TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION CAPE TOWN AND THE CONTEMPORARY YOUTH EXPERIENCE PROJECT DESCRIPTION LAVENDER HILL, CAPE TOWN, WESTERN CAPE MAP FRAMEWORK, DEFINITIONS, AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW CRIMINALITY AND GANG ACTIVITY: AN ECONOMICS BASED APPROACH CRIMINALITY AND GANG ACTIVITY: A SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE THE SCHOOL-GANG NEXUS: A HYBRID APPROACH TO CRIMINALITY METHODOLOGY CHAPTER 3: ILLICIT ENTERPRISE IN THE COLOURED COMMUNITY A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE COLOURED EXPERIENCE COLOURED STEREOTYPING AND THE EMERGENCE OF AN ILLICIT ECONOMY THE RISE OF THE STREET GANG CHAPTER 4: URBAN GEOGRAPHY AND SPATIAL OWNERSHIP ON THE CAPE FLATS A HISTORY OF URBAN SPATIAL PLANNING AND APARTHEID SEPARATENESS SOCIAL ENGINEERING AND URBAN DISASTER NAVIGATING THE CAPE FLATS: THE DESTRUCTION OF THE COLOURED COMMUNITY SOCIO-SPATIAL PLANNING AND THE BREAKDOWN OF SOCIAL CAPITAL CHAPTER 5: THE SCHOOL-GANG NEXUS: THE EMERGENT ROLE OF THE SCHOOL SCHOOLING IN SOUTH AFRICA AND THE PERSISTENCE OF FAILURE THE EMERGENT ROLE OF THE SCHOOL: EXPLORATION AND INQUIRY LAVENDER HILL AND THE SCHOOLING CRISIS THE FAILING SCHOOL IN CONTEXT SCHOOLING DEMOCRACY AND A CONTESTED HISTORY CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION

1 2 3 6 9 10 11 12 15 20 25 30 32 39 44 46 47 51 58 61 74 75 83 85 88 95 102

As my grade seven learners entered the library and took their seats, I began Alright everyone. Today, we will be working on community maps. Whats a community map, Uncle Keith? Moustaquim shouted out. Thats a good question I replied. We will each draw a map of where we live. Here, I brought in an example. This is my community map of where I live, in Astoria. Its in Queens, New York. Let me see...I want to see it! the learners shouted as they stood on tipped toes to catch a glimpse of where I was from. Alright, I interrupted. I will pass my community map around so everyone can get a look. What is important is that when drawing your community map you include important places, like where you live and where you go to schoolIf you notice the check mark next to a place means that is a safe place and the X means that is a dangerous place Uncle Keith, I think the school is the only check mark in Lavender Hill, Moustaquim retorted, signaling an eruption of giggles from his classmates. As the students passed around my map they became enchanted by the large community park, the public library, the subway that affords the citys inhabitants quick and easy access to the hustle and bustle of Manhattan. As the learners gazed in awe and giggled in delight, a learner named Jade called out for my attention. Uncle Keith, is this a picture of Astoria? Its beautiful. As I turned around to see what Jade and the crowd of students around my desk were looking at, I was startled at the image before me. This is my folder from the University of Cape Town. This is a picture of Table Mountain. Its only 30 minutes away from here by car! Are you sure Uncle Keith? Jade dubiously replied as the learners again burst into laughter. Yes I am sure, Jade. How many of you have been to Table Mountain? I asked. As I surveyed the room, astonishingly, not one of the twenty-seven learners in the room raised a hand. Well, I continued, how many of you have been outside of Lavender Hill? At this only a handful of students proudly darted their hands high into the air, suggesting the great power in this

seemingly insignificant feat. Well I promise this is a picture of Table Mountain. Here, I will prove it to you I signaled. Everyone up, please. Now we need to be quiet, but lets go. Hurry up! The learners arranged themselves in a neat line, excited by the challenge Jade laid out before me. Now everyone, look out over there, I directed, as I pointed beyond the neatly scattered project style-buildings called courts that most of my students call home. That is just the courts, Uncle Keith Jade replied. No Jade. Look out further behind the courts. What do you see now? Is that the mountain? she asked. Yes that is Table Mountain! I exclaimed. That is the one that is on my folder! Wow she replied, I never noticed that there before. Alright, everyone, lets go back inside, I advised. As the learners filed inside Jade stood firmly in her place staring out into the distance at the mountain that peers over the entirety of the city. Lets go, Jade. Come inside. One more second, Uncle Keith, she replied as she fully took in her surroundings and the isolation of her community; the mountain acting as a physical buffer between Lavender Hill and the greater city of Cape Town, a physical representation of the legacies of apartheid separateness that reinforce her perceived victimhood and seclusion in the present. Ok, I am ready to come inside, she sighed. A tear visibly rolled down her cheek. A History of Urban Spatial Planning and Apartheid Separateness In the chapter that follows I contextualize the rise of the contemporary street gang and a thriving illicit economy in relation to urban spatial planning under apartheid. In alignment with the hybrid approach to understanding criminality and gang participation, this chapter links racial division and separateness under apartheid with the persistence of poverty and widespread gang activity on the Cape Flats in the present. Today, just as in the past, urban geography on the Cape Flats limits economic opportunity as inhabitants are separated from the city center of Cape Town and simultaneously fosters isolation and inhibits the development of social capital necessary to

