The Cape Town divide deepens

Growth and investment in the CBD are fuelling soaring prices, squeezing out local residents. By Kara le Roux

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If you live or work in Cape Town, you are faced with a choice: stay in the CBD and hand over half your salary to a landlord, or flee to the suburbs for more space and less rent to sacrifice your sanity to the N1.

We complain about municipal rates, digital nomads and the rise of Airbnbs, but we stay. What used to be anecdotal grumbling now has hard numbers in the form of the latest report by the Central City Improvement District (CCID).

The State of Cape Town Central City Report 2024, released on 17 September, details how property investment in the CBD reached R9-billion this past year, up from R7.2-billion the year before.

"It is distinctly — I think this is fairly categorical - that Cape Town’s CBD is an oasis in the South African context," said Paul Court, the City’s chief economist, at the unveiling of the report.

This “oasis” comes at a price. The same dynamism and investment that keep the CBD thriving are also pushing it out of reach for many.

The CCID, which has tracked the CBD for 13 years, has divided its 1.6km² patch into four precincts. Inside that small area, 27 new property developments are either complete, under construction, or on the drawing board. Together they're worth R9-billion.

The City’s 2022 valuation pegged the CBD’s property stock at R42.5-billion.