Much has been written on the revanchist city (for example Smith, 1996; MacLeod, 2002; Belina and Helms, 2003) and the reclaiming of space from so-called ‘undesirables‘ through the means of the police. Here, the guiding ideas are policing strategies such as the ‘broken windows syndrome‘ (Kelling and Wilson, 1982) and ‘zero tolerance policing‘ (Giuliani and Bratton, 1994; Beckett and Herbert, 2008; Herbert and Beckett, 2010). However, the role of private security companies in the reclaiming of public space remains under-researched. Using a case study in Cape Town this research gap will be addressed in this study. Conceptualising the thesis through governance and territoriality, it will examine how revanchist ideas of reclaiming space from urban poor and street people lead to exclusionary processes in the quest for sanitised spaces. By taking private security companies out of the environment of mass private property in which they are most commonly studied (Shearing and Stenning, 1983; von Hirsch and Shearing, 2000; Wakefield, 2003), this thesis examines their role and impact on public spaces within the revanchist environment of Cape Town, South Africa. Here, fast and extensive developments in governance as well as in urban life, interwoven with exceptionally high crime rates, have created a flourishing market for private security companies. In this context this thesis examines the case of private policing companies operating in the core public spaces of the city; the research reveals their social ordering function and powers are the same as those usually associated with the public police. Drawing on these insights it is claimed that private policing companies manifest an evolution from private security companies towards the police, and that this continues the pluralisation of the policing landscape. By mapping the privately policed spaces within the case studies and analysing the functions the different governance actors carry out, this thesis also argues that social development actors become part of the policing landscape. Analysing the governance landscape and its close ties to private policing, it is argued that social development is becoming the softer side of policing. Combining effective private policing companies with social development in support of the state reveals that private governance actors are indeed powerful players in public spaces. Drawing on this governance of security and its associated power, the final argument will be that a different kind of public space is being developed. After consideration of the particular history of defunct public spaces in South Africa, it is claimed that no single public space exists anymore, but that we now face different public spaces, characterised through their different norms and rules, and the social groups that use them.

“What is certain is that the question of […] re-making a landscape of prostitution in the city […] needs to be viewed as part of a changing, global discourse on the nature of contemporary cities” (Aalbers & Sabat 2012, p. 114).Prostitution – associated with well-known Red-Light Districts – has for a long time been seen as “a significant urban activity that relates to other economic and social functions of the city [and contributes] […] to the cognitive image of a city held by both residents and non-residents, even those who have never frequented them” (Ashworth, White & Winchester 1988, p. 201). It is therefore no surprise that within the neoliberal framework of inter-city competition, these once notorious districts, commonly associated with crime and violence, ascended into spaces of entertainment and consumption, neatly aligning with entrepreneurial city branding strategies. The Reeperbahn, Hamburg’s famous mile of sin, located within the district of St. Pauli is no exception to this rule. As a place traditionally located outside Hamburg’s social and physical city limits, it is nowadays frequented by thousands of tourists and party seekers, drawn in by the area’s myths and shady reputation (Khan 2012). Actively fostering the (economic) attractiveness of the so-called Kiez has long been part of Hamburg’s city politics and was reinforced with the creation of the Hamburg Brand Marketing Strategy in 2002, where the Entertainment Mile Reeperbahn alongside Hamburg’s Pulsating Scenes became two of the key success modules in branding the city. The repercussion this has had not only for the district and its inhabitants but specifically for the red-light industry has largely been understudied.This Master’s Thesis therefore, aims at studying the general effects of city branding, such as displacement and conflict over spatial uses in the face of Over-Tourism and re-development strategies. Looking at the specific case of the Reeperbahn, it closes the gap of the somewhat understudied effects of gentrification on St. Pauli’s unique culture. By interviewing different local stakeholders, conducting a broad literature review as well as undertaking field work, the Hamburg-St.-Pauli-Brand-Dialectic will be analyzed subsequently, showing, how the Hamburg Brand and the city as a whole have profited from St. Pauli’s reputation and what consequences this has had in turn for the district.