Breaking New Ground in eThekwini

State housing schemes are shaped by the people who live in them in unpredictable ways, just as the way people live is shaped by the housing schemes they live in. A focus on Cornubia residents’ lives - a mixed- use development in eThekwini, planned within one of South Africa’s newest housing schemes ‘Breaking New Ground’ (BNG) - reveals the complex relationship between plan, policy, and people. Contrasting findings from interviews with various stakeholders, supported in part by census data gathered during previous studies on Cornubia, this paper explores a range of emotions, experiences, and practices of residents living in the BNG housing scheme across two broad categories of their lived experience: place-making strategies and citizenship practices. Discussing different aspects of the lived experience sheds light on how policy is expressed in people’s lives, helping to refine and distinguish multiple facets of an often unqualified and limited portrayal of those on the “receiving end” of housing subsidies. Outcomes reveal planning and policy are limited in their understanding of how people will ‘benefit’ from them. Furthermore, by exploring people’s lives in Cornubia, the critical role they play in shaping the socio-political landscape in South Africa is uncovered.