Rebecca Davis – Is The Future Of Cape Town 25km From Cape Town?

South Africa is rapidly urbanising, and in many cases infrastructure and municipal services are struggling to keep up. In the Western Cape, a private group of urban designers and developers think they have a solution. They want to build a new city 25km north of Cape Town’s city centre called Wescape, and so far they have the land, the plan, and seemingly the City of Cape Town’s blessing. But not everyone is convinced that the development is a very good idea.

Cape Town’s population grows every year. In 2001 it was 2,9 million, and by 2011 it had reached 3,7 million. New inhabitants need homes, and there’s already a backlog of somewhere between 277,000 and 400,000 people awaiting subsidised housing. CommuniTgrow, a private urban development company, thinks it can help solve this problem by building a new city from scratch.

Read more: http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/the-future-of-cape-town