Windhoek is slowly losing its soul. Once imagined as a city with promise – a capital and a seat of government that could blend culture, creativity, and inclusive growth – it now feels stuck in a loop of low ambition and cosmetic governance. 

Year after year, the City’s public narrative is driven by events like New Year’s Eve bashes and the switching on of Christmas lights. These moments may offer temporary excitement, but they are not a vision. They are distractions. 

A city cannot be governed like a calendar of celebrations while its foundations crumble.
My friends look beyond the fireworks and you meet the real Windhoek: A city of potholes. 

Roads that damage cars, waste time, and silently communicate neglect. Infrastructure is not just concrete and tar; it is a statement of care.

When potholes become permanent features, they signal a city that has stopped paying attention to its residents’ daily lives. This neglect is not evenly distributed. Windhoek has increasingly divided itself into two cities: one polished and protected for wealthy neighbourhoods, and another neglected, frustrated, and invisible for everyone else.

This divide is perhaps the most painful marker of Windhoek’s decline. Access to decent roads, reliable services, green spaces, and safety depends largely on your postcode. In affluent areas, maintenance happens faster, lighting is better, and public spaces are more liveable. In the rest of the city, residents are left to navigate broken roads, unreliable services, and a sense that they do not matter. 

A capital city should unite its people, not physically and symbolically separate them. 

What makes this decline even more troubling is the absence of hope from City Hall. There is no leadership that excites, challenges, or inspires residents to believe in a better Windhoek. The City feels trapped in politics and business as usual – meetings, statements, and announcements that change very little on the ground. Governance has become reactive rather than visionary, more concerned with maintaining appearances than reimagining the future.

Perhaps the clearest sign of stagnation is the lack of investment in creativity and social infrastructure. 

Where are the museums that tell our stories? Where are the public libraries that invite young people to read, study, and imagine? Where are the parks where families can gather, children can play, and communities can breathe? Windhoek lacks vibrant cafés, cultural spaces, and creative hubs that make a city feel alive. There are no children’s museums, few safe public play areas, and little recognition that childhood development is a public responsibility, not just a private one.

The absence of cycling lanes and pedestrian-friendly streets further underscores the lack of consideration for quality of life. A modern city encourages movement, health, and sustainability.

Windhoek prioritises cars instead of maintaining the roads they depend on. This is not just poor planning; it is a failure to imagine alternative futures where the city is safer, greener, and more human-centered.

Housing affordability remains another deep wound. For many residents, owning or even renting decent housing is becoming increasingly unrealistic. The city has not demonstrated bold thinking around affordable housing, mixed-income developments, or inclusive urban growth. Informal settlements continue to expand, not because people prefer them, but because the city has failed to provide viable alternatives. Even worse is the lack of visible effort to meaningfully improve these settlements – through infrastructure, services, or long-term integration into the city’s fabric.

As a result, Windhoek is becoming a boring city. Not boring in the sense of being quiet or slow, but boring in ambition. A city without creative industries, without cultural spaces, without public life, eventually loses its energy. Young people begin to dream of leaving. 

Entrepreneurs look elsewhere. Artists, thinkers, and innovators find no room to grow.

A capital city should be a magnet for ideas, not a place people endure while planning their exit.

Now we stand in 2026, a moment that should demand a reset of expectations. This should be a time to ask hard questions: What kind of city do we want to be? Who is the city for? What will Windhoek look like in twenty years if we continue on this path? Yet so far, nothing suggests that such a reset is coming from City Hall. There is no bold urban vision, no inclusive strategy, no compelling story about the future.

Windhoek does not need more events. It needs imagination. It needs leadership that understands that cities are built not only with budgets and bylaws, but with courage, creativity, and care. Until that changes, the potholes – both physical and moral – will continue to define the city. And Windhoek will keep drifting, not because it lacks potential, but because it has forgotten how to dream.
*Ndumba J Kamwanyah (PhD) is a public policy expert focusing on the interplay of social welfare policy, development and democracy. He is also a peace and reconciliation scholar, and a certified mediator with a Masters in conflict studies.