ABSTRACT
This chapter presents sociology of inner-city housing developers. Bourdieu advocated a form of analysis that regards social action as taking place within distinct fields. Within inner-city Johannesburg, property developers and housing providers can be regarded as a particular group who are working hard to assert their influence over the field. In a Bourdieuian conception, capital is multi-faceted, and refers to the different sets of socially valued attributes, characteristics and commodities which actors are able to mobilise to accumulate wealth and/or prestige and enhance their positions in the social hierarch. Housing providers gain significant amounts of spatial dominance and social and cultural capital through their abilities to enact the neoliberal, entrepreneurial habitus. The prominence of business principles in government strategies and approaches to regeneration mean that being able to act entrepreneurially and take risks are key qualities which housing providers are required to possess.
