Gentrification and the disruption of space: residents lived experiences in Bo-Kaap, Cape Town

Abstract

Gentrification has become a global urban phenomenon that can be compared to the colonial project. Gentrification is a process whereby capital is reinvested in urban areas and designed to produce space for more affluent people rather than current occupants. Capital investment alters the environment, making it increasingly unaffordable and ultimately resulting in the displacement of the original inhabitants. Gentrification has a pervasive cultural element; it privileges whiteness and appropriates urban space and enforces Anglo-centrism. Gentrification imposes regulation of space; this takes the form of privatisation, neo-liberal public policy, class division, and displacement. The Bo-Kaap community has existed in the area for over 250 years; it is the only historically ‘non-white’ neighbourhood in the inner-city of Cape Town having been preserved as the Malay Quarter under Apartheid’s separate development policy. The community remains fairly intact and is the only working-class inclusive community in Cape Town’s inner-city.