Too much still plagues BCM on numerous fronts
The recent SA Cities Network report on the country’s metros has provided insight into some of the key issues facing Buffalo City Metro. The 2018-2019 State of Urban Safety report found that while Cape Town is the country’s murder capital, BCM has shown the longest and most sustained decrease in its murder rate – down 40% over the last 10 years and 9% in the last year. This is a welcome development. However it is not all peaceful out there. The metro has distressingly high levels of violent interpersonal crimes, ranking worst among the big cities in the recorded rates of assault and sexual offences. It ranks second only to Cape Town in property crimes and aggravated robbery has increased by 38% over the last 10 years and 4% in the last year. Of grave concern is that people living in BCM are the least satisfied with law enforcement and we look forward to hearing from the police just how they plan to remedy this situation. Elsewhere in the report can be found other disturbing, if not entirely surprising, statistics. BCM rates stone last in service provision and is a sea of informal housing. It has the second most youth unemployment in the country and is characterised by poverty and inequality. This amounts to a bleak situation of socioeconomic deprivation and this, in turn, is part of the complex causality of crime. People’s impoverished day-to-day life is a faultline that runs across the greater city, a ready flashpoint that too easily boils over into violent protests such as those that erupted on Tuesday. While much attention has been focused on the transformation of land ownership in rural areas, it is arguably more important to look at transforming our cities, given that two-thirds of South Africans now live in urban areas and urbanisation is ongoing. Cities like Johannesburg, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth have encouraged inner city renewal. A sprawling metro like Buffalo City with vast tracts of open land – much of which is state-owned – dense informal settlements and a neglected and decaying city centre cries out for such fresh thinking. The metro needs to focus on fostering urban renewal in order to revitalise itself and build an inclusive, vibrant and sustainable city where all residents can feel safe from crime.
The metro needs to focus on fostering urban renewal in order to revitalise itself