Future Cape Town is one of my favourite South African blogs, and I’m very happy to see that the site has become ridiculously more active in recent months, with several pieces a day on urbanism and the Mother City.

The latest is a must-read, though: Five things Cape Town could learn from Copenhagen. Two cities separated by half the planet and vastly different cultures which have a lot more in common than you might think.

From resculpting the harbour front in reusing old buildings, it’s a point sharp analysis by Justine Bell, a Capetonian who has recently relocated to Scandinavia.

From the piece:

In Copenhagen cycling is the preferred form of personal transport. Most city-dwellers own a bicycles, and 36% of Copenhageners cycle to work, resulting in an impressive figure of 1,1 million km cycled collectively each day. Nørrebrodgade, which is the street that sees the most bike traffic in Denmark, has more than 35 000 cyclists each day. An impressive and well-designed cycling infrastructure is what has allowed the prominence of cycling in Copenhagen. Bike-lanes are separate from roads, usually on the other side of parked cars. The lanes are wide enough, and have their own road signs. We need to get the infrastructure right in Cape Town if we want to attract the critical mass require to make cycling a feasible alternative to public transport in Cape Town.

[Image – cc Avda-berlin]