establish a strong sense of community. Within this setting, the gang emerges as a viable means to generate social inclusion among socially excluded members. Although apartheid is often construed as a largely political construct, architecture and spatial planning were critical to the implementation of white minority hegemony. Prior to the Group Areas Act, the boundaries dividing black and white, rich and poor, were porous and haphazard. Tens of thousands of the citys coloured and black-African populations lived at the foot of Table Mountain, crammed into dense pockets of the inner city and the suburbs. There was the old neighborhood of District Sixwhich is of particular importance to this paper inland from the harbor, and the Malay district of Bo Kaap, on the slopes of Signal Hill. The bands of suburbs stretching south of Cape Town were largely white, but pockets of coloured peopleboth middle class and poorwere scattered throughout the city. Particularly in suburban areas, it was not unusual to find a white middle class street, neatly lined with homes with pretty gardens and primed hedges, adjacent to a densely packed coloured working-class block (Steinberg, 2004).i At the heart of the apartheid policy, however, was consolidating the spatial separation of races. This project, perhaps above all others, represented the cruelest policy towards the coloured population, one that still invokes condemnation today. The Group Areas Act, however, was not a policy that apartheid urban city planners imagined in 1948. Plans to reconfigure Cape Town so that inner-city slums could make way for bourgeoisie real estate had been considered for many years prior to apartheid. Planners of South African cities drew inspiration from the radical modernism of Le Corbusiers Surgical Method in their attempts to radically reconfigure the urban landscape to preserve white sacred space (Bekker & Leilde, 2006).ii They shared in Le Corbusiers faith in

rationally conceived master plans and urban designs intended to create social order through the proper zoning of land use and the segregation of different social groups. For the architects of apartheid, upholding the perceived sacredness of white inner city space required the distancing of non-whites from whites, for the Coloureds especially remind[ed] the Whites of what some of the Whites irrationally fear[ed] they might become, if distance and separation are not maintained by institutionalizationthus all non-white and mixed space near the city centre must be expunged (Western, 1981).iii In the name of social order and racial separateness, South African urban planners appropriated Le Corbusiers notion of planning as a rational, technical process that could be divorced from politics. At the 1938 Town Planning Congress in Johannesburg, urban planner Norman Hansons remarked, It is possible to achieve this radical reorganization by drastic methods only, by a fresh start on cleared ground. This ruthless eradication [presumably of non-white peoples from the city center] directed towards a revitalizing process we have, following Le Corbusiers lead, named the Surgical Methodthrough surgery we must create order, through organization we must make manifest the spirit of a new age (Hanson, 1936)iv This utopian faith in the capacity to dramatically transform disorderly urban environments reflects the thinking of influential planners and architects dating back to Baron Haussmanns mid-nineteenth century renovation of Paris, and Ebenezer Howards Garden Cities(Western). Such ideas emerged in the nineteenth century in response to the problems of social disorder and threats to public health that came to be associated with the working class neighborhoods of British Victorian industrial cities. These planning interventions all operated under the assumption that it was possible to radically redesign the built environment in ways that improved the social fabric of dysfunctional communities and neighborhoods (Western). In

other words, they upheld that spatial relations contribute significantly to the molding of social relations. Such is the focus of this chapter: how urban geography under apartheid has affected social cohesion and gang prevalence in the present. Ultimately, the fate of Cape Towns coloured population was inspired by the Garden City. The Garden City concept emerged in late-nineteenth-century England, a society which, like mid-twentieth century South Africa, wondered what to do with its workers and its industry so as to preserve inner city space. Ebenezer Howard promoted moving workers and industry from the city center into self-contained satellite towns on the urban periphery. Under such planning, young working class men were to grow up in quaint, quasi-rural clusters, surrounded by lush meadows, vast stretches of common land, and farms. Within the South African context, the Garden City model required that coloured people in the city center be moved to the countryside. Although Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd emphasized the altruism behind plans to enhance coloured community development and urban renewal, the Group Areas Act is better understood as a vehicle for urban removal and mass displacement. In fact, there were ulterior and profound motives for institutionalizing racialized group areas than the Prime Minister chose to advance publicly. Most importantly, the outnumbering of whites by non-white populations throughout the country, but particularly in cities, fed white anxiety and fear of overthrow by the coloured and black-African majority. District Six, as a well understood coloured space with a ninety-five percent coloured population immediately adjacent to the white city center, posed a physical and ideological threat to minority white control of the city. The design and location of the coloured and black-African townships, therefore, were conceived and planned on the basis of strategic considerations.

