Lavender Hill v Mitchells Plain

I spent a fair bit of time in the bus with Alfonso yesterday, he's one of the drivers who takes my students to and from their volunteer placements. We chatted about his plans to build a garden on the corner of his street in Seawinds, and how he can't grow vegetables there because some skelm* will come steal them in the night. Our conversation turned into a lament about living in Lavender Hill, and how he wants to move back home to Micthells Plain. We drive past Westridge and he explains:
"There is only one gang here, the Nice Time Kids. The NTKs." He gestures over to the left, to the new 'plot and plan' communities popping up. "And the area is safe because of them."
It seemed a little counter-intuitive: an area safe because of gang, not because of it's absence. So I asked him, "I don't get it. If there's a gang, why is it safe? Don't the gangs shoot at each other and that?"
"Ja, they do. They shoot at each other. So then when there's only one gang, there's no one to shoot. You see?"
"Aaaaah, ok, ja, I see."
We turn up The Cedars Avenue. He points to the right, "So this section, you see, not here, but just those few blocks there," we drive slowly while he points the streets out to me, there is a man selling fruit on the left, under a green shade cloth, "you see there, there you now have The Americans."
"Really? I thought the Americans were in Hanover Park, Manenberg, that side."
"Ja, but then here you get the small splinter groups. Just a few members. It's not so big, but they are still here."
"And they fight with the NTKs?"
"Only sometimes. Because they know their streets."
I nod and stare forward.
"And that's why it's better here than in Lavender Hill, in Seawinds." He pauses as he turns right at the intersection. "The gangs there don't have streets like they do here."

We drive slowly, school has just ended and there is a parade of little uniforms crossing and not crossing the street. Alfonso rolls the window down and shouts a greeting to the one doekie*-wearing mom who smiles a wave and a shout back.
"Ja no," Alfonso turns to me,  "I think it's time to come home."

* trouble-maker
* headscarf