The Cape Town city centre has become so popular that it is attracting an increasing number of non-Capetonians to live in the heart of the Mother City.
The age profile of the city residents is youngish, between 25 and 44 years old, and many have lived in the city centre for five to ten years already. The reason for living in the city centre is that it is close to their work, it suits the residents’ ‘downtown’ lifestyle, it is easy to get to other suburbs from town, and they consider it safe to live there. The income level of the residents is on the higher side, almost half earning R30000 per month or more. One quarter of the residents have children. Employers of the residents are in the media, marketing, publishing, creative, and advertising industries; in financial services; and in education, training, retails, and sales. Almost equally residents own or rent their accommodation.
Major sources of information are online news sites (78%), Facebook (60%), radio (46%), local daily newspapers (45%), community newspapers (42%), and Twitter (37%).
Only 22% of city residents cycle, mainly due to the lack of sufficient cycle lanes and bicycle storage, and not feeling safe to cycle in the city, motorists not being considerate to them. While 73% of the residents live within 3 km of their work, residents equally drive or walk to work. The MyCiTi Bus is increasingly used, by half the residents.
Almost every resident claims to eat out, and 80% eat in the city centre at least once a week, up from 68% last year, reflecting the burgeoning interest and offering from the restaurants on Bree Street, but also on Kloof, Long and Loop Streets. Residents would love retail outlets to stay open later than 17h00, to have more deli-type food stores, and would like to see more restaurants. Coffee shops are particularly popular and are frequented at least once a week by most residents. Establishments on Kloof Street are regulars (65%), followed by those on Bree Street (having grown sharply from 43% last year to 56% this year), and Long Street (39%).
Retailers are supported (e.g. Woolworths, Truworths, and Edgars), as are clothing shops, theatres, art galleries (motivated by the First Thursday late gallery opening times), book shops, and homeware and decor shops.
Source: City Views, October – November 2015
Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Tel (021) 433-2100 Twitter:@WhaleCottage Facebook: click here
20
3070
27k
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Where do you get these figures? The city center is mostly rental investment / buy to let and if the average salary is 30k + which is top 3 percent of taxpayer base then rental rules by agents state only one third of income may be used towards rent so I dare you to find me a selection of upmarket properties in the 10 k range because there aren’t many and as for everyone eating out all the time well if you do the math and take current restaurant prices well it just doesn’t add up, you’d be flat broke within a week if you’re paying for your car or your wardrobe or your medical aid contribution and electricity when there is some Available, inner City will never be a New York a Berlin a
London or even a Beijing and lord knows how many times the city has tried to get a 24 hour lifestyle going it is only in the last two years a few motley corner stores have opened and everything is shut down at night by 8 including myciti on most routes and even downtown Burger King. But yes there is an allure to living close to work if you are fortunate your company is still in the city proper but Cape Town is spread All over the peninsula as far as office parks and industrial nodes go
The research was conducted on behalf of the Cape Town CCID, sample of just over 200.