Two weeks ago, this column ran the headline “best little city in the world”.
The critical feedback didn’t leave any doubt.
What are you smoking, have you travelled further than the end of your street, are you blind to the crime and grime?
All expected. What wasn’t expected was the volume of positive feedback.
There’s a large group of our Bay’s people who are fed up with living in a constant negative head space.
How is it possible to be upbeat about this place? Is the claim of being the best place to live just false optimism, a new opium for the masses?
It’s dependent on what you choose to see.
You have to look beyond the facade, you have to see the city’s underlying structure.
Let’s unpack that a little. When last did you take a walk at Sardinia Bay or along the shore of the Alexandria coastal dune field? Are there more beautiful beaches in the world?
Did you know that our northern dune fields are the largest such natural system in the southern hemisphere?
If you stand on another of our beautiful beaches, Wells Estate, and look seaward, the island of St Croix is very visible.
We have two island groups in the Bay, the St Croix group and the now infamous Bird Island groups, together they consist of seven islands and are home to the world’s largest colony of African Penguins.
Were you aware that a quarter of the world’s cetacean species, the “there she blows” marine mammal kind, are to be seen in Algoa Bay?
Killer Whales (Orca’s), Southern Right Whales, Humpback Whales and Bryde’s Whales all hang out in our Bay.
The Bay’s unofficial title, “Bottlenose Dolphin capital of the world” isn’t a marketing gimmick, it’s because at last count, the size of the Bay’s population was estimated at 28,482 and confirmed at the World Cetacean Alliance Whale Conference in the Azores in 2015. Not convinced yet? Perhaps sticking your head under the Bay’s water can make you see better?
Nudibranch’s, Basket Stars, Choirboy’s, Candy-striped Anemones, Sea-fans, DoubleSlash Butterfly fish, Pyjama-shy sharks and more are all evidence of the rich and colourful reef life in our Bay’s waters.
Our sardine run is world-renowned and attracts cameraladen tourists from all over the planet, and the Bay regularly features in many of the BBC and National Geographic’s documentaries on marine life.
If we move landwards and consider our river catchments, our “green lungs” – we have seven main one’s, the Van Stadens, Maitlands, Baakens, Papenkuils, Ngqura and Swartkops and Sunday’s estuaries.
The Swartkops Estuary, which includes being fed by the Chatty, extends for 16km upriver and is the 11th most important estuary in the country and most important water bird estuary in the Eastern Cape, home to some 6,000 birds in the summer peak.
Is there a city in the world that can boast having two estuaries and natural valleys like the Baakens River or Van der Kemp’s Kloof?
The city is home to five biomes: thicket, grassland, nama-Karoo, fynbos and forest. Cape Town, by comparison, has only two.
Our biomes can be experienced firsthand in a number of nature reserves, such as the Van Staden’s Wild Flower Reserve, Cape Recife, Maitlands, the Island, Swartkops Aloe Reserve, Van der Kemp’s Kloof, Lady Slipper, the bordering Groenendal Wilderness Area and the Addo Elephant Park – not to forget the Kragga Kamma Game Park.
What city in the world has wild giraffes 20 minutes away from the city centre and the Big Seven (elephant, lion, leopard, buffalo, rhino, whales and white sharks) within 40minutes drive.
And the global significance doesn’t stop there.
Amanzi Springs is a Palaeolithic site that places us on the world’s palaeontology map of globally significant sites.
Algoasaurus bauri – our own species of dinosaur was found in a Despatch quarry.
Stromatolites – a 3.5-billion-year-old living fossil found dotted along our coastline.
The “package” our city provides is world-class.
But we lose sight of what we have in another structure – how we as humans live within our city.
Life in the township is very different to life in our suburbs or inner city.
And if where you live is the extent of your daily experience, it will be the view that shapes how you experience the city.
Colonialism and apartheid separated us out into communities divided by race and economic means – Statistics SA’s 2011 census has us pegged as the most segregated city in SA. But so too did city engineers/planners/officials and politicians who built a highway that cut the city off from its port, turned North End Beach into a barrier of dolosse and located a prison, graveyard and sewerage works as the guardians of our gates.
Who decided that the rows upon rows of “smartie” houses that stretch the length of the Chatty valley, built post-94, was a best-fit to solve housing challenges?
We may have given someone a roof over their heads, but what use is that if that person’s disposable income is consumed in commuting?
Our city needs fixing. No doubt. But to build we need to recognise what we are.
Our natural environment provides us with the foundation to be the best little city in the world.
What we built on top of that, our human environment, still separates us out into communities of difference.
Diversity can be a powerful tool or a terrible weapon. Isn’t it time to turn our swords into plough shares?