00:00It's been a struggle for Capetonians for many years now, the fight for affordable housing
00:05and an affordable life in inner-city Cape Town.
00:08For Gabriel Klaassen, who's come from the outskirts of the city, it's a problem built
00:12on a historical divide of race and class.
00:15In South Africa, in Cape Town specifically, we can see a very clear marking of segregation,
00:20even 30 years after democracy, where black and coloured people are still living in the
00:25periphery of the city.
00:27In a city that saw 2.8 million tourists arriving at its airport in one year alone, and which
00:33attracts foreign companies and digital nomads, social justice groups say Cape Town is failing
00:39to provide for its own.
00:41In the CBD, we've got a lot of gentrification in terms of fancy coffee shops, Airbnbs, but
00:48then we've also got your businesses, your informal traders, and your government buildings
00:53and some more up the hill on the basis you've got historically white areas where the rent
00:58is even too expensive for white people to afford at this stage.
01:02To get a glimpse of the outskirts, we pick up Gabriel in his home area of the Cape Flats,
01:07around 20km from the city centre.
01:09The Cape Flats have become infamous for their high crime rate and lack of opportunities.
01:15Formed in the 1950s, they were a result of an apartheid-era law, the Group Areas Act,
01:21which forced people of colour out of mixed-city neighbourhoods to racially segregated areas.
01:27Back in the city, District 6, a place where Gabriel believes his great-grandfather might
01:32have lived or worked, is one of the main inner-city sites of forced removal.
01:39This is the CBD, it's the Central Business District.
01:42It is where opportunities are, social and economic opportunities are, and coloured black
01:48people, people of colour were moved from this space forcibly to right over there, left
01:57with zero water, sanitation options, not decent housing, and so people's entire livelihoods
02:05were uprooted in one night.
02:07Unlike Gabriel, activist and filmmaker Jordan Peters has managed to stay in the city.
02:14Salt River, where she lives, is an old industrial neighbourhood and on the city's list for upgrading.
02:20This is a city that is so integral to who I am as a person, and people see it as a tourist
02:27destination, and so I think the politicisation comes in when you realise actually this doesn't
02:33make sense.
02:34The small-surplus Radical Bookstore, in a neighbouring suburb, is one of the few places
02:39Jordan feels she and other activists can meet, organise and freely exchange views.
02:45And while young Capetonians like Jordan and Gabriel are trying to make sense of it all,
02:50they, together with other locals, continue to push for inclusion in a city that they
02:55call home.
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