Awesome, we where at Afropunk at the same time and didn’t know it!
You can find those comfort and living in Johannesburg. By virtue of economic access (your own car and/or Uber, living in a safer part of town like Rosebank, Sandton), you can avoid the rougher parts of town.

I live in Newtown and run a school in Jeppestown, and when the highway was closed for an extended period (12 months+), I had to drive through the inner city every day which was not great. I actually lived in Jeppestown for the first 2 years. It’s a rough place, but again economic access and knowing and how to leave helps. I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff (it does happen and exist, so I say that to be real), but also again if you learn your way around and understand the geography, you can avoid it 99.9% of the time.

Cape Town is even more segregated than Johannesburg so it’s easier to avoid the challenging parts, but I’ve seen things happen there too when people are careless or easily targeted (e.g., a large group of people who are obvious tourists / foreign).