The City of Cape Town will be spending R114m to build a wall along the side of the N2 highway near the Cape Town International Airport.
The proposed wall, referred to as the Edge Safety Project, will stretch for 9km and will include new pedestrian crossings, improved lighting, access control and safety barriers for recreational spaces.
This, according to the metro, is aimed at reducing pedestrian fatalities that are common on this stretch of highway that divides two informal settlements — Thabo Mbeki informal settlement on one side and Winnie Madikizela informal settlement on the other.
On the surface the N2 wall is a reasonable intervention on a stretch of road that is notorious for not only pedestrian fatalities, but for crime as well.
Residents from the two informal settlements are known to rob pedestrians on the existing bridge, as well as motorists driving on the highway.
For a city so heavily dependent on tourism, particularly from international visitors, it stands to reason that the municipality would prioritise the safety of motorists who are targeted by criminals on either side of the highway.
The city may also argue that it is in the interest of the residents themselves, who each accuse the other side of being responsible for the high rates of crime on the pedestrian bridge.
As things stand, many residents support the initiative, and the issue of safety is the main reason.
But scratch beneath the surface and you can see a much more sinister logic at play.
The City of Cape Town has mastered the art of rendering its poor invisible.
This started before the 2010 Fifa World Cup when the city first proposed the building of the wall.
Even then, the official argument was about safety.
In reality, the city wanted to hide its shame, its thousands of visible poor people living in horrific conditions, from the millions of tourists who would be visiting the world-renowned destination.
This is also evidenced in the city’s aggressive removal and destruction of homeless encampments in areas that are tourist-heavy, such as the Foreshore and areas near the Castle of Good Hope.
The city argues that the removals are just as alternative accommodation is provided at its Safe Spaces shelters, which offer meals, toiletries and social work services.
But activists working directly with the city’s homeless population, such as Dean Ramjoomia, who founded the Nehemiah Call Initiative that works with the homeless in Mitchells Plain, have consistently highlighted the failures of this alternative accommodation, including the poor conditions that they are in.
Furthermore, only a few hundred beds are provided for an estimated 7,000-8,000 homeless individuals in the central business district.
The City of Cape Town knows why informal settlements are mushrooming across the city, and the conditions under which the residents in them live.
It is not unaware of the structural interventions that are needed to make these communities livable — interventions that include a massive housing backlog and high rates of unemployment that set parameters for crime.
The priority, therefore, should be on increasing the budget for low-cost housing in the city, as well as providing support to organisations that are doing work to empower poor residents with skills for the labour market.
In the informal settlements, priority should be given to re-blocking and layout planning to create space for service infrastructure such as water, sanitation and electricity.
Consider that in the Thabo Mbeki informal settlement, for example, residents still use the bucket system as portable toilets are not sufficient.
Another intervention includes incremental housing through the provision of serviced stands, which would allow residents to build their own homes over time.
The residents of Thabo Mbeki and Winnie Mandela informal settlements have already raised this particular issue, and it has been done successfully in some metros in Gauteng.
But for the City of Cape Town, it matters more to protect tourists from the poor than it does to build communities and give people dignity.
This is unconscionable.
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