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  #21  
Old Posted Oct 15, 2021, 7:24 PM
eschaton eschaton is offline
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Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
What do you mean "do you remember"? This is still the coded language among tens of millions.

Urban means black in much of the U.S. Ask white, suburban/exurban boomers. And I don't think it has much to do with reality, so no sense in arguing about city propers. People aren't talking about Buckhead when they're talking "urban" Atlanta. They're not even talking about the city of Atlanta, necessarily.
From what I can gather from the right-wing screeds I see elsewhere, a lot of these sorts of people seem to believe that Minneapolis, and even Portland are majority black.
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  #22  
Old Posted Oct 15, 2021, 7:27 PM
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Originally Posted by eschaton View Post
From what I can gather from the right-wing screeds I see elsewhere, a lot of these sorts of people seem to believe that Minneapolis, and even Portland are majority black.
Yes, and it's hilarious.
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  #23  
Old Posted Oct 15, 2021, 7:29 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
I don't think most non-urbanites are particularly attuned to such nuances.
maybe not on an overly conscious level, but the fact that words like "urban" are indeed losing their former coded racial meaning (no, perhaps not among the white UMC boomers 30 miles out in their 1/2 acre mcmansions, but among younger generations, very much yes), and a term like "inner city" is just straight-up being used less than it was 25 years ago, does indicate to me that there is at least a vague and general subconscious awareness of these changes taking place.
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  #24  
Old Posted Oct 15, 2021, 7:34 PM
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Originally Posted by JManc View Post
Boomers hang onto this term because it was in widespread use during their formative years and onwards. Just like our grandparents using dated terms from the 40's and 50's that made us squirm at Thanksgiving.
exactly.

there's always a generational lag to every language shift.

old people tend to hold on to their old words/definitions, while the younger generations spur the use of new words/definitions.

this is how it has always worked.
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  #25  
Old Posted Oct 15, 2021, 7:41 PM
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
exactly.

there's always a generational lag to every language shift.

old people tend to hold on to their old words/definitions, while the younger generations spur the use of new words/definitions.

this is always how it has worked.
I'm Gen X and I will say "gnarly" and hurl out Space Balls quotes well in to my 90's.
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  #26  
Old Posted Oct 15, 2021, 7:41 PM
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I'm Gen X and I will say "gnarly" and hurl out Space Balls quotes well in to my 90's.
that's rad!
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  #27  
Old Posted Oct 15, 2021, 7:55 PM
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that's rad!
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  #28  
Old Posted Oct 15, 2021, 8:07 PM
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Originally Posted by JManc View Post
I'm Gen X and I will say "gnarly" and hurl out Space Balls quotes well in to my 90's.
Do you think by the time we're in old folks homes they'll have hummus?
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  #29  
Old Posted Oct 15, 2021, 8:19 PM
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Do you think by the time we're in old folks homes they'll have hummus?
If they don't have that and/or Cap'n Crunch I am hurling my geriatric ass out the first floor window.
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  #30  
Old Posted Oct 15, 2021, 8:21 PM
Buckeye Native 001 Buckeye Native 001 is offline
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If you live long enough to where the retirement home regularly serves avocado toast, its time to move.
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  #31  
Old Posted Oct 15, 2021, 11:42 PM
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As a Black person, it is interesting to consider how "urban" got it's connotation. Before the Great Migrations, most of Black America was in the rural South. Now, with more African Americans living in the suburbs and moving back to the South, things are coming full circle. It may take a little bit longer, but Black culture may soon not be limited to the inner city within the American consciousness.
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  #32  
Old Posted Oct 16, 2021, 1:46 AM
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another euphemism: 'gang-related' crime.
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  #33  
Old Posted Oct 16, 2021, 1:46 AM
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Originally Posted by jd3189 View Post
As a Black person, it is interesting to consider how "urban" got it's connotation. Before the Great Migrations, most of Black America was in the rural South. Now, with more African Americans living in the suburbs and moving back to the South, things are coming full circle. It may take a little bit longer, but Black culture may soon not be limited to the inner city within the American consciousness.
Here in Houston, that's been the case for quite a while. Blacks here have been associated with suburbia since I was a kid. The urban areas have now largely been priced out for most people...regardless of race
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  #34  
Old Posted Oct 16, 2021, 6:11 AM
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Originally Posted by Chisouthside View Post
People in Chicago still refer to Black areas as the ghetto shamelessly.
Elvis's In The Ghetto was set in Chicago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ox1Tore9nw
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  #35  
Old Posted Oct 16, 2021, 6:27 AM
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
exactly.

there's always a generational lag to every language shift.

old people tend to hold on to their old words/definitions, while the younger generations spur the use of new words/definitions.

this is how it has always worked.

