Rapid urbanisation brings lifestyle havens for Africa’s middle class

Amid Africa’s many regions of upheaval, there are oases of calm appearing for some of the more better-off residents.
"Lifestyle estates" are going up across Africa, proving wildly popular with the continent’s expanding middle class.
In a similar vein to the UAE’s communal property projects, these developments provide an environment that is equal to, or exceeds what is found in many western countries. They become islands of security and modern comfort in cities where infrastructure is often lacking.
"The fast growing middle class in African countries is rapidly gaining access to services and products across different sectors," says Sebastian Dietzold, the managing director of Fumba Town Development on the island of Zanzibar, a Tanzanian archipelago off the coast of east Africa. "They, too, are evolving to fit modern lifestyle whether its phones, cars, housing and so on and demand to pursue comfort, safe, clean and healthy environment for their families."
Fumba is just one of dozens of such projects going up around sub-Saharan Africa. It will initially provide 1,000 residential units of apartments, town houses and seafront units but will eventually also have a commercial and entertainment area open to the public.
Mr Dietzold says Zanzibar’s population will double in the next decade, driven largely by expanding tourism that is causing a rise in the number of leisure industry professionals. These are a mix of expatriates and locals who want to come home at night to modern amenities.
"Fumba Town Development is the first gated community in Zanzibar, which will set trends to the inherited lifestyle of expats settling on the island. We expect this will encourage other developers as well," he says.
Africa’s property markets are continuing to develop, despite recent challenges faced by some of its commodity-driven economies, according to Knight Frank’s Africa Report 2017 released on Wednesday. However, a divergence between the growth rates of commodity-exporting and commodity-importing countries has created wide variations in the strength of occupier and investor activity across the continent, the property consultancy says.
Africa’s strongest economies over the last two years have included commodity-importing east African countries Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda, while the west African economies of Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal have also emerged as star performers, Knight Frank says.
A growing volume of capital is targeted at Sub-Saharan Africa real estate investment and development, with a series of new investment vehicles being launched in recent years, according to the broker. South African funds are increasingly prominent as they seek to diversify away from their domestic market.
Rapid population growth and urbanisation are key drivers of property market activity across Sub-Saharan Africa, the report says. Its population is growing at a faster rate than that of any other global region and its demographic profile is both young and increasingly urbanised, creating opportunities for real estate development to support this growth.
All the signs point to a growth in gated communities. A recent survey by the research firm Mercer, which produces an annual Quality of Living index, showed only five African cities made it on to the top 100 list, which is dominated by European locales. Port Louis in Mauritius is the highest and clocks in at 84, followed by four South African cities also making the top 100.
Dubai, incidentally, takes the 74th spot on the index, with Abu Dhabi at 79.
Mercer says infrastructure is pivotal in determining the quality of living for expats in cities, which explains why African countries lag far down the ranks. Lifestyle estates leapfrog this – for the middle classes and wealthy, that is.
The security they provide their residents is clearly a factor in their appeal, especially as the middle classes grow older.

Source: The National