Mitchell's Plain
| Mitchell's Plain | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| Coordinates | 34 ° 2 ′ 54 ″ S , 18 ° 36 ′ 20 ″ E | ||
| Basic data | |||
| Country | South Africa | ||
| Western cape | |||
| metropolis | City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality | ||
| ISO 3166-2 | ZA toilet | ||
| height | 31 m | ||
| surface | 43.8 km² | ||
| Residents | 310,485 (2011) | ||
| density | 7,095.2 Ew. / km² | ||
| founding | 1970s | ||
 Aerial view of part of Mitchell's Plain
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Mitchell's Plain (sometimes Mitchell's Plain ) is a district of the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality in the Western Cape Province of South Africa . It was founded in the 1970s during the apartheid period as a township for coloreds and is one of the largest townships in the country.
geography
Mitchell's Plain is located around 32 kilometers southeast of Cape Town city center in the Cape Flats . In 2011, 310,485 people lived there on around 44 square kilometers. The district is not far from False Bay , from which it is only separated by a coastal strip several hundred meters wide. Strandfontein, located in the southwest and by the sea, belongs to main place Mitchell's Plain. To the north is the Philippi district , to the east is Khayelitsha . In the west there are sandy wastelands. In the southeast, the nature reserve Wolfgat Nature Reserve borders Mitchell's Plain.
The district is divided into several areas. These include, from north to south, Lentegeur, Mandalay, Woodlands, Rocklands, Tafelsig and Strandfontein.
In the 2011 census, 91 percent of residents described themselves as colored, seven percent as black.
history
Founded in the early 1970s, apartheid authorities wanted to provide Coloreds with housing that had been evicted from District Six as a result of the Group Areas Act . When designing the district, emphasis was placed on ensuring a better infrastructure compared to other townships, for example through better transport links and less dense settlement. In the western half the conditions were more favorable than in the east, where poorer coloreds were settled.
On August 20, 1983, the influential opposition movement United Democratic Front (UDF) was founded in Rocklands Community Hall on Mitchell's Plain . From 2000, Mitchell's Plain was one of the priorities of the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, which opposed officially ordered evictions of apartments.
In 2019, Mitchell's Plain was one of the places where South African National Defense Force troops were stationed indefinitely to fight crime.
Infrastructure and traffic
In the center of the district is the shopping and city center Town Center. Two other shopping centers are in the north and south.
A line of the Metrorail Cape Town serves Mitchell's Plain with a branch line , on which the three stations Lentegeur, Mitchell's Plain and Kapteinsklip. Mitchell's Plain station is also the main stop for buses and minibuses . Several motorways open up the district.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c 2011 census , accessed on December 7, 2014, accessed on December 8, 2014
- ↑ The Mitchell Plains Story (private website ), accessed December 8, 2014
- ↑ Report at sahistory.org.za (English), accessed on December 8, 2014
- ↑ Kimon de Greef: As Gang Murders Surge, South Africa Sends Army to Cape Town, and the City Cheers. nytimes.com, August 13, 2019, accessed August 14, 2019