An unlikely partnership of property owners, Congolese refugees and the pioneer gentrifiers have decided to turn Muizenberg around. They formed a residents’ committee to lobby the council, which launched a vigorous campaign to enforce the by-laws and set up a Muizenberg Improvement District. But while gentrification means upward mobility for some, it moves others to the margins of society.

At The Bovine Head Cookers’ Market, sheep heads, which arrive frozen in municipal plastic bags, are deftly skinned and chopped with cleavers. The meat is then boiled in big pots, each straddling three paraffin stoves. It’s a messy business. But the market is clean and orderly — the result of a joint effort between iTrump, the municipal agency charged with regenerating Thekwini’s inner city, and traders.

Lindiwe Mvula is eighth in line, waiting with her trolley outside a recycling plant in Johannesburg’s Newtown. She’s there to sell the used cardboard and plastic she collects and she isn’t pleased with her haul. At the rate of 25c a kilo of cardboard she reckons it’s worth about R20 — not a lot for a hard day’s work. Mvula is just one of many who collect Jozi’s consumer cast-offs to make a living.

Take a walk through Ntuthukoville, a low-income residential area in Pietermaritzburg. The roads are clean. Gardens are well cared for, with flowers and shrubs, paths and edgings. Old car tyres have been used as planters to shore up the steeply sloping ground. Residents have done all the work, transforming an impoverished settlement into a model of community self-help.

Selina Boyani’s Soweto shack, which she shares with four children, is a little larger than a single bed. It is dark, cramped and poorly ventilated, but it has one crucial advantage: it’s only a 10-minute walk to school for Nombulelo (17), the oldest child. That means no expensive taxi fares and no long hours spent commuting. These are important issues for a single mother supporting four children with the money she earns doing domestic work two days a week.

When both the owner and caretaker gave up on Everest, an 11-storey flat block in Johannesburg’s notorious Hillbrow, the job of building manager did not look attractive. In 1999 the building, at the corner of Goldreich and Edith Cavell streets, was well on its way to becoming a slum. But for grandmother Maureen Singh, Everest was an opportunity.

”With one fluid movement, Mabele’s assistant heaves the bleating goat over his shoulder and into the open boot of the car. He then repeats the process with the second goat, which seems more stoical about its fate. The goats soon settle down and two satisfied clients drive off. Goats are famously obliging.” The divide between town and country, urban and rural, is by no means clear-cut.