The city of Cape Town experienced a severe housing crisis during the first half of the 20th century, the immediate origins of which were to be found in demographic growth fuelled by natural increase as well as inward migration. The deeper roots of the crisis, however, were in the policy of segregation. This article examines the consequences of the housing shortage ...

Cape Town's black population of the early twentieth century actively pursued lifestyles that might be described as respectable. But respectability was expensive, and poverty --characterised by poor housing, ill health and shortened lifespans -- stood in the way of some of its most essential elements: cleanliness, sexual restraint, sobriety, and the creation of nucl...