Within a short time such a location [a Township area] could be cordoned off, and in its open streets any resistance could be easily smashed (Western). On a strategic level, placing coloured and black-African people in separate and large communities outside of the city meant they could be easily contained and controlled, particularly in the event of political disorder. Indeed, residential areas on the Cape Flats were designed in such a way as to limit the number of points of exit and entry, meaning inhabitants of township areas could be easily policed and cordoned off. In contrast, the old slum areas of Cape Town were considered major military hazards (Smith). In this sense, the designation of space physically distant from the urban city center and planned so as to prevent non-white community organization would prove beneficial to white hegemonic domination at the expense of non-white community development. There were other sinister motives to the process of racial segregation. On an economic level, forced removals gave many white property owners access to prime real estate for a fraction of its real cost. Within a short period of time, dilapidated slums that were considered a health hazard for coloureds and too costly to renovate were gentrified for new white owners. For the displaced, economic opportunity and access to the legal marketplace became restricteda majority of the displaced lost their homes and their livelihoods (Western). Essential to the Group Areas Act was the National partys firm belief that a mixing of races was undesirable and that racially homogenous neighborhoods resulted in collective goodfor both whites and non-whites (Smith, 1992).v This fundamental belief that segregation served the collective interest stemmed from a firm conviction that any contact between differing races inevitably produces conflict. Accordingly, Minister of the Interior Dr. T. E. Tonges, introducing the group areas bill to Parliament on June 14, 1950, stated: Now this, as I say, is designed to eliminate the friction between the races in the

Union because we believe, and believe strongly, that points of contactall unnecessary points of contactbetween the races must be avoided. If you reduce the number of points of contact to a minimum, you reduce the possibility of frictionthe result of putting people of different races together is to cause racial trouble. (Western). It is in this light that we can understand the motivations behind the wholesale clearance of Cape Towns District Six. Generations of coloured occupancy made it a cultural symbol for the coloured people; but, with its proclamation as a group area for whites only, coloured homes and sites of memory were demolished. Social Engineering and Urban Disaster When the Group Areas Act became law in 1950, the members of the Durban City Councils Technicalcity planningSubcommittee cooperated fully with the central government and presented their first report in November 1951 (Western). In this comprehensive report, they offered seven principleslogical derivatives of British-style city planning of the timewhereby a segregated pattern might be achieved: 1. A residential race zone should: a. have boundaries which should as far as possible constitute barriers of a kind preventing or discouraging contact between races in neighbouring residential zones; b. have direct access to working areas and to such amenities as are used by all races, so that its residents do not have to traverse the residential areas of another race, or do so only by rail

c. be large enough to develop into an area of full or partial self-government or be substantially contiguous to such an area; d. provide appropriate land for all economic and social classes which are present in the race group concerned, or may be expected to emerge in the course of time; and for group institutions, suburban shopping, minor industry, and recreation; e. be so sited that the means of transport most suitable for the group concerned is or can be made available. 2. The number of race zones not contiguous to zones occupied by the same race must be kept as low as possible [racial homogeneity] 3. In order to give the maximum length of common boundary between working areas and residential zone, and thus reduce transport costs and difficulties, dispersal of industry in ribbon formation where practicable is preferable to the massing of industry in great blocks. 4. In planning areas for each race group, the present and future requirements of the group [pre-determined by the white minority] in relation to other groups, must be determining factors; the extent of situation of land presently owned, occupied or otherwise allocated to that group [such as District Six] is not a material consideration. 5. Settled racially homogenous communities should not be disturbed except in so far as it is necessary to give effect to the postulates set out above [the preserve sacred white urban space] 6. Different race groups may have differing needs in respect of building and site development. In allocating zones to each race, due account must be taken of the

topographical suitability of the land and of the extent to which the race group concerned can effectively utilize existing sites and building development. 7. The central business area and the existing or potential industrial areas should not, in the initial stages, be earmarked for the exclusive use of any [one] race. (Western) These seven principles of Durban widely contributed to the planning of Group Areas legislation for the country as a whole. Within this structure, whites were assumed to have the first choice of strategic location within the city. The western and more elevated slopes of the city were thus reserved for white residential areas. This particular landholding had a threefold function: strategic physical defensibility, psychological domination from an overlooking height, and residential amenity (Western). Industry, similarly, was placed in accordance with principles 1(b) and 3, thereby separating industrial zones along racial lines and constricting economic opportunity by geographic displacement. The assumed intermediary position of the coloured population, between the polarized white and black-African racial groups, furthermore, required that the coloured group areas form an unbroken barrier between white and black-African land areas. Nevertheless, the meticulous detail of apartheid madness failed to translate into successful execution in terms of meeting the promises of Group Areas legislation to non-white populations, supposing the legal guaranteeslike the non-disturbance of racially homogenous communities like District Sixwere ever intended to be upheld. In Outcast Cape Town, John Western describes the symbiosis of social relations and the physical spaces in which they preside: society mirrors space and space mirrors society. This notion reflects apartheid processes of social engineering, wherein urban planners reengineered South Africas physical landscape with the objective of creating a utopian society of racial separation. The Group Areas Act of 1950 authorized the State

