Cape Town: A Multi-Racial City

Abstract

Each OF the three major South African cities has a different ethnic group dominant among its non-white, or non-European, population: in Johannesburg the African, in Cape Town the Cape Coloured, in Durban the Indian. Of these, Cape Town, the second largest and the parliamentary capital, presents probably the greatest admixture of ethnic distributions, due largely to the hybrid character and social aspirations of its Coloured community.1 In 1951, the population of Greater Cape Town totalled 632,987, of whom 267,212 were returned as European, 249,098 as Cape Coloured, 59,893 as African, 48,547 as Cape Malay, and 8,237 as Asiatic. The present study, based on the detailed population returns 2 and on a house-tohouse ethnic survey, seeks to determine the part played by ethnic factors in the social geography of this multi-racial city. The urban pattern.?Cape Town's setting is justly famed for its beauty. The heart of the city lies in Table Valley overshadowed by the bold precipices of Table Mountain formed of jointed quartz sandstones. 3 It is sheltered from the southeasterlies of summer by the lofty DeviPs Peak and from the north-westerlies of winter by the lower, elongated mountain of Lion's Head and Lion's Rump. Almost everywhere, physical features have moulded the urban pattern, which has spread from the relatively level land of Table Valley on to the raised beach at Sea Point and up the gentler, often talus-covered slopes from Fresnaye to Wynberg as far as the 500-foot contour. 4 Only the low-lying, sand-covered plain of the Cape Flats, connecting the peninsula with the mainland, has permitted untrammelled suburban sprawl. (For map, see Figure 1: Figs. 1-10 on folding sheet.) Within this unique framework, Cape Town presents many structural features common to most cities. In Figure 2, generalized from a detailed survey plotted on a scale of 1 : 12,500, the central business district may be seen enclosed on three sides by a belt of residential deterioration invaded by industry and street-corner shops.5 Eastward lie the main industrial tracts of Paardon Eiland, Salt River and Ndabeni, located on level land along railways leading from the port inland. To house the growing numbers employed in industry, substantial recent extension of building has taken place to the east and south-east, engulfing earlier housing in a broken are of modern estates extending from Brooklyn, through Pinelands, Q Town and Lansdowne, to Southfield and Bergvliet. West of this are lie the more favoured residential areas, occupying higher, better drained sites and commanding extensive