The Cape Flats, that windswept, treeless, barren, sandy area between two oceans at Africa's southern tip, is home to more than a million people, approximately one quarter of Cape Town's population. Many live in the sprawling shack settlements that ring the city. The post-apartheid state is attempting to eradicate such settlements by providing formal houses in planned residential estates. This book describes, over 17 years, the lives of the residents of one such shack settlement, The Park, who moved to new, 'formal' houses in The Village at the turn of the millennium.