to destroy neighborhoods and forcibly remove communities for the construction of an entirely segregated landscape. Group areas remolded society by deliberately manipulating spaces along racial lines. The legacy of those spatial arrangements continues to shape life after apartheid, the result of which has contributed greatly to a breakdown of coloured community and social capital, an absence of economic opportunity, and a prevalence of gang activity. In addition, Western outlines the failed implementation of the Durban principles in Cape Town group areas. He asserts that whites claimed an extraproportional amount of space available for their low-density residential use, resulting in widespread urban sprawl and overcrowding in non-white areas. Partly because the Group Areas Act was a contested policy, even among white civil servants, and partly because building new accommodation was a slow process, forced removals took several decades to be fully realized. Each year between the late 1960s and the early 1980s, an average of 3,000 coloured families were resettled (Smith). In sum, by 1982 official statistics indicate that over 50,000 families had been displaced. The last of the 8,000 remaining families living in District Six were forcibly removed in the mid 1970s and it was only then that the buildings of District Six were razed (Smith); an act that consolidated District Six into a profound symbol of coloured peoples lost past. The housing shortage that slowed the process of coloured community development reached crisis proportions in the mid 1970s. In 1974, the government estimated that the shortage was roughly 40,000 houses, although several thousand homes remained unoccupied in white allocated areas (Standing). The government linked this shortage with an exceptionally high coloured population rate and the continuing migration of poor laborers to the proclaimed white city. In their attempts to speed up the provision of housing, the authorities were accused of

cutting corners and stretching already inadequate funds. As a result, displaced coloured people90% of whom either rented or bought state accommodationwere offered housing in shoddy buildings known as courts, or two story project-style buildings in township communities (Standing). Much to the dismay of their new inhabits, many court buildings were in a state of disrepair almost immediately after they were declared fit for habitation (Standing). Properties in poorer areas were crammed with extended families of several generations. Those who fell behind in their rent or who were waiting for new accommodation added to a growing number of illegal squatters. Such was the experience of a local mother living in an informal settlement in Lavender Hill. She recalls, When my mother and I were moved here we couldnt pay the rent so we had to leave. There was no one to help usit was terrible. Her experience, however, echoes just one of the some 30,000 coloured squatter huts registered in 1980 with the authoritiesmany others existed and continue to exist without formal registration (Horner, 1983).vi The apartheid government made little attempt to provide community infrastructure in the new housing estates on the Cape Flats. A summary report of the Theron Commissionwhich which sought to report on the coloured condition after the Group Areas Act was enacted published in 1976, painted a very stark picture: While Dr. H. F. Verwoerd had preferred the name Community Development to Housing, because he favoured the building of healthy communities and not simply the provision of housing, unfortunately, very little attention had been paid to this aspect. In the majority of coloured communities, which had for years formed part of white towns or cities, it was very noticeable that besides one or more churches and schools there were usually no facilities available for convivial communication and relaxation.

One witness declared; the only convivial gathering place in our community is the shebeen. The [Commission] pointed out that the streets were for the most part not attended to; there were no proper pavements; street lighting was absent, widely spread or ineffective; trees or other plant growth were not to be seen; open spaces meant to be playgrounds were used for dumping rubbish and have become locals for gang activity; rubbish and night soil removal was sporadicThe result was, that in spite of the reasonably good houses which were sometimes erected, the area presented a dismal appearance (Theron Commission, 1976).vii Perhaps most damaging of all to the coloured population, the Theron Commission indicated white recognition of the historic association between the coloured people and District Six, despite the governments decision to enact massive forced removal. Such recognition is also found in the city councils naming of new coloured townships on the Cape Flats after District Six locales. The obliteration of District Six and the subsequent displacement of coloured people to the vast expanse of scrubland and sand dunes in the citys hinterland, leaves an aching lacuna in self-concept and self-esteem within the coloured community today. With no significant infrastructural investment in coloured townships in the post-apartheid state, many, such as Lavender Hill, maintain their dismal appearance, reinforcing the social displacement of its inhabitants. White South African culture, much like middle-class American culture of the time, idealized the values of self-reliance, hard work, sobriety, and sacrifice. Adherence to these principles was widely believed to bring monetary reward and economic advancement in society (Kluegel & Smith, 1986).viii Among men, adherence to these values meant that employment and financial security should precede marriage, and among women they implied that childbearing

should occur only after adequate means to support the raising of children had been secured, either through marriage or through employment. In this ideal world, everyone was hardworking, self-sufficient, and not a burden to fellow citizensthat is, all within racially classified zones. The isolated coloured community, however, struggled to conform to these idealized values as a result of township conditions. The supposed urban upgrading scheme of the Group Areas Act resulted in the creation of geographically isolated and racially homogenous neighborhoods where poverty is endemic, joblessness is rife, schools are poor, and even high school graduates are unlikely to speak standard English with any facility. Employment opportunities remain limited, and given the social isolation enforced by segregation, coloured men and women are not well connected to employers in the larger legalized economy. As a result, young men and women coming of age in township areas are relatively unlikely to find jobs capable of supporting a family. Faced with an absence of educational institutions capable of preparing them for gainful employment, they cannot realistically hope to conform to societal ideals of work. Similarly, the dismal conditions of the Cape Flats design have resulted in catastrophic consequences in the present: the breakdown of coloured community and the domination of gang violence. Navigating the Cape Flats: The Destruction of Coloured Community Community, arguably, has two salient features: first, the notion of community as acknowledgementliving in an area where people accept responsibility for one another, almost as a microcosm of the collective human experience, and second, the notion of community as territoryappropriating the familiar places that have become comfortable. They become a

