We had protests in town today…

People are protesting against forced evictions from the ‘informal settlements’ along the N2 highway.

From an outsiders point of view I can give this insight. The N2 Gateway project is a housing development set along side the N2, the highway that connects Cape Town to the airport. The process involves the informal settlements being bulldozed and in their place new homes built. On the face of it this seems to be a socially responsible initiative and gives those whop have sub standard homes the opportunity to live in decent dwellings.

However as with most things that seem on the face of it good there’s a more difficult side.

Firstly the N2 gateway project’s location off the highway to the airport gives a clue as to why the project’s running. Is the aim of the project to re-house poorer families in decent accommodation or is it really a project to mask the real poverty of the country from the World Cup revellers set to descend on Cape Town in 2010? What government wants the stark contrast between the rich and poor of a country to be the greeting ‘gateway’ for the world’s football fans and press?

The other issue facing the N2 project is it’s treatment of residents of the proposed houses. In order to build these people are having to be moved from their homes before they’re bulldozed to ‘temporary’ accommodation in Mitchell’s Plain. Now the problem is that Mitchell’s Plain puts the residents substantially further from Cape Town than their current homes and as such puts them further away from jobs and amenities that 1000’s of people travel into the city for each day. This is almost acceptable when you consider it a temporary move. However it’s recently emerged that the new homes are going to far out of reach financially for the people being moved from their home to make way for the new houses. Costs of R150,000 have emerged which although only £10,000 is a huge sum of money and makes buying one of the new homes prohibitively expensive.

It all sound pretty lousy for anyone who’s having to give up their home so good for them kicking up a fuss at forced evictions.