End Cape Town’s racist housing segregation, urges Integration Initiative
South African academics and activists have launched a project to tackle the "continuing apartheid" in Cape Town’s housing policies in a bid to reshape the coastal city and end racial segregation. The initiative comes amid growing protests over the effect of rapid gentrification in parts of the city, which experts fear will further entrench the racial and economic divides that still characterise Cape Town, more than 20 years after the end of apartheid. The Integration Syndicate — a partnership including three city universities, policymakers and civil society groups — will hold monthly forums for experts and the public in an effort to revolutionise housing policies. When apartheid was introduced in 1948, it created separate development areas for different racial groups. Edgar Pieterse, who heads the Integration Syndicate, said these segregation policies contributed to the creation of market-driven patterns of investment that still shape the city today. Pieterse, who is director of the...
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