residents stamping ground, that is, his or her own space. The combination of these two qualities results in what philosopher John Daniel Wild (1963) calls fields of care.ix The physical and cultural destruction of the Group Areas Act eroded the conception of a coloured community. Today, perceptions of community in coloured townships resemble the antithesis of Wilds understanding of community, that is a field of care and support system that fosters self-efficacy and collective well-being. In fact, Lavender Hill is characterized by low levels of community trust and a harsh and violent social environment. A survey of forty youth in Lavender Hill between the ages of eleven and twenty-two indicates that youth generally feel no tie to colouredness and mark an absence of a coloured community in Lavender Hill despite its overwhelming coloured majority (Calix, 2012).x The survey required participants to identify their racial association among white, black, coloured, other or unsure, among which 5% identified as black, 55% identified as coloured, 7.5% as other and 32.5% identified as unsure. Regarding association with a community setting, among those surveyed, 52.5% of youth most associated with their court community, 27.5% at school, and 20% identified other, while 3 learners qualified other with the name of a local gang group. Perhaps most telling, only 30% of youth polled felt a part of a Lavender Hill community, while 52.5% did not feel a part of a Lavender Hill community, and 17.5% were unsure. Similarly, a mere 10% polled felt proud to live in Lavender Hill while a whopping 75% of youth polled felt notably not proud and 15% were unsure. Finally, the sense of a lack of coloured community in Lavender Hill is similarly distributed. Among those polled 15% felt a sense of a coloured community in Lavender Hill while 67.5% marked its absence and 17.5% were unsure. These perceptions of weak community ties are echoed in the frustration with disconnectedness among older residents in Lavender Hill. A volunteer from the Department of

Cultural Affairs and Sport vividly described the generational breakdown of coloured perceptions of coloured community: I was born in District Six and during my childhood I spent most of my time traveling from home to home once we were forced to move out. Because of that, it is difficult for me to call a place from a childhood home, but in District Six my family was most stable. After we moved, the family structure I was so used to was completely torn apart. That was not unique to me though. So many of my friends had similar situations after they left District Six. You took the familiarity and community atmosphere that was largely celebrated for its diversity and of a particular place of home for the coloured community, there was a town hall which was used frequently, clubs, dancesso many things, and we were thrown into townships. That sense of community and family was completely torn apart. We all became fearful all of a sudden. We were moved to a place with no plans for employment, no places to gather. We were taken from a place of familiarity, culture and history and thrown into a place of desolation, fear, and anxiety. That is exactly what the apartheid government wanted though and it worked (Interview, 2012).xi In Lavender Hill today, one finds concentric layers of unpaved streets, turned in upon themselves, forming tight, hermetic circles, each surrounded by a barren wilderness of no-mans land. With some imagination, one can conceive some of the benign intentions behind the original Garden City idea. The notion of the inward-looking clustercourt style housingwas meant to foster a village-like sense of community among residents. Yet driving through Lavender Hill, one feels as if one is locked into a maze, as if the township is a dense universe, a ghetto that for young people like Jade, seem a world away from the center of the city. The idea

of buttressing the clusters with greenbelts was intended to create open spaces in which the cluster-children would spend their afternoons. Despite this vision, the greenbelts of the Cape Flats are intraversable scrubland; the youth are locked inside this labyrinth of poverty and violence. Court-style housing design helps foster the mistrust and fear that characterizes life in Lavender Hill. Today one finds intense overcrowding in the courts. Combined with a general lack of a strong state presence and a prominence of gang activity, residents are concerned with the threat of physical attack. Therefore, fear of being physically accosted plays a central role in the dynamics of life in Lavender Hill. This fear, Jankowski finds, is intensified when people live in or near public housing complexes, or in areas where there are multiple apartment buildings. Such housing conditions accentuate population density, enhance social contact, and increase conflict (1991). Within these settings, gangs emerge as a viableand as some residents feel, the onlysource of protection. This does not mean that community members are antagonistic towards the police, though this is oftentimes the case; rather, members of the community feel that the gang has some advantages over the police. One particular perceived advantage of gangs relative to local police is conflict resolution among disputing residents. In fact, a Lavender Hill grandmother of three described how when there are problems here we dont go to the police. Where are they? I dont see them here. They are afraid. If something goes wrong, how do I find the police? There is no station in Lavender Hill. Its all the way in Steenberg. If I walk there, I walk through gangland. To walk to the police station I put myself and my family in greater danger. We are out here to fend for ourselves. When there is a problem, like if a person here thinks someone stole something from

