From the Field

Mads Vestergaard

New Housing, New Dreams? Southern Delft Housing Scheme, Cape Town, South Africa, 1999 Like many housing developments in Cape Town, Southern Delft is situated on the city outskirts, at a considerable distance from shops, banking, social institutions, and public transport. The housing scheme is fairly typical of projects across the metropolitan area with its small buildings (150 sq. ft.), absence of landscaping, and proximity to a major highway. Though designed to accommodate Coloured and African Capetonians previously removed from residential areas rezoned under apartheid, the new housing has done little to shift the racial geography of the city, instead reinscribing older patterns of segregation and social marginalization.