Talking Transformation

This TTPod episode is a perfect example of the kind of conversation we want to amplify on this platform. I'm joined online from Tshwane by Tunisia Cassim, recently recognised as one of the South African Council for Planners’ Top 30 Women in Planning for 2025. Tunisia’s journey is truly inspiring and reflective of many of the challenges young planners face. She shares her early days navigating...

In this TTPod episode we’re catching up with someone who’s become a real friend of the podcast and a standout leader in South Africa’s public sector: Yolisa Kani. She’s back with me in Cape Town, bringing her trademark energy and a wealth of experience from both government and the private sector.   If you’ve followed Yolisa’s journey, you’ll know she’s spent decades at the forefront of transformat...

Welcome back to the Talking Transformation Podcast! We'redelighted to welcome back Tanya Zack, a renowned urban planner and author, joining us from Johannesburg.   Tanya first graced our podcast in February 2023 when shediscussed her book "Wake Up, This is Joburg!", a fascinatingexploration of inner-city Johannesburg urban landscape and the vibrant communities operating within that s...

It's been a busy couple of months behind the scenes of the Talking Transformation podcast. I've been eager to introduce a visual element to the podcast to highlight some of the rich visual imagery and products highlighted by our guests. This has involved a lot of upskilling and learning on my part to ensure that what we produce is both fit for purpose and adds value to our listeners (soon...

We follow up from our introductory episode with a second podcast episode featuring the planners who have worked as the head of the City of Johannesburg's Metro Planning unit 2000: Johan Olivier, Pete Ahmad, Nkateko Shipalana, Thandeka Mlaza-Lloyd and Minenhle Maphumulo. These guests represent a straight line of succession from the inception of the metro in 2000. Their availability and willingness...

After a period of downtime on the TTPod recording front, we return with this first episode of a miniseries contemplating the metropolitan scale planning challenges and approaches adopted in the City of Johannesburg since 2000. This first introductory episode acts as an introductory episode, introducing six of us: professional planners who have held the title of Assistant Director: Metroplitan Plan...

The small-scale rental sector continues to gain momentum and prominence in discussions about city building and the required funding and infrastructure requirements to support this emerging property market, It’s also become a recurring theme on the Talking Transformation Podcast. uMaStandi has been working in this space since 2018 and continue to render financial services for emerging developers pr...

In this episode of the Talking Transformation Podcast, our subject is South Africa's National Spatial Development Framework (NSDF) - a long-term spatial plan that sets South Africa's spatial agenda and trajectory towards 2050. As a legally mandated plan via SPLUMA, it completes the "set" of government spatial plans adding to the provincial and municipal spatial development framew...

In August last year we were delighted to work with the fledgling Now Now Competition that used the Cape Town stadium as a focal point for its inaugural design contest. In it's second iteration the Now Now contest has shifted focus within Cape Town from Green Point to Khayelitsha's Spine Road. In this latest episode of the Talking Transformation Podcast, Sebestian Hitchcock - principal coor...

For our first recording of the year the Talking Transformation Podcast we are blending innovation, international and entrepreneurial flavours with our guest, Marlene Lerch co-founder of the "Dooiy" – Hack your Schack NGO. Dooiy is a fledgling non-profit organisation from Germany that operates between Berlin and South Africa. I first met Marlene whilst working with the Ranyaka NGO team op...

2024 is an important year for South Africa that will - no doubt - see plenty of reflection on 30 years of democracy and consider the achievements of this democratic era and the perennial and future challenges facing communities across the country. One of those perennial challenges remains the progressive realisation of housing for all – a quest that has shaped so much of the debate and policy-maki...

I was first made aware of the unique building typologies in the Blue Downs area in the early 2020s. Central Blue eState and eHousing units certainly didn’t look like a conventional affordable housing project or subscribe to many of the unit design concepts I’m familiar with. I’ve been intrigued by the thinking behind the units and the design ever since. When I met the Managing Director and Co-foun...

In this episode of the Talking Transformation Podcast we change our geography considerably, from a South African context, to the Arabinan Peninsula and Persian Gulf region. Our guest is Mahmood Al-Wahaibi an urban planner, ethnographer and academic who heads up OTU: the Oman Think Urban. The OTU is a Think Tank that blends urban ethnography and planning methodologies to support community engagemen...

