Watch this space! A Visual Essay on vacant land in Cape Town

Abstract

Vacant land has recently mostly attracted interest for its ecological and social importance, or its planning possibilities. In this paper, we investigate vacant land in a fast-growing city in an emerging country, namely Cape Town in South Africa. In so doing, we are also pleading for vacant land to be taken seriously as a theoretical notion. When investigating urban fragmentation, we need to examine what lies (and happens) between the urban splinters. We therefore use the Cape Town case as a lens to propose a working definition of vacant land (as space out of place that disrupts the urban fabric and its logic) and visual methods with which to approach it.