A village management board was established for Parow in 1902. It was upgraded to a municipality in 1939. The municipality was incorporated into the City of Tygerberg in 1996.
The Parow valley was included in the Cape Town municipal land area in 1944. During the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, Parow was largely transforming into a commercial area, with many shopping centres opening around Voortrekker road, one of the longest roads in Cape Town.
With the extreme political struggle of apartheid in the 1980s and the advent of democracy in the 1990s, Parow's popularity started to decline and many of its higher income population moved further north.
In 2005 Parow became the headquarters for the South African division of the International Alliance of Guardian Angels, the world's oldest and largest volunteer public safety patrol organisation.
Sports and other events are sometimes held in Parow Civic Centre.
