World City Syndrome

the long version

Is Cape Town a world city? In many respects, yes. It fits the description of world cities laid out in the academic literature on the subject (albeit as a peripheral player) and has an increasingly complex global network of connections. But the academic description of a world city does not adequately capture or explore the dynamics of urbanization in Cape Town. As useful as this theoretical paradigm may be in describing the service-oriented, globally linked and polarized nature of the city, it fails to assess and address the key features of urban capitalist crisis that shape Cape Town and the neoliberal policies and institutions that have emerged as a result.