Welcome to the latest episode of the Talking Transformation Podcast released on World Town Planning Day, the 8th of November 2023. It's a great way to celebrate this initiative with this latest episode, as we pick up on a familiar TTPod theme: the issue of state-owned land - in this instance, properties owned by Transnet - and the opportunity to build and renew our existing cities. My guest is...

In this second of the Talking Transformation Podcasts recorded at the ESRI Southern Africa User Conference, we are joined by three highly innovative and motivated individuals: Vhuyo Nevari, from ESRI South Africa Nsovo Pearl Maluleke, Planning Masters Student at the University of Johannesburg and, Tshidi Morabi , representing the STEAM4kids initiative. Vhuyo describes his journey from rural South...

After a welcome break from comms, welcome back to the Talking Transformation Podcast and the first of two episodes recorded at the Esri Southern Africa GIS user conference in the Drakensberg, KwaZulu Natal during the week of the 23rd of October. As somebody who's used Geographic Information System (GIS) extensively over my career as a town planner - mostly in the municipal or metropolitan plan...

In TTPod 1.4 “A Tour of Duty and of Service” - we highlighted the issue of healing in communities and peacemaking with the World Bank Group’s Dr Jana el Horr. Several years on from that podcast we revisit the theme, specifically the multicultural dimensions of building trust, understanding and collaboration within and between communities. Our guests are Reverends Andrew Esterhuizen and Bossie Mull...

In this episode of the Talking Transformation Podcast, we engage with four of the collaborators behind the inaugural NowNow architecture competition - https://www.nownowcompetition.com/. It's a unique and new take on the opportunities afforded by a new sporting event in the Cape Town calendar - Formula E racing - and a brief to design a sustainable and functional pavilion for the event. How co...

We conclude the Talking Transformation Podcast mini-series recorded at the City of Cape Town’s Civic Centre discussing the scales of planning on show during the EXPO. We talk to the metro spatial planning team - setting the broad citywide spatial framework including the policy and strategy components. We discuss foundations of that scale of planning including the city’s land use model and spatial...

We are straight into our second of three Talking Transformation Podcast conversations recorded at the City of Cape Town’s Spatial Planning and Urban Design exhibition that took place between July 27th and August the 2nd. In our first episode we heard from the management and organisation teams from the City’s Planning and Urban Design department. In this second episode we shift our focus to the voi...

This Talking Transformation Podcast mini-series differs slightly from our usual approach. The episodes that follow canvass the thoughts and perspectives of participants in the City of Cape Town’s Spatial Planning and Urban Design exhibition that has been taking place between July 27th and August the 2nd. On August the 1st I spoke with many of the participants on a day that focused on inputs from t...

Two episodes ago the Talking Transformation Podcast considered the genesis story of NGO, Development Action Group's Contractors and Developers Academy (CDA).  In this episode we reconnect with the theme of micro development with two members of the CDA and two academy participants and graduates: developer Luvo Mayaphi and contractor Brian Bango. Both share an Eastern Cape heritage and reflect o...

The latest Talking Transformation Podcast takes me back in time to a period when children and youth were at the forefront of planning innovation in the City of Johannesburg. In 2009 I led an initiative with the City of Johannesburg's Development Planning and Facilitation team to several schools across Johannesburg. The objectives? Interrogate and plan for the challenges and movement patterns,...

After a lengthy break, the TTPod returns with an in-depth discussion with members of DAGs Contactors and Developers Academy (CDA). We explore the genesis of the initiative and how the NGO identified a gap and need to support entrepreneurs and artisans providing affordable rental units in urban areas. This has increasingly been referred to as the small-scale rental market and has expanded the scope...

I've always enjoyed conversations with guests and colleagues when they've published books and material that build the understanding of our cities in an accessible and visual way. This year, I was excited to learn of the collaboration between Tanya Zack and Mark Lewis. Tanya and I have known each other for many years from my extended working period in Johannesburg. Mark I hadn't met before but I'd...