Willie Vos on Building Waterfall City

Waterfall City began with 2,200 hectares of farmland between Johannesburg and Pretoria and an unusual challenge: the land couldn’t simply be sold off to developers. Instead, its owners adopted a long-term leasehold model that helped preserve a unified vision for the development over decades. Today, Waterfall City is just over halfway complete, with plans for close to 25,000 homes and approximately 2.5 million square meters of gross leasable area at full buildout.

In this episode, Mark Lutter speaks with Willie Vos, CEO of Waterfall City, about the lessons learned from nearly 30 years of city building. They explore Waterfall City’s approach to long-term planning, infrastructure, financing, governance, and partnerships, and how the city has adapted as technology, consumer preferences, and South Africa’s infrastructure challenges have evolved.

Willie also shares advice for new city developers across Africa, from holding onto strategic land and finding patient capital to building flexibility into infrastructure and staying committed to a long-term vision.

And this December, listeners will have the chance to experience Waterfall City firsthand. Waterfall City will host the 2026 New Cities Summit on December 7–8, bringing the global city-building community together in a city that has spent three decades putting many of these ideas into practice.