It's also entirely unfair for young people to pass judgement on the reality that older generations were raised in, since the sheer volume of money and ease of living in the United States has increased exponentially, decade after decade, for the past 100 years. Almost everyone born after about 1955 has had a comically easy life, both physically and emotionally, as compared to the earlier generations. The military draft ended for men born around 1955, farming has become increasingly mechanized, and almost no men do physically demanding and hazardous work anymore. We're a nation of screens now. The WWII vets are pretty much completely gone and you don't see the Vietnam guys around much anymore. When I was a kid, seeing angry Vietnam vets with the army jackets on who were missing limbs was a pretty common sight.

The Millennials and Gen Z can't begin to imagine what the crack epidemic was like. It was apocalyptic chaos, 24/7, year after year, over large swaths of U.S. cities. Trash in the streets, buildings falling down, total despair. The AIDS epidemic was also "urban".
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  #36  
Old Posted Oct 16, 2021, 2:42 PM
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Originally Posted by jmecklenborg View Post
The Millennials and Gen Z can't begin to imagine what the crack epidemic was like. It was apocalyptic chaos, 24/7, year after year, over large swaths of U.S. cities. Trash in the streets, buildings falling down, total despair. The AIDS epidemic was also "urban".
Gen Z, maybe. But Millennials are inching into their 40s now. A lot of them are old enough to remember the crack epidemic quite well.
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  #37  
Old Posted Oct 16, 2021, 4:01 PM
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"Bay Area" covers this, crime, and can also cover the politics of a specific type which you all can figure out. This works for everybody north of the bay area and even within it .
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  #38  
Old Posted Oct 16, 2021, 4:31 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
urban cores were generally getting whiter (and/or less black) over time.
looking into the usual suspect cities, it seems to often be more of an issue of cities getting less black than it is of them getting more white. the lion's share of growth in most central cities in the north seems to be from latinos, asians, and others, not white people (with some big exceptions like DC with +25.0% NH-white growth).

A LOT of ink has been spilled over the "menace" of white gentrification, and it's most definitely a thing in many urban core neighborhoods, but in many cities that still have sizeable older urban white ethnic populations within city limits (i'm looking at you NYC, philly, and chicago), the overall balance of NH-whites at the city-wide level didn't really change all that much as an older ethnic white on the fringe either left or died for every white millennial that moved into a gentrifying core hood (more or less). in fact, NYC and philly, despite their solid overall growth, actually lost a tiny bit of NH-whites overall (quite surprising to me). and chicago saw only very modest overall growth of its NH-white population (+1.0%).


anyway, even though black flight saw a pretty substantial reduction from the '00s (particularly in chicago and detroit, thank god), it's still one of the main agents of demographic change in a lot of cities.


select cities by % loss of NH-blacks from 2010 - 2020:

st. louis: -17.5%
detroit: -15.9%
cleveland: -15.1%
baltimore: -14.6%
chicago: -9.7%
milwaukee: -6.5%
DC: -6.3%
cincinnati: -5.7%
philly: -4.7%
new york: -4.5%
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Last edited by Steely Dan; Oct 16, 2021 at 4:50 PM.
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  #39  
Old Posted Oct 16, 2021, 4:35 PM
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The idea feels incredibly weird to non-Americans. Urban means urban, it’s a well-defined word with a clear meaning. Black is also well-defined: black means African-American, whether urban, suburban, or rural. If you want to say “black” then say “black”, don’t say a completely different word.

It’s like if you guys learned that “urban” in Canada is a code word for “Québécois”. You’d find that normal or logical...?

Anyway, good thing this idiocy is apparently on the way out. Good riddance!
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  #40  
Old Posted Oct 16, 2021, 4:37 PM
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Originally Posted by lio45 View Post
The idea feels incredibly weird to non-Americans. Urban means urban, it’s a well-defined word with a clear meaning.

It’s like if you guys learned that “urban” in Canada is a code word for “Québécois”. You’d find that normal or logical...?
coded racial language does not feel strange at all to me.

it's a very normal and deeply engrained aspect of our language in this country.

but this thread in particular is about how the word "urban" has actually lost a lot of its former code connotations over the past 2 decades or so, at least among younger generations.
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