The Bible and sacred texts from other religions often use the metaphor of roads to speak of individual and collective journeys of faith. We are encouraged to follow the straight and narrow paths, or to take the long road not the easy one. We are encouraged to avoid roads of no return. Roads are thus symbols […]Read Post ›

This is the main text of the story that I shared at the Michigan Institute of Technology’s recent symposium: ‘People Matter: the Human Impact of Urban Development’. I invite you to enter a part of a story which is dynamic and ongoing, and constantly being re-made, re-challenged and renewed. I invite you into a story […]Read Post ›

District Six is a place in Cape Town, South Africa, that is defined by absence. It is from here that the largest urban displacement in the Cape took place under apartheid. Having been a diverse area which by all accounts thrived on the different orientations of its residents – linguistic, religious, cultural – it became […]Read Post ›

Thoughts before the opening event of 'People Matter: the Human Impact of Planned Redevelopment'.

I have been invited to participate in an opening event for a one-day international symposium with the above title. The symposium starts tomorrow, Saturday 13 September, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge; the opening event takes place tonight (Friday 12 September) and will involve a story-telling circle of activists and resident leaders from […]Read Post ›