The City of Cape Town has been recognized as Africa’s City of opportunity.
This is according to a report released by auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
“An analysis of South Africa’s top five metros population shows that Cape Town outperforms all other metros with 17% of ex-pats having a bachelor’s degree or higher,” the report reads.
“This is more than three times higher than the figure for the city’s population as a whole (5.5%).
“This might go some way to explaining why Cape Town has more skilled jobs and much lower unemployment than other SA metros, but it is not an ideal solution.”
The report ranked Cape Town as 24th out of 31 cities which it was compared to, like Beijing, Kuala Lumpur, Moscow, Shanghai and Mexico City.
It is, however, ranked as the number one African city in this category.
The report also states that despite this, Cape Town remains one of the most unequal cities in the country.
“Inequality means that even as Cape Town’s universities produce Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry, Medicine and Literature, its population as a whole remains uneducated, and while tourists can relax in its safe Waterfront areas), city-wide crime statistics reflect the dangerous daily lives of its many informal township dwellers,” the report says.
“Because Cities of Opportunity’s indicators are weighted towards measures of the population as a whole, Cape Town scores poorly in some areas that surprised the research team.”
The report further points out that the inequality can be traced to Mzansi’s apartheid past, a “legacy that has proved hard to erase.”
