"The biggest changes I have seen are the slow choking of my living culture through the accelerated sale of homes to high net worth individuals, the majority of whom have no connection to the place or the culture. Booley, 50, an eighth-generation Bo-Kaap resident, grew up in a neighbourhood where extended families often lived within a few streets of one another bound by mosques, schools, and a shared history shaped by culture, colonial rule, and apartheid."
"Across Bo-Kaap and much of Cape Town's inner-city, rising property prices, growing investor demand, and the rapid spread of short-term rentals are fuelling fears that one of the city's oldest-living neighbourhoods could slowly disappear. For local photographer Yasser Booley, the change has been gradual, but impossible to ignore."
Bo-Kaap, a historically Muslim neighborhood at the foot of Cape Town's Table Mountain, faces significant demographic and cultural transformation due to rising property values, investor demand, and short-term rental proliferation. Long-time residents, including eighth-generation families, observe the gradual displacement of their community as wealthy investors and tourists reshape the neighborhood's character. The social bonds that historically connected extended families through shared mosques, schools, and cultural heritage are deteriorating as properties sell to outsiders with no connection to the area's history. International buyer interest in Cape Town's prime property market accelerates this trend, fundamentally altering the neighborhood's identity and threatening the survival of its distinctive cultural traditions.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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