Reverse White Flight
An interesting article on the effects of gentrification appears in the Wall Street Journal.
During the late 1990’s and early 21st century, many housing projects were razed and the residents were scattered into the inner suburbs (in the DC area’s case Prince George’s County). Meanwhile the developers built new condos and urban shopping centers that attracted young, single and liberal whites.
Decades of white flight transformed America’s cities. That era is drawing to a close.
The “hip” thing to do for yuppies is to live in the inner city, not own a car and shop at Trader Joe’s
In Washington, a historically black church is trying to attract white members to survive.
I doubt this will work because I have found that these people are not all that religious.
Atlanta’s next mayoral race is expected to feature the first competitive white candidate since the 1980s. San Francisco has lost so many African-Americans that Mayor Gavin Newsom created an “African-American Out-Migration Task Force and Advisory Committee” to help retain black residents.
“The city is experiencing growth, yet we’re losing African-American families disproportionately,” Mr. Newsom says. When that happens, “we lose part of our soul.”
[...]
The changing racial mix is stirring up quarrels over class and culture. Beloved institutions in traditionally black communities — minority-owned restaurants, book stores — are losing the customers who supported them for decades. As neighborhoods grow more multicultural, conflicts over home prices, taxes and education are opening a new chapter in American race relations.
[...]
Demographic readjustments can take decades to play out. But if current trends continue, Washington and Atlanta (both with black majorities) will in the next decade see African-Americans fall below 50% for the first time in about a half-century.
Meantime, in San Francisco, African-American deaths now outnumber births. Once a “natural decrease” such as this begins, it’s tough for the population to bounce back, since there are fewer residents left to produce the next generation. “The cycle tends to be self-perpetuating,” says Kenneth M. Johnson, senior demographer at the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire.
There are myriad factors driving the change. In recent years, minority middle-class families, particularly African-Americans, have been moving to the suburbs in greater numbers. At the same time, Hispanic immigrants (who poured into cities from the 1970s through the 1990s) are now increasingly bypassing cities for suburbs and rural areas, seeking jobs on farms and in meat-packing plants.
Cities have spent a decade tidying up parks and converting decaying factories into retail and living space. That has attracted young professionals and empty-nesters, many of them white.
The shift has put the future at odds with the past. New York City’s borough of Brooklyn has seen its proportion of whites grow to 36.1% in 2006 from 35.9% in 2000 — the first increase in white share in about a century.
[...]
About two years ago Public School 84, in a largely Hispanic section of Brooklyn, meetings of the Parent Teacher Association started drawing a more professional, wealthier and whiter group of parents.
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Today, cities are refashioning themselves as trendy centers devoid of suburban ills like strip malls and long commutes. In Atlanta, which has among the longest commute times of any U.S. city, the white population rose by 26,000 between 2000 and 2006, while the black population decreased by 8,900. Overall the white proportion has increased to 35% in 2006 from 31% in 2000.
[...]
This is a problem for Washington’s African-American churches. The past few years, numerous black churches have relocated to suburban Prince George’s County, Md., to follow their parishioners. Later this year, Metropolitan Baptist Church (founded by freed slaves during the Lincoln administration) plans to leave town as well.
Some of the remaining black churches are now courting white members. On a recent Sunday, the Rev. John Blanchard, the 64-year-old pastor at Ebenezer United Methodist Church, preached to a thin crowd; several pews were empty. About half his parishioners now live in the suburbs and drive into the city for services. High gasoline prices aren’t helping attendance.
So Mr. Blanchard says he’s planning to add a white intern to preach with him, in hopes of filling more pews. “You’ve got to love the one you’re with,” he says, “but you also need to adjust to the environment you’re in.”
While his church flounders, the predominantly white Capitol Hill United Methodist Church just down the street is flourishing. There the average attendance on Sundays has doubled to about 120 people the past five years. “Demographics are in our favor. We’re attracting the folks that are moving in,” says the Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli, 38, who headed the church for five years before recently leaving for a position elsewhere.
In San Francisco, the African-American population has fallen by a third, or about 30,000 people, since 1990, largely due to surging housing costs and redevelopment that destroyed some public housing.
[...]
The number of black-owned businesses fell 25% between 1997 and 2002.
Read it all.
Filed under: Changing World
When the new building started in my city, I didn’t like it then and I still don’t like it.I have never been against diversity and I’ve never been against progress, I’m just so much against building because it is a cowardly way to force the poor and minorties out of their homes.
There was a spot that loved to go to in Atlanta. One of the reasons that I loved it was that it was sooo diverse: AA’s, Russians, Latinos, Africans, Chinese, you name it , culture was there. It was like going into one big crazy family.Recently , I revisited the section after a two year absence of being going there. Man,
I hate it! don’t get me wrong , it still diverse, but in my opinion, not diverse enough to where you can see it the equality of it.
The irony of this is while our city is trying to pull in more liberal Whites in the city, not all of them are
for it. I went through one neighborhood, Cabbagetown,
,where poor White people lived in(or shall I say once lived in) I went in that neighborhood to visit a relative and I’m like God Lord! Condo’s have been built and even some old homes( which isn’t worth 2 cents) will
sell you up to 400,000 plus bucks.I remembered passing by one of the neighborhood homes. The resident, who was a White guy in his 20’s had a sign in his yard expressing his outrage at the cost of his home.
The thing that bothers me most is that it seems that the mayors and other leaders support this change. They are looking at the beauty of it all, but they are not looking underneath the whole thing. I know people who have lived in their ‘hoods for decades without incident. Now they have higher and in many cases unaffordable,taxes on them and some have had to be forced out of their homes because it. It’s not fair that the resdeints have to be stuck with the bill.
Last week,I passed by a couple of homes, empty, the grass is growing a little above my knees( and I’m average height. Imagine the picture of this) and they want mega bucks for it. I’m thinking to myself ” Now what fool is going to pay for a home in whch the yard looks like is a open door for snakes to live in ?” It’s been there for almost two years. This economic crisis have hit everybody in the housing market. While I hate being in this economic slump, I’m glad that it has slowed the the building of homes. If every body on the planet cannot benefit from these neighborhoods, then
they shouldn’t be built.
Demographics change for many reasons but change they do. Might as well shout at the tides.
If you want to protect folks that have lived in their neighborhoods (property taxes) for years check around as this has happened elsewhere. A solution is to freeze prop taxes for those over a certain age (retired) or who have occupied the property for a certain time. It does take voters to get involved politically.
It is a good thing though for a solid tax base to return to inner cities where it might have been iffy before.
Hey Tariq, yuppies go to church.
That is exactly what some of the residences want. or just to build without them being the casualties of it. There have been some residences to speak out for it and a couple of political leader to speak out for it. I could be wrong, but I think that it’s falling on deaf ears.
Right now a great many of them are hypnotized by the moola.