Social inclusion through the urban lens: a comparative analysis of neighbourhoods of residential racial homogeneity and heterogeneity in Cape Town, South Africa

The world is increasingly urbanising, more than half of the global population live within cities. The impact of COVID-19 is having devastating effects. The United Nations estimates that the pandemic will most likely elevate poverty and inequalities at a global scale. The World Bank’s twin goals of ending extreme poverty and promoting prosperity and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals have deemed inclusive, resilient, and sustainable cities as global imperatives. Despite wide recognition, building inclusive cities remains a challenge. Many studies of social inclusion are conducted at an individual or household scale, with little emphasis on the interaction between human dynamics and the spatial characteristics of cities. This article proposes a data driven framework for examining urban social inclusion through the profiling of neighbourhoods by combining spatial network measurements, transport, land use and socio-economic indicators in Cape Town, South Africa. The spatial unit of the neighbourhood is considered an important building block within cities and has especially historically important social and cultural connotations in South Africa. The results show that there are 4 types of neighbourhoods, Economically disadvantaged and marginalised, Affluent and exclusive, Semi residentially heterogeneous and Residentially heterogeneous. Neighbourhoods with increased residential racial heterogeneity, additionally, have access to higher levels of mixed land use, transport, and global closeness centrality. Furthermore, neither extremely high nor low-income neighbourhoods are found to be related to racial heterogeneity. The results enable the profiling and comparison of neighbourhoods, and it is envisioned that this evidence-based approach could support policy makers and urban planners within decision making processes.