Children in the Streets: Urban Governance in Cape Town City Center

Abstract

This chapter analyzes neoliberal governance in the urban core, where street children have emerged as central subjects. It explains categories and vocabularies of neoliberal governance on how the black threat is rearticulated into a democratic era. The examination of street children in Cape Town raises questions about the extent to which democracy has any real meaning for the marginalized young black people residing in a world class city. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the racially coded moral panic in Cape Town between 2000 and 2003 that mobilized a “public” consensus around a project of downtown revitalization and economic recovery based on eradicating the threat posed by “out of control” street children.