Young, brash, vibrant, a melting pot of cultures, unashamed - all of these epithets have been used to describe the spirit of Johannesburg, provincial capital of Gauteng (formerly the Transvaal), and economic powerhouse of South Africa. Johannesburg, also known as Jozi or Egoli, started life as a miner’s shanty town in the 1800s when gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand, a low range of hills on the central plateau of South Africa. By the beginning of the 21st century, it had grown into a huge sprawling metropolis with towering office blocks, upmarket shopping malls, excellent transport infrastructure and communications networks – the New York of Africa.

There is another side though. Johannesburg can be a good place to live in quiet, leafy suburbs with well-appointed homes surrounded by manicured gardens with access to good schools, first-class hospitals and amenities comparable with those in the world’s greatest cities – all this and a great climate!

Most businesses have their headquarters in Johannesburg, which means that it really is the place to be if you want to get ahead career-wise in South Africa. Jobs are available in almost every sector, from media and advertising to finance, fashion and politics.

As a result, Johannesburg has excellent facilities, including five star hotels, world class conference centres, to an international airport with a newly-constructed shuttle service carrying passengers directly into Sandton - the heart of Johannesburg’s business district.

Johannesburg’s citizens like to play as hard as they work, so the city has plenty to offer in terms of leisure facilities, including international sports stadiums, flashy restaurants, glitzy hotels and exclusive nightclubs and bars. By day, there are plenty of bookshops, craft markets and antique shops to explore, especially around Parkhurst, Melville, Greenside Rosebank and Bruma Lake. The exotic Asian wares of the Oriental Plaza and the safari parks situated around Four Ways and Muldersdrift are also worth visiting.

Space has never been short in South Africa and urban sprawl threatens to engulf Jozi’s northern neighbour, the city of Pretoria (Tswane). Former suburbs or satellite towns like Randburg and Sandton to the north, and Roodepoort to the west are strictly speaking separate boroughs, but in the minds of the locals, are all part of Johannesburg.

Corporate funding has fuelled the rise of more centrally-situated property prices in Johannesburg, particularly in areas like Sandton, Bryanston, Houghton, Illovo, Rosebank and Parktown.

Residential building developments are everywhere but vacant countryside, particularly to the north and west, has allowed a variety of new country estates, golf estates, and townhouses/cluster housing to become available in recent years. Prices of Johannesburg real estate tends to be higher in the north and vary according to property and plot size.

Families looking to buy property in Johannesburg should look to the quieter, more reasonably-priced suburbs of Florida, Linden, Cresta, Weltevredenpark, Randparkridge, Sundowner and Bedfordview.