The foreshore is an area of Cape Town, right smack bang in the middle of its CBD. More interestingly, to me at least, is what the word ‘foreshore’ actually means. According to people who name and define such things it is the area between the high and low tide marks. Knowing that the foreshore is reclaimed land, this makes perfect sense. Also, it makes you wonder if cities should do such things.

I recall when I was at Hong Kong airport back in 2011, and in 2014, that they built that airport out on land that had been “built” out into the sea. Certainly a great idea out there in overpopulated Asia, but back here I wonder if we’d prefer to have had what was once likely a beautiful, long sandy white beach instead? Our highways and buildings certainly aren’t anything special (and definitely not very well designed or planned either) so I kinda wish we had built our city up around our natural environment and only developed things much later. City planners say that the best cities do the right things at the right times (as in, making good decisions for that age, like bicycle lanes in 1850) but we seem to be stuck in a car-biased age and I’m not sure we’ll ever really recover from it.

I’ve often hoped to find myself in city planning one day; it really is a fascinating and important field. Luckily, I think with architectural and property photography as a skill and passion, I may just wangle my way into it one day. At least I hope so.

For now though, I’m enjoying cruising into our city’s CBD (effortlessly if there isn’t traffic, not so much so if before 10am) to take some quick photos, and gaze at our glorious coastline, sparse CBD, and iconic mountain. It certainly is a fortunate occupation to have, in a location many dream of too.