To
achieve a world-class city capable of attracting business in a
competitive global
market,
the municipal government of Cape Town, South Africa, like many cities
of the global North, has adopted a model of urban revitalization
popularized by New York City: business or city improvement districts
(BIDs or CIDs). By examining CIDs in city center Cape Town, the paper
casts light on the socio-spatial relationship facilitating the
neoliberal post-apartheid regime and its governance. Analyzing
discursive and spatial practices of Cape Town Partnership, the
managing body of downtown CIDs, from 2000 to 2006, the paper reveals
its difficulties in stabilizing the socio-spatial relations of a
transnationalizing urban revitalization strategy and rejects
the view of CIDS as simply a global roll-out of neoliberal urban
policies. It highlights how CIDs are challenged from both within and
outside of their managing structures by contentious local issues, and
in particular by vast social inequalities and citizens’ historical
struggle for inclusive citizenship and the right to the city. Whether
and how CIDs’ inherent limitations can be overcome to address
socio-spatial inequalities is an open question.
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