Ronald Reagan famously quipped that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”. South Africans have no such fears – and many are learning how very empowering it can be to just start taking over what the government is supposed to do – even on the most modest scale.

As The Common Sense has grown, and likely because of its upbeat sense of what South Africa could be despite its government, it has come across many examples of South African communities taking charge of things the government no longer does and finding great reward, satisfaction, and success in doing so. One of the most straightforward is taking control of the 50m around where they live and work.

For communities who have started to do it, the impact is immediate; getting neighbours together, picking up the litter, and cutting the grass. Businesses are doing the same thing at a slightly bigger scale; “adopting” the street fronts and intersections around them, keeping the pavements clean, cutting the grass, and ensuring that the immediate surroundings look less like a scene from the Somali civil war and more like the kind of place people would like to live in.

The sense behind this is widespread and deeply held across black and white, African National Congress and Democratic Alliance and everything in between. Polling data from October published today by this newspaper showed, for example, that more than eight in 10 South Africans say that in the communities where they live people are starting to take over from the government. That first 50 metres is a good place to start.