Browsing by Author "Naik, Nikhil Rajendra"
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- ItemA geography of self-identifying business parks in Cape Town(2020-03) Naik, Nikhil Rajendra; Spocter, Manfred; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Geography and Environmental Studies.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The built environment of a city plays a significant role in the ordering of urban life. The urban environment of the City of Cape Town has been the site of deconstruction and reconstitution in recent times and it is this phenomenon that beckons the call for deeper investigation. The continual integration of Cape Town into the global economic sphere has created a development trend of service sector dominance in the built environment of the city. Self-identifying business parks have been identified as a sub-component of the concept commercial parks and have been selected to conceptualise what is happening in Cape Town’s commercial spaces. Through a mixed methods approach both quantitative and qualitative data was collected to aid in exploring and understanding the changes occurring in Cape Town’s commercial built environment. The study looks to examine the temporal distribution and spatial organisation of commercial and a sub-component self-identifying business parks in Cape Town. Four objectives were outlined in the research: a review of relevant literature, the creation of a database of commercial parks in Cape Town, investigations into the physical characteristics of self-identifying business parks, and the categorising of business activities discovered in selfidentifying business parks. A spatial-temporal analysis into commercial parks revealed clear concentrations of parks in high-income developed areas, high-income suburban nodes, decentralised economic areas on the urban periphery, as well as in traditional industrial locations. In terms of the establishment of commercial parks the most growth intensive period was between 2004 and 2010 with decentralised suburban areas experiencing the highest growth in terms of location. Investigations into the physical environments of self-identifying business parks highlighted the varying range in sizes and structure of the parks, and also solidified the presence of the private security sector in the commercial landscape of the city. In relation to the business activities within self-identifying business parks, the wholesale and retail sectors, and the finance, insurance and real-estate sectors were the most dominant activities encountered in the selfidentifying business park landscape. Recommendations for future enquiries include the impacts of private security practises on business activities within commercial parks and investigations into the property developers of these commercial spaces in the city. The spatiality of Cape Town’s commercial park development provided a deeper understanding of the configurations of urban spaces, and uncovered where concentrations of these spaces can be found in the city today. This evidence can be linked to the changing urban environment encountered in Cape Town over time and provides an insight into contemporary commercial spaces in a developing country context.