This article historicizes the contemporary urban development
and governance strategies in Cape Town, South Africa, by focusing on two
periods: the British colonial era (mid to turn of the nineteenth century) and
the neoliberal postapartheid era (early twenty-first century). It reveals the
keen affinity between a contemporary urban strategy known as Improvement
Districts for the affluent
and the old colonial practice of ‘‘location creation’’ for
the native. Discussing the similarities and differences in the material and
discursive practices by which urban privilege is produced and maintained in
Cape Town across the two eras, the study brings to light the colonial legacies
of the neoliberal municipal strategies for governance of urban inequalities.
This insight is significant to the
citizens’ resistance against exclusionary redevelopment
projects that claim ‘‘innovation’’ in urban management.
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