Contested Urban Green Space: An Analysis of Right to the City and Affordable Housing Discourses in Cape Town

Abstract: With rapid urbanisation, local governments are increasingly put under pressure to manage urban space in a way that benefits all citizens. Urban space often become contested and economic, political, social, and environmental interests shape how these spaces are used and managed. In the context of Cape Town, two mayor interests that determine spatial development are urban greening and affordable housing, these specifically intersect in well-located areas in the city. This study explores the renewal of the Rondebosch golf course, and how discourses of the right to the city, urban green agenda, social justice and economic development influence how actors view and lay claim to this urban space. By performing a critical analysis of discourses that underpin arguments of affordable housing, the making of urban space, and interpretations of environmental sustainability and urban wellbeing held by the various stakeholders in the case. This study finds that there are various representations of these narratives that essentially hinder the use of social housing to transform urban space and address spatial inequality. But that the struggle for the right to the city and spatial justice does reveal the opportunity for the development of alternatives.