‘Communicating Cities’ workshop, Cape Town
The website UrbanAfrica.net was the subject of intense scrutiny at a two-day workshop in Cape Town on 2 and 3 December 2013.
Hosted at the African Centre for Cities (ACC), which acts as one of the local platforms of Mistra Urban Futures, the website UrbanAfrica.net has been run for several years as part of ACC’s Africa Programme, and as part of the Cape Town platform’s Regional Peer Learning programme.
The website has had several incarnations as concept and reality. Most recently it has served to curate original reporting about cities from in-situ journalists contracted across Africa. The website also hosts a calendar of events, books reviews and blogs. There is no question that accessible, reliable and meaningful information about governance, challenges, projects and lives in Africa’s cities is relatively scarce.
Generously supported by Mistra Urban Futures, the two-day meeting reviewed the focus and performance of UrbanAfrica.net, not least in light of rapid shifts in digital media use. The meeting brought together three practising bloggers and website managers from Africa, the UrbanAfrica.net editorial team, ACC representatives, and urban specialists and information users from the Mistra Urban Futures Local Interaction Platform in Kisumu, Kenya. Two UrbanAfrica.net Board members, and an active user from the USA, sent 5-minute recorded video clips in response to set questions about the role and impact of the website.
The ‘Communicating Cities’ conversation tackled the vision for UrbanAfrica.net as part of future institutional urban research and action initiatives in Africa, and as a support for urban partnerships. Delegates debated the prospective role of the website as specialist information depository and consultative resource for city planners, scholars and interested publics, as an agenda setting medium, as a space for city dialogues, and as a gateway to general digital resources on African cities. Ways of aligning UrbanAfrica.net more effectively with other social media were discussed, alongside with ways of attracting more readers.
The ‘Communicating Cities’ workshop left the website team and ACC with a mass of ideas to consider regarding UrbanAfrica.net audience, modality, quality, content, resources and technology. Representing and voicing urban Africa has never been more urgent, and never more challenging.
For more information please contact Gordon Pirie, African Center for Cities, gordon.pirie@uct.ac.za
