LETTER: Cape Town faces fall

The DA-controlled Cape Town city council’s proposed rates increase for the year beginning July 1 threatens to increase my monthly municipal bill, already my single-biggest expense, by almost 30%.

Such increases will not only have an increasingly negative effect on the council’s revenue from a Laffer curve perspective, but will drive elderly and young families with mortgages from their homes, irrespective of the fact that they have been conscientiously paying their rates and taxes for years. 

To understand how we have reached this point it helps to know why a city was established in the first place. Johannesburg is relatively simple — to support the gold mining industry. Remove mining and Johannesburg, if not Gauteng as a whole, declines.

Cape Town began as a refreshment station, becoming known for fresh water and vegetables, as well as cheap wine and obliging ladies. Only later did a commercial port emerge, the result of railways and refrigeration. Exports of frozen meat and fish, and latterly chilled fruit, via Cape Town harbour has become a crucial part of the Western Cape economy.

The problem is that these two foundations are now in unhealthy competition. Cruise liners sit in the sheltered berths where fruit vessels once loaded, while fruit containers have been pushed to the more windy container dock.

This change in emphasis started with the Waterfront development. Tourism is now favoured over trade. The thinking is seemingly that hotels and restaurants will create jobs for the poor. If the suburban elderly are pushed out, they will be replaced by rich foreigners desperate for sun, entertainment and views.

All SA’s towns and cities face huge challenges. In Cape Town’s case, unless a new modus vivendi can be reached between commerce and tourism I fear the city will eventually disintegrate, like Johannesburg and Durban.   

James Cunningham
Camps Bay

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