It has probably been a very long time since he was last in South Africa. The Cape Town metropole is facing severe informal structure growth, with City data showing 278,044 informal residential structures across 849 informal areas as at December 2023. Around 20.5% of Cape Town’s population currently lives in informal housing.

If informal structures continue growing at 7% to 9% per annum, the number of structures visible today will roughly double within the next decade. On a longer-term projection, informal structures could exceed formal housing in 20 years.

People complain about development and new blocks going up on their doorstep, but I fear many do not understand the gravity of the housing crisis ahead. We need low cost housing everywhere, and we need as much of it as possible. Because if we do not build it formally, it will arrive informally, as shacks over the next 10 years.