them, you take it to Joe [local gang leader]. He sorts things outhe knows how to get things done (Interview, 2012). xii This sense of community reliance on local gangs is only intensified by the relative lack of policing presence in the area. The Steenberg police station is responsible for serving Lavender Hill, Retreat and Cafda Village, Steenberg, and Heathfield, with a total population of about 280,000 with eight policemen per shift. This means two officers operate patrol vans while the remaining six operate as personnel in the police station office (Roshan Samara, 2011).xiii According to a local Constable, policing in this area is a very difficult issue. People dont trust us because they are not familiar with uscrime happens all of the time but people do not report it. They are afraid of what will happen if they do, and a lot of them have lost faith in our ability to protect them. This is something we must changeat times my job feels impossible...many of these streets are unsafe (Constable, 2012).xiv Socio-Spatial Planning and the Breakdown of Social Capital Driving through Lavender Hill, one notes the emptiness of the streets and the debris that rolls along the unpaved sidewalks. In her indictment of urban spatial planning in the twentieth century, Jane Jacobs observes that streets and their sidewalks are the main public places within a city, akin to the most vital organs that power the human body (Jacobs, 1992).xv Similarly, Jacobs explores the three primary functions of sidewalks: safety, contact, and assimilating children. Street safety within communities is promoted by pavements clearly marking a public and private separation, and by spontaneous protection with the eyes of both pedestrians and those watching the continual flow of pedestrians from buildings. To make this eye protection effective at enhancing safety, there should be an unconscious assumption of general street support when necessary, or an element of community trust. As the main

contact venue, pavements contribute to building trust among neighbors over time. She argues that such trust cannot be built in artificial public places such as a game room in a housing project. The presence of cultural centers, however, facilitates community trust and interdependence. For Jacobs, sidewalk contact and safety, together, thwart segregation and racial discrimination. Jacobs also suggests the importance of what is termed today social capital in keeping social order. She notes that the public peacethe sidewalk and street peaceof cities is not kept by police, necessary as police are. It is kept primarily by an intricate, almost unconscious, network of voluntary controls and standards among the people themselves, and enforced by the people themselves. Therefore, social networks between individuals in a community have power in that they increase levels of trust and cooperation which likely result in a collective benefit i.e. safety. In housing projects with high population turnover and few community spaces that facilitate resident interactionthereby decreasing the accumulation of intricate networks of voluntary controlsthe keeping of sidewalk law and order is left almost entirely to the police and special guards. In the absence of such a state presence, in areas like Lavender Hill, the gang emerges as both the primary source of violence and the principal provider of safety to residents. Notably absent from coloured townships are sport and recreational facilities that were most popular among coloured youth in Cape Town. For example, a number of cinemas that had been popular with coloured people closed down when areas were reclassified as either only for whites or only for coloureds. Cinemas before the Group Areas Act were considered the major focus of entertainment within the coloured community; therefore their absence in township areas was a significant loss for coloured recreation. For the coloured population, cinemas served as important vehicles that generated cultural capital and coloured consciousnesses (Standing,

2003).xvi By the mid 1970s, however, there were only 20 cinemas that coloured people could attend in the entire region. The absence of such cultural centers contributed to a weakening of cultural capital and reflected a wider sentiment of disconnect from former institutions of cultural significance among coloured youth. In areas like Lavender Hill, the dilapidated public soccer pitch has become a battleground for gang violence, located directly across the street from the local Hillwood Primary School. The field intended to bring youth together has become a no-go zone for township residents, however, even those who avoid the pitch remain at risk. During my time working in Lavender Hill a grade 5 learner was shot while walking to school on the pitch. Community planners have long attempted to conceptualize strongly inclusive meeting places designed to foster face-to-face meetings and socio-economic welfare in a local area be it in a city or in the countryside. Important roots for such centers can be found in the flourishing civic societies of the 19th century. For example, Putnam describes the establishment of a community lyceum in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1829. Its founder, Thomas Greene, formulated the purpose of such a large-scale local meeting place in the following way: We come from all divisions, ranks and classes of society to teach and to be taught in our turn. While we mingle together in these pursuits, we shall learn to know each other more intimately; we shall remove many of the prejudices which ignorance or partial acquaintance with each other had fostered (...) In the parties and sects into which we are divided, we sometimes learn to love our brother at the expense of him whom we do not in so many respects regard as a brother () We may return to our homes and firesides [from the lyceum] with kindlier feelings toward one another, because we have learned to know one another better (in Putnam, 2000: 23).xvii

One of the founding fathers of social capital research, American sociologist James Coleman (1988), argues socio-spatial planning affects the generation of social capital. He finds that spatial planning affects preferences for social interaction which thereby affects perceptions of trust among residents within a community.xviii At the community level, lower levels of social interaction among residents breeds mistrust. Ghettos and urban sprawl do not tend to enhance mutual trust and widespread cooperation. Therefore, Coleman finds a causal relationship between the existence of cultural centers and social interaction. The increased number of regular face-to-face meetings also involves increased learning and the formation of human capital within the local community. Socially designed meeting places in the form of community centers (acting as town-country magnets, cf. Howard) are conducive to physical cohesion for they increase the regularity of face-to-face meetings among community residents, which again tends to foster widespread networking and social cohesion within the single local community. The positive externalities of such interaction can generate positive collective goods such as highquality institutions like a well-functioning public school, lower levels of gang violence and participation (particularly among youth), and widespread cooperation between various professional, associational, social and age groups leading to high inter-group trust (i.e. generalized trust, cf. Rothstein & Uslaner 2005 and Uslaner 2008).xixxx xxi The absence of such spaces breeds greater levels of mistrust, paranoia and weakens bonds between community members. Such community disintegration characterizes community relations in Lavender Hill. Low perceptions of community trust and widespread sentiment of social and economic exclusion empower gang domination. Coleman also asserts that just as physical capital is created by changes in materials to form tools that facilitate production, human capital is created by changes in persons that bring

