Of that 700,000 almost 97 percent of them are African Americans or people with mixed heritage. There are very small percentages of other races living in Kingston. The majority of the people are Christians and follow Christianity, however Kingston is home to the only Jewish temple on the island of Jamaica. The official language of the people of Kingston is English, but many speak a mixture of English, African dialects, Spanish, Creole, and Rastafarian slang. In the Western Hemisphere, Kingston is the largest predominantly English speaking city south of the United States. About 20 percent of Kingston’s people live below the poverty level. Tho they live below the poverty level they still have one of the highest life expectancy rates in the world. (Driscoll …show more content…
The Kingston economy is heavily dependent on services. Services account for more than 60 percent of the gross domestic product in Kingston. Kingston’s economy faces some serious long term problems such as high interest rates, increased foreign competition, exchange rate instability, merchandise trade deficit, large scale unemployment and also underemployment. Jamaica as a whole has the fourth highest debt burden per capita. Tourism is the biggest earner when it comes to foreign exchange in Kingston, earning over $1- billion each year. The violence in the city has kept many tourists away, Kingston is struggling to keep its share of the island’s tourists (Kingsley). Kingston is faced with many economic challenges, but the city continues to thrive through it all, it keeps getting bigger and