{"id":819871,"date":"2025-04-07T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=819871"},"modified":"2025-04-07T10:05:38","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T08:05:38","slug":"goodbye-joburg-thousands-flee-to-find-better-living","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/819871\/goodbye-joburg-thousands-flee-to-find-better-living\/","title":{"rendered":"Goodbye Joburg – thousands flee to find better living"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Cape Town,\u00a0Africa\u2019s most expensive city for real estate<\/a>, plans to make it easier to develop homes as thousands flock to the metropolitan for a better quality of life, putting pressure on its\u00a0R1.2 trillion rand<\/a>\u00a0residential property market.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wedged between the iconic Table Mountain and the sea, and in close proximity to picturesque winelands, South Africa\u2019s second-biggest city has long been a favourite base for the wealthy seeking to enjoy warm weather and an outdoor lifestyle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luxury properties, including on the affluent Atlantic Seaboard region, are among the most in demand on the continent, with prime apartments selling for an average of\u00a0$5,600 per square meter<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cape Town, led by the Democratic Alliance since 2006, also ranks as the country\u2019s best-run major city<\/a>. It\u2019s drawn middle-class families fleeing poorly governed South African metros after remote working became popular during the coronavirus pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s contributing to a shortage of affordable housing and pricing locals out of the property market, where home prices have risen 30%<\/a> in the five years through March 2024, according to data from Statistics South Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThe numbers are quite staggering,\u201d Geordin Hill-Lewis, the city\u2019s mayor, said in an interview. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the last two years, 100,000 families moved to Cape Town from elsewhere in South Africa,\u201d he said, adding that about 80% of the households are from the province of Gauteng, where South Africa\u2019s\u00a0beleaguered economic hub<\/a>\u00a0of Johannesburg is situated.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Changes to municipal planning by-laws to fast track property development will take effect in July or August, he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under current administrative processes it takes about two years for officials to approve construction plans, the changes will shave months off this and allow the city to better respond to increased demand for housing, he said. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are seeing a spike in applications, which is good,\u201d the mayor said. \u201cWe want to see them move through the system quicker and to deliver more affordable accommodation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To be sure, Cape Town is also home to Khayelitsha, one of the\u00a0largest slums in the world<\/a>, according to Cities Alliance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gang violence is prevalent in poorer areas such as the Cape Flats, where the apartheid government forcibly moved people of color from prime locations, and that is a\u00a0major contributor<\/a>\u00a0to the country\u2019s murder rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City officials approved more than 4,000 plans for buildings, including residential, industrial and commercial works, worth 7.5 billion rand in the three months through December, a 61% increase in value from a year earlier, spokesperson Luthando Tyhalibongo said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While there have been calls locally for the city to intervene in the housing market with mechanisms such as price controls, Hill-Lewis doesn\u2019t agree. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a very bad idea and has perverse consequences, where you actually get less investment, and therefore higher prices over time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cape Town will spend R120 billion on infrastructure, including power, water and transport networks, over the next 12 years, the mayor said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also planning to increase visible policing and other measures to combat crime, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The City of Cape Town has seen an influx of 100,000 people over the past two years\u201480% of whom come from the crumbling Gauteng<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":800160,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[2279,1995,20721],"class_list":["post-819871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-cape-town","tag-joburg","tag-semigration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=819871"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":819878,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819871\/revisions\/819878"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/800160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=819871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=819871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=819871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}