But this is exactly the issue.
I am in my late thirties, and spent my entire life living in either London or New York. Huge, busy, multicultural cities, all with their own issues with violence, though nowhere on the scale of South Africa.
I have never in my life been stopped by police.
You have been stopped HUNDREDS of times.
This is the difference in daily life for someone who is not used to living in South Africa.
Police, guards, guard dogs, bars, gates, and so on. This is the background of your life. To you, evidently, it's normal. But to someone coming from outside of South Africa, it's not. It shouldn't be normal. No one should have to live like this. It's deeply sad that so many South Africans do.
I think it's wonderful that you love your life and your country and city. But acting as if South Africa's problems are just like any other country's problems and that someone from the UK can move to South Africa and start living their best life is just irresponsible. I'm sorry, but it is.
It's like people on this thread saying 'but London has violence too.' Yes of course it does. But it's not the kind of indiscriminate violence you will experience in parts of South Africa. The violence in London is largely confined to gangs and disproportionately involves young Black men. It is vanishingly rare for a bystander or for someone not involved in a gang to find themselves caught up in indiscriminate violence in London, and in the UK in general. The same cannot be said for South Africa or specifically for Cape Town. As a regular middle class white woman, every day I could feasibly find myself a victim of violent crime in Cape Town. I could have my car hijacked, I could be held at gun point for my jewellery, I could have my house broken into, I could be raped, I could be kidnapped - the list goes on. All of these are real possibilities, and real possibilities you have to take up headspace thinking about, preparing for and adjusting your life to try and protect yourself against, every single day. As I detailed upthread, my white middle class British friend who worked in a private primary school in Cape Town was held at gunpoint while at work by a gang of armed robbers. I've been a teacher in London for over a decade. How many times do you think I've been held at gunpoint while at work? I think you can guess the answer.
Cape Town for a holiday, spent on the waterfront, is a gorgeous place. Touring wine country, going up to Stellenbosch etc, going out to Simon's Town, going to Robben Island and so on - amazing. I don't regret the time I spent there. South Africa is a gorgeous, gorgeous country. But it isn't safe. It doesn't provide freedom in the true sense of the word for any of its citizens. It is a deeply corrupt, troubled, endemically racist country that I don't think anyone in good conscience should be encouraging someone from a totally different culture to move to and expect a good quality of life. When you're used to it, when it's the background of your life, it's different. When you come from outside, it soon becomes unbearable.