about skills and capabilities that make them able to act in new ways. Social capital, however, comes about through changes in relations among persons that facilitate action. Therefore, while human capital is embodied in the skills and knowledge acquired by an individual, social capital is less tangible, for it exists in the relations among persons. High levels of social capital, Coleman argues, can enhance collective levels of human capital for greater community relations among residents can act as a facilitator of information exchange. Social capital, like physical and human capital, generates productive activity. For example, a group within which there is extensive trust is able to accomplish more than a comparable group without such trust and reliance. Therefore, the absence of community structures that facilitate these meaningful relationshipslike in Lavender Hilllimits levels of trust among residents, the production of social capital, and consequentially the collective spread of human capital within the community. Within this community contextcharacterized by social disorganization and low levels of social capitalthe gang emerges as a viable mechanism by which members can generate social inclusion: the gang member seeks formal recognition or respect within the community and a viable means to generate regular income. Nevertheless, it is within this environment that the gang functions as a generator of negative social capital. Though the gang creates economic opportunity for its members in the illicit market and establishes relationships of community interdependence, it does so through coercion and domination. By increasing levels of fear and paranoia, which decrease levels of community trust, the gang enhances the reliance of the community on their protection and other services. Norms also constitute a powerful, though sometimes fragile, form of social capital. For example, a prescriptive norm within a community that constitutes a particularly important form

of social capital is that one should forgo self-interest for the sake of the collectivity. For Coleman, a norm of this nature, reinforced by social support, status, honor and other rewards, is the social capital that builds young nationsstrengthens families by leading family members to act selflessly in the familys interest, facilitates the development of nascent social movements through a small group of dedicated, inward-looking, and mutually rewarding members, and in general leads persons to work for the public good (1988). Ultimately, norms of this sort are important in overcoming the public goods dilemma that exists within collectivities. The absence of such normative values can lead to a breakdown of community cooperation and trust, thereby enhancing conditions conducive to illicit activity. Normative social capital, however, not only facilitates certain actions; it constrains others. Norms that make it possible for people to walk alone at night also constrain the activities of criminals, for in the instance of the gang, it raises the probability of community retaliation against gang activity. In this sense, community trust, organization and mobilization would act as a check to attempts of gang dominationor the domination of any particular group for that matter. Though the existence of such norms and levels of community mobilization presuppose low levels of collective action costs, small community action has sometimes resulted in relative successeven in the gangland that is Lavender Hill. A local mother and volunteer in the community described that after her thirteen-year-old daughter was terrorized by members of a local gang and the police did not act, she gathered local grannies and whoever would come to make a fuss to approach the local gang leader at his safe-house. This impromptu rallying of local grandmothers, who are highly respected within the community, shocked them all. After describing the attack in detail to the gang leader, much to the dismay of the somewhat forty men that watched in surprise within the safe-house, the gang leader called upon the two men who had

previously been described by the mother as the attackers. She vividly described what followed. He had the other men put soap in socks and then he ordered them to beat the two guys in front of me. All while the other grannies waited outside to see what would happenthen he promised there would be no more problems with my daughternothing has happened to her since (Interview, 2012).xxii In this instance, a local mother utilized normative values of respect towards grandmothers as bargaining power with a local gang leader. Though this interaction is highly uncommon, it produced meaningful results for the mother by constraining the actions of the local gang. Certain kinds of social structure, however, are especially important in facilitating normative behavior and certain forms of social capital. In Lavender Hill, like other coloured townships such as Manenberg and Mitchells Plain, the dizzying array of inward facing courtstyle housing creates a constricted and limited perception of the greater community. In fact, in Lavender Hill, courts are understood as turf belonging to particular gangsa young person must navigate these no-go zones to safeguard his/her own well-being. One false move can result in harassment, abuse, or even death. Within this constricted social environment, young people have limited interaction with peers, thereby weakening social ties and levels of mutual trust between different courts while increasing inner-court reliance and dependence. Not surprisingly, within this socially fragmented setting, one finds high levels of gang violence. In total, the provincial government estimates around 130 gangs with some 100,000 members currently operate within the Western Cape alone (The Economist, 2012).xxiii Life within a court is fraught with anxiety. A grade seven learner described court life in Lavender Hill. In addition to living with thirteen other immediate and extended family members, There isnt a lot of spaceyou cant go outside much because it isnt safe. In

