A missed opportunity for environmental governance: Cape Town elites going off the water grid

Abstract

In one of the world’s most unequal cities, Cape Town urban elites, characterised through their socio-economic privilege, spatial advantage, and infrastructural autonomy, are progressively withdrawing, completely or partially, from the municipal water grid by employing private water infrastructure configurations such as boreholes and well-points. This research study investigates the motivations behind this infrastructural secession and the implications for environmental justice governance. Through a Constructivist Grounded Theory (CGT) framework, this research study uses qualitative interviews with elite residents from distinctly wealthy suburbs in Cape Town to develop a theoretical model, Privileged Autonomy and Governance Fragmentation. This theoretical model describes how alternative water infrastructure adaptations by elites are a response to and transform urban water governance. The insights of this research study highlight that elite “off-grid” practices are steered by interrelated rationales of autonomy, financial prudence, mistrust, lifestyle preservation, and ecological stewardship. Practices of this nature are commonly shaped as a sustainable response to climate-induced water insecurity. However, these practices reproduce inequality by converting water from a collective resource into a private asset. Privileged autonomy encapsulates material independence and symbolic power, providing elites with the ability to depict their withdrawal as responsible citizenship rather than exclusionary privilege. From a systemic perspective, elite infrastructural transitions threaten municipal fiscus, undermine regulatory oversight, and weaken governance structures that are dependent on cross-subsidisation to provide equitable water access. As a result, environmental justice dimensions such as distributive, procedural, and recognition are eroded. Despite appearing as adaptive, this research study concludes that elite infrastructural secessions towards independence constitute a missed opportunity for transformative environmental governance. To build sustainable cities, it is necessary to include elite agency in future equitable and participatory urban water governance frameworks.