Genuine public safety intervention or political theatre to manage the City's image during an election year? Politically Aweh digs into the facts, the politics, and the spin behind 'The Great Wall of Cape Town'.

For years, motorists travelling between Cape Town International Airport and the city centre have been the target of violent crime - earning that stretch of the N2 highway the grim nickname "the hell run".

Following the murder of Karin van Aardt, a 64-year-old grandmother who was stabbed during a smash-and-grab just minutes from the airport in December 2025, Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis announced the "N2 Edge Safety Project": a R114-million intervention that includes, among other plans, an 8km concrete wall along the highway.

But is this actually about crime - or about what the City looks like to people flying in from abroad?

The crime on the N2 spills over from Cape Town's poorer suburbs, communities that have faced the legacy of apartheid-era neglect and underinvestment in the democracy era.

The Politically Aweh team tracked down the receipts and academic insights to show why the City's response seems both disproportionate and unlikely to curb crime.

The City's own data shows that between July 2025 and January 2026, just 1% of all highway emergency calls were crime-related. The Nyanga police station, right next to the airport, meanwhile records more than 200 murders a year. Opponents say the wall addresses none of them....