Paper short abstract:

The paper examines the extent to which the interventions within the urban entrepreneurial governance framework of the city of Cape Town are inclusive or exclusive toward immigrants of African running business around commercial spaces. Forms of resistance and collaboration are critically analysed.

Paper long abstract:

The paper interrogates the extent to which the interventions implemented in the city of Cape Town by the authorities contribute to the spatial inclusion of immigrants of African origin into the design of urban development. The contrasting experiences of business owners from Africa origin (migrants and refugees) are examined in relation with structures of urban governance and social processes of inclusion in the city. there are strong indications that some of these interventions are constraining and exclusionary. There has been however a progressive public shift toward more accommodating. The paper is informed by the theoretical perspective on entrepreneurial urban governance. In the metropolitan area of Cape Town, the occupancy of any space for trading purpose is restrained by a bundle of by-laws. Although business owners, ranging for established shops to street vendors, are found everywhere in the city most of the public spaces onto which they operate are considered illegal or, when allowed to operate as shop owners, they operate under stringent regulatory frameworks. However, positive concessions have been made by the municipality in setting aside spaces for licensed street trading. In responses to the variety of interventions, business owners have displayed different reactions ranging from compliance to subversive acts including resistance or negotiated arrangements have been at time used to influence the direction of other interventions. They have managed to exert influence over the direction of specific policies or interventions. The negotiation of new forms of power which manifests itself in the daily lives of actors involved in the process of socio-spatial changes affecting the city.