At Pedestrian Space, we are developing the 2027 pilot for the Sustainable Urbanism & Planetary Health program with a focus on the issue of Urban Heat. We are collaborating with individuals across the world for pilots that focus on place-based approaches to advocacy and awareness-building, education, research, and knowledge exchange on issues of urban heat.
As part of this pilot, we are recording our conversations with collaborators around the world as well as students interested in pursuing academic internships related to the URBAN HEAT 2027 pilot.
As part of that, we met with Dylan Kesler, an urban researcher from Cape Town, South Africa, specialising in first-and-last-mile mobility and a recent graduate of the MPhil Southern Urbanism (Urban Studies) programme with the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town. He also currently contributes research and writing content for Young Urbanists South Africa, a South African organisation that works to advance inclusive urbanist interventions while addressing the spatial legacy of apartheid.
In our talk, we discussed issues related to:
- Dylan’s research exploring the first-and-last-mile transport experiences of domestic workers in Cape Town, a vulnerable population who often have to make their way between transport on foot, the quality of pedestrian routes thus being critical for the commute from the peripheries to the affluent city suburbs.
- The spatial legacy of apartheid in South Africa
- Connecting urban theory to realities of the Global South
Dylan connected to Pedestrian Space via the promotion of our URBAN HEAT pilot program, including academic internships, and with an interest in contributing a Global South perspective to the work. We look forward to collaboration and to also spotlighting Cape Town as a case study in the pilot.
View more about the Pedestrian Space URBAN HEAT Pilot below