Exploitation, Gentrification, and Commercialization: The Evolution of Third Spaces for Marginalized People in Post-Democratization Cape Town

This paper explores the impact of high-cost leisure spaces that are emerging in low-income marginalized communities within the Cape Town metropolitan area of South Africa after democratization. The resilience and cultural significance of unregulated third spaces, like shebeens, despite governmental suppression demonstrates the importance of these venues to marginalized South Africans. Through the examination of the gentrification of Bo Kaap and Khayelitsha, this paper argues that the pervasive trend of commercialization (which is supposedly for economic empowerment of said areas), can exclude non-White residents and corrode the generations-long cultural significance created in third spaces. This barrier disproportionately harms Black and impoverished South Africans, which are deeply intertwined groups due to the remnants of Apartheid. While viewing this issue through a racial lens, this paper advocates for a reexamination of South African corporations’ best practices and governmental policy regarding leisure spaces. In general, all stakeholders in the leisure economy should acknowledge and deeply consider their third space’s multifaceted implications for the marginalized people that reside in them.