Cape Town: African city. Or, Is Cape Town an African city?

There's been a somewhat odd conversation between students in the week and a half we've been in Cape Town.  It starts with the observation that Cape Town doesn't look like an African city, and from there points to its eccentricity, or asks what an African city is.

I've never been to any other city in Africa, and few of the other students have either, so there's not really a concrete comparison.  I can't say for sure what I would expect an African city to look like, but to me, downtown Cape Town looks like Seattle, not what pictures I've seen of Lagos or Kinshasa.

I think what we're saying is that it doesn't look impoverished and nonfunctioning.  Depending who you ask, this may or may not be true, but this difficulty makes Cape Town a very African, and more, a very South African city.

The wealth of this city is apparent. The city is the legislative and financial capital of the country, and a legacy of global commerce stretching back to the 1650s have built a very cosmopolitan, very developed downtown.   But the "real" Cape Town may not be this beautiful downtown, rather, many argue, it is the Cape Flats, the suburbs and townships and informal settlements where the bulk of Capetonians live, specifically the bulk of the somewhere-between-22%-and-40% of the city which is unemployed, the bulk of the city living below the poverty line, and the bulk of the city's black population.

I've been staying for the last week in Langa, one of these townships.  It is one of the oldest townships in Cape Town, built in the 1920s, designed to house black, male migrant laborers working in the city.  During apartheid, the township grew.  The logic of apartheid envisioned all black South Africans either living in "homelands," far from the white cities or staying as strictly migrant labor.  Black families, having nowhere else to live, crowded into spaces in the township designed for single men.  When apartheid ended, ownership of homes in the township was transferred to their residents, who have since, slowly, improved and personalized them.  Langa is still growing, with new immigrants living in backyard shacks or in informal settlements along the edge of the township.  And, despite the end of formal apartheid, the township is still virtually 100% black.  There is a very strong community in the township; my host mama knows almost all her neighbors.  But, the area nearly lives up to its reputation for crime.  I've always felt very safe, but I, like the other residents, avoid being outside after dark, especially alone.

The township represents the very South African heritage and enduring character of Cape Town generally.  The city is certainly becoming a more mixed place.  I walked around the now-wealthy neighborhood of Sea Point, just beside the city, overlooking to ocean.  The neighborhood is slowly integrating; there are black and coloured families living alongside the historically dominant white population.  But, certainly, the bulk of the black population, which represents the bulk of the immigration to the city, and the bulk of the city's poorest residents, are still confined to the townships.
What is African about this city is that it is not all one thing.  There is a very wealthy city, connected to the rest of the world, attached to what is still a poor city--perhaps not poor by African standards, but absolutely poor, a growing city, a city still not getting the full advantages of its connections with the first city.  This is Africa's legacy, compressed in one, not especially African-looking, city.

---

Also, the city is beuatiful.  I'll put up pictures from the top of Table Mountain and from the Cape coast soon.