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White neighborhoods are becoming darker in complexion and more expensive. Analysts say that soaring house prices and booming car sales are being fueled by an upwardly mobile black middle class emerging from the ashes of apartheid.
   Blacks, who make up about 75 percent of South Africa’s 46.6 million people, are moving from the periphery of the economy into the mainstream 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 swelled to 7.8 percent of the total population in 2000 from 3.3 percent in 1994.
   "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 available, analysts say the black middle class is behind the retail sales boom and strong house price growth.
   Before 1994, blacks were precluded by legislation from owning properties in suburbs exclusively reserved for whites and had limited access to bank credit.
   But the face of the former white suburbs has changed as blacks increasingly move from the townships in search of security and better municipal services. Living in posh suburbs is seen by many as a status symbol.
   "The black middle class is contributing strongly to the growth of the property market and other sectors of the economy," says Jacques du Toit, an economist at banking group Absa.
House prices rose by an average of 30.3 percent in real terms in 2004, the highest since 1967, and business is also booming for auto traders, with a growing number of sales attributed to black buyers.