Abstract
South Africa is experiencing an increase in second-home ownership, the gentrification of small towns and their development as tourist destinations. The investigation presented in this chapter, with particular reference to the historic small town of Greyton in Western Cape Province, is one of very few pieces of research into the geographical aspects of these trends. The findings of a survey conducted among urban–rural migrant entrepreneurs are described here with particular reference to the economic reordering of property values, socio-demographic changes, place preference and the economic impact of gentrifiers. It was found that the accumulation of wealth in Greyton is based on an economic triad of gentrification, tourism and retirement. Over the last decade and a half, the tourism and hospitality industries have dramatically impacted on the way the town marries financial and social capital. The lone gentrifier has been replaced by tourism entrepreneur gentrifiers, second-home owners and a younger group settling with families as evidenced by the nature of the financial investment in the town and residents’ engagement in social, economic, developmental, environmental and heritage endeavours.
An earlier version of this chapter was published in Geography. Thanks are due to the Geographical Association and Dorcas Brown, senior production editor for permitting the reproduction of some sections of the journal paper published as Donaldson (2009).
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Notes
- 1.
Statistics South Africa no longer keeps record of emigration data. Kaplan et al. (no date) data on South African immigrants recorded by the five major recipient countries who collectively account for three-quarters of South African emigration—the UK, the USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand—record that a total of 233 609 South Africans emigrated in the period 1989–97.
- 2.
Depending on which phase of gentrification a place may be in, replacement as opposed to displacement, can be the focal point of discussion. Stockdale (2010: 38) makes a distinction between displacement and replacement, namely “displacement is likely to be most associated with affluent groups who purchase traditional farmhouses and cottages in the countryside, in the sense that gentrifiers are in a position to outbid (and therefore displace) local residents. Replacement (as opposed to displacement) may be more in evidence with regard to farm steading conversions. On the one hand, one could argue that prior to conversion to residential use some displacement of prior farming activity and farm workers will have taken place. In this interpretation displacement is a prerequisite for, rather than a consequence of, gentrification. On the other hand, the conversion of farm steadings creates a mechanism to increase the supply of housing in the Scottish countryside, and as such enables in-migrants to replace former out-migrants. A similar interpretation can be made in relation to new-build development in rural settlements. Indeed it could be argued that such development includes aspects of both displacement and replacement. For example, in the Mearns study area such development enables those displaced by urban gentrification processes to relocate to smaller settlements, and they in turn then contribute to the displacement of local rural residents (by outbidding them in the local housing market). Equally, displacement from an urban housing market can create sufficient demand for new housing in smaller settlements, and in that way those displaced from urban centres act as a replacement for past out-migrants from rural areas”.
- 3.
See, for example, the case study of Xiaozhou, China (Qian et al., 2013). They found that “grassroots artists’ aestheticisation and colonisation of the village ignited an initial stage of gentrification. The subsequent commodification of rural land and housing, induced by increasing concentration of art students and middle class ‘elite artists’, led to deepened gentrification, studentification and eventually displacement of pioneer gentrifiers” (Qian et al., 2013: 331).
- 4.
With the ageing of population, especially in developed countries, gated retirement villages are springing up to meet the demand by the expanding stratum of retirees who are looking for a secure place with a variety of leisure facilities for them to enjoy at this phase of their lives. In addition, these locales contain a wider social context, meaning that their sense of place is shaped also by the social, economic and cultural circumstances of retirees’ life (Massey, 1995).
- 5.
Small art towns [Villani Santa Fe’s (1999) term] are now through arts-related economic revitalisation and infrastructure developments attracting urban–rural migrant artists to start “artist colonies”. Most small towns in the country that have undergone some form of rejuvenation can attribute change to artists moving to the towns in the early stages of transformation. Off the beaten track small towns that became artist colonies, such as Clarens, Stanford, McGregor eventually developed into fully fledged tourism towns marked by an increase in restaurants, accommodation establishments and other new developments such as golf courses and retirement and other walled villages.
- 6.
Primary data for the Greyton case study were collected through in-depth interviews conducted with tourism small home-business entrepreneurs who had moved to Greyton after 1990. Twenty-nine per cent of these entrepreneurs were randomly selected from the official town website. In addition, interviews were held with a tourism official, a representative of the heritage conservation committee, and municipal workers or councillors concerning issues relating to conservation of the town’s heritage.
- 7.
The methodology of Hoogendoorn et al. (2005) was applied, i.e., the official rates and taxes mailing list was consulted and all addresses outside Greyton (which were assumed to be those of second-home owners) determined the number of second-home owners in Greyton.
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Donaldson, R. (2018). Rural (Small Town) Tourism-Led Gentrification. In: Small Town Tourism in South Africa. The Urban Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68088-0_6
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