ABSTRACT
Cape Town, a rapidly growing city of some 4 million people, is the most southern large settlement in Africa. Its natural setting is magnificent. It is surrounded by sea, mountains, and fertile winelands, and it nestles at the foot of the iconic Table Mountain, which provides perpetual and timeless orientation. The city itself, however, faces severe developmental problems. These include very high levels of poverty, unemployment and inequality, high levels of informality in both housing and the economy, environmental degradation, high and increasing levels of pollution, including greenhouse gas emissions, food insecurities, water shortages, and ubiquitously poor quality of public space. Furthermore, the structure and form of the city is contributing directly to these problems. This chapter seeks to explain why and how urban structure and form are contributing to the major developmental challenges facing the city, and it identifies a transformational path that could use inevitable future growth to improve urban performance significantly.
