. On the east side are the Helderberg and Hottentots Holland mountains. The three main rock formations are the late- Precambrian Malmebury group (sedimentary and metamorphic rock), the Cape Granite suit, comprising the huge Peninsula, Kuilsrivier-Helderberg, and Stellenbosch batholiths, that were intruded into the Malmesbury Group about 630 million years ago, and
9300-479: The years since Apartheid. Cape Town has experienced economic growth and development in the post-apartheid era. The city has become a major economic hub in South Africa, attracting international investment and tourism. The Democratic Alliance (DA), a liberal political party which came to power in Cape Town in 2006, has been credited with improving bureaucratic efficiency, public safety and fostering economic development. Opinion polls show that South Africans see it as
9400-622: Was almost completely destroyed by German bombing in May 1940. The city decided to build a central shopping street, for pedestrians only, the Lijnbaan , which became Europe's first purpose-built pedestrian street. The Lijnbaan served as a model for many other such streets in the early post- World War II era, such as Warsaw , Prague , Hamburg , and the UK's first pedestrianised shopping precinct in Stevenage in 1959. Rotterdam has since expanded
9500-459: Was also common in the United States during the 1950s and 60s as downtown businesses attempted to compete with new suburban shopping malls. However, most of these initiatives were not successful in the long term, and about 90% have been changed back to motorised areas. In the United States, several pedestrian zones in major tourist areas were successful, such as the renovation of the mall in Santa Monica on Los Angeles' Westside and its relaunch as
9600-544: Was in Limbecker Straße, a very narrow shopping street that could not accommodate both vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Two other German cities followed this model in the early 1930s, but the idea was not seen outside Germany. Following the devastation of the Second World War a number of European cities implemented plans to pedestrianise city streets, although usually on a largely ad hoc basis, through
9700-622: Was introduced to stabilise the sand of the Cape Flats to allow for a road connecting the peninsula with the rest of the African continent and eucalyptus was used to drain marshes. In 1859 the first railway line was built by the Cape Government Railways and a system of railways rapidly expanded in the 1870s. The discovery of diamonds in Griqualand West in 1867, and the Witwatersrand Gold Rush in 1886, prompted
9800-580: Was located on the square until the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting tobacco sales ban resulted in its closure in June 2020. The square was pedestrianised in the early-2000s allowing for better market access and greater pedestrian safety. As of 2016 the Central City Improvement District had been appointed to run the square and conduct research into how it and the trading stores could be improved. Cape Town Cape Town
9900-506: Was named the best place in the world to visit by The New York Times , and was similarly ranked number one by The Daily Telegraph in both 2016 and 2023. Located on the shore of Table Bay , the City Bowl area of Cape Town is the oldest urban area in the Western Cape , with a significant cultural heritage. It was founded by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) as a supply station for Dutch ships sailing to East Africa , India , and
10000-490: Was the suburb of District Six . After it was declared a whites-only area in 1965, all housing there was demolished and over 60,000 residents were forcibly removed. Many of these residents were relocated to the Cape Flats . The earliest of the Cape Flats forced removals saw the expulsion of Black South Africans to the Langa , Cape Town's first and oldest township, in line with the 1923 Native Urban Areas Act . Under apartheid,
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