my court there are a lot of Funkies [members of the local Junky Funky Kids gang] I go to school and then I go straight home. You see, I have to change the way I walk to school and even when I come back because some guys try to recruit me for the gangs...the friends I have are all from my court. We travel to school together because it is saferfor me, I wake up scared, I go to school scared and when I leave I am scared. Life here is about the gangs. This is the way it is (Interview, 2012).xxiv Court-style living is characterized by crime, paranoia and mistrust. Due to the prevalence of gang activity and the particularly violent nature of gang turf warfare in Lavender Hill, the lives of children become constricted to a particular court. In a very real sense, because of the absence of safe public community spaces and limited contact with community members, life in another court resembles a different existence for a young person. Ones social reality is effectively confined to life in the court. In this sense the relationship of court-style housing and gang activity is both causal and consequential. Though the gang can exist outside of the courts, such design promotes community separation and generates community mistrust which weakens community bonds and social capital. As a consequence, the gang flourishes as a means by which members can generate meaningful relationships with fellow gang members. This narrow perception of reality and the effective division of the community along gang turf lines resembles what journalist Alex Kotlowitz terms narrow geographic horizons (1991).xxv Similar to Kotlowitz characterization of black children in project housing in Chicago, youth in Lavender Hill face high levels of isolation and alienation from the greater city of Cape Town, narrowing their perceptions of their own neighborhood. This narrow-minded perception of the community facilitates greater dependence on the gang. Within this constricted setting the gang becomes a viable mechanism by which a young person can widen his horizons: protection by the

gang affords him greater territorial freedom and autonomy among his peers. A young sixth grade boy eagerly described, I want to join a gang for respect. Gangsters dont have to worry like we dothey dont have to worry when they walk aroundthey have protection (Interview, 2012).xxvi Despite such division within Lavender Hill, the school stands out as an untapped generator of social capital within the greater community. As a potential generator of economic opportunity and facilitator of pro-social behavior, the school stands out as the only place within Lavender Hill where young people from different courts, gang turfs, and existences come together regularly under the same roof. The school, therefore, holds both a unique and strategic position within the community. Understanding the unique role the school plays within the coloured township setting fraught with widespread violence, mistrust, and fear can provide useful insights into exploring the role that the school can play in building social capital, generating human capital, and strengthening collective identity to potentially mitigate youth involvement in gangs. The following chapter explores this conceptualization of the school further.
i

Steinberg, J. (2004). The Number: One man's Search for Identity in the Cape Underworld and Prison Gangs. Jeppestown: Jonathan Ball Publishers ii Bekker, S., & Leilde, A. (2006). Reflection on Identity in Four African Cities. Stellenbosch: African Minds. iii Western, J. (1981). Outcast Cape Town. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press. iv Hanson in Pinnock, 1989; 156, cited in Jensen and Turner, 1996: 85. v Smith, D. (1992). The Apartheid City and Beyond: Urbanization and Social Change in South Africa. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. vi D Horner. 1983. Labour preference, influx control and squatters: Cape Town entering the 1980s, SALDRU Working Paper 50, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU), Cape Town. vii S.A. Institute of Race Relations, (1976). South Africa. Commission of Inquiry into Matters Relating to the Coloured Population Group, South African Institute of Race Relations. viii James R. Kluegel and Elliot R. Smith, Beliefs about Inequality (New York: Adline de Gruyter, 1986).

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Wild, J: 1963, Existence and the World of Freedom, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. x Survey Conducted by Keith Calix [July, 2012]. xi Volunteer from the Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport, interviewed by Keith Calix, 8 June 2012. xii Local Mother, interviewed by Keith Calix 4, June 2012. xiii Roshan Samara, T. (2011). Cape Town after Apartheid: Crime and Governance in the Divided City. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press. xiv Constable, Interviewed by Keith Calix 9, June 2012. xv Jacobs, J. (1992). The Life and Death of Great American Cities. New York City: Vintage Books. xvi Standing, A. (2003). The social contradictions of organized crime on the Cape Flats, South African Institute for Security Studies, ISS Paper 74. xvii Putnam, R.D. (2000) Bowling Alone. The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Simon & Schuster, New York. xviii Coleman, J.S. (1988) Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology 94, 95121. xix Rothstein, B. & E.M. Uslaner (2005) All for All: Equality and Social Trust. World Politics 58, 41-72 xx Uslaner, E.M. (2006) Does diversity drive down trust? Working paper 2006.69. Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei: http://ideas.repec.org/p/fem/femwpa/2006.69.html (Date of access: 25-04-2007). xxi Uslaner, E.M. (2009a) Corruption, inequality, and trust. In: G.T. Svendsen & G.L.H. Svendsen (Eds.) Handbook of Social Capital. The Troika of Sociology, Political Science and Economics. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK, Northampton, USA. Forthcoming Spring 2009. xxii Local Mother, Interviewed by Keith Calix, 8, June 2012. xxiii The Economist. (2012, August 11). Gang warfare. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/node/21560313 xxiv Grade Seven Learner, Interviewed by Keith Calix 13, May, 2012. xxv Kotlowitz, A. (1991). There Are No Children Here. New York: First Anchor Books. xxvi Grade Six Learner, Interviewed by Keith Calix 13, May, 2012.