Whim neighborhoods are becoming darker in (1)______ and more expensive. (1)______
Analysts say that soaring house prices and booming car sales are being fueled
by an (2)______ mobile black middle class (2)______
emerging from the ashes of (3)______. (3)______
Blacks, who make up about 75 percent of South Africa’ s 46.6 million people,
are moving from the (4)______of the economy into the mainstream (4)______
thanks to policies aimed at redressing decades of injustice.
Statistics compiled by the independent Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) show that the black middle class has (5)______ to 7.8 percent of the total population in 2000 from 3.3 percent in 1994. (5)______
"The development of a black middle class was deliberately stunted under segregation and apartheid," said the HSRC’ s Roger Southall.
Although official figures are not (6)______, (6)______
analysts say the black middle class is behind the retail sales boom and strong house price growth.
Before 1994, blacks were (7)______ by legislation from owning properties in suburbs exclusively reserved for whites and had limited access to bank credit. (7)______
But the face of the former white suburbs has changed as blacks (8)______ move from the townships m search of security and better municipal services. (8)______
Living in posh suburbs is seen by many as a stares symbol.
"The black middle class is (9)______ strongly to the growth of the property market and other sectors of the economy," says Jacques du Toit, an economist at banking group Absa. (9)______
House prices rose by an (10)______ of 30.3 percent in real terms in 2004, (10)______
the highest since 1967, and business is also booming for auto traders, with a growing number of sales attributed to black buyers.