Do you remember when "inner city" and "urban" were code words for "black"?

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

And just by sheer coincidence rents went up and neighborhoods were redeveloped and wealthier people moved in behind them.

ETA: It's also happening, by the way, to less affluent whites and Latinos. People are being priced out of inner city areas.

This has pretty much happened since the beginning of human civilization.

The U.S. postwar trend was a tiny blip countering the global historical narrative where people pay more for a central location. But all the hysteria over gentrification is bizarre. It's really weird to not have gentrification.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Pretty sure this is a protocol that developed in the post-war/post-Civil Rights Era when de facto racial exclusion policies became illegal, and thus explicit racial language became taboo. It became illegal for a realtor to say that a neighborhood is "too black" but the same thing could be said by noting that it is "urban".

Makes sense...

Basically:

Me: “Hi Mr Realtor, I’m interested in a cheap property where I could spend the winter months in the Southern US where winter is a pleasant season; I have spotted this supercheap little rural house in Podunkville in the Mississippi Delta that I could buy with pocket change, I know it’s in the absolute middle of nowhere but I don’t care, I’m very interested!”

Realtor: “You might want to rethink that one, that rural house might look good to you at first sight but what you don’t realize is that it’s located in an area that’s extremely urban, I’m not sure your lily Canadian ass, who’s like a fish in water in Inner City Montreal, would like it there, it’d likely be way too urban for you”

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by Uptown_Can

Thats not true everywhere; particularly in some of the city neighborhoods further away from the city where black people have been moving for reasons such as schools or larger housing in the suburbs or crime issues....like their white counterparts..this is true in Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and many other places.

It may come as a shock but not all Black families are perpetual helpless victims like some like to portray and some do make their own choices.

Of course there are poor Blacks; but we often ignore a black middle class that can and do make choices.

For example, my family left inner city Philadelphia to move to a more expensive suburb for the schools. This is common enough.

The neighborhood we left did not gentrify. And most of the South Side of Chicago is not gentrifying, and neither is N.W. Detroit, or Mattapan or Southwest Philadelphia or South west Atlanta...all neighborhoods that have experienced black flight, by choice.

Not to mention Black families who have made their own decision to move down south....by choice.

Black families are not forced to live in mcmansions in Upper Marlboro or Lithonia or wherever.

Black Flight is a thing.

(Long time lurker, lol, this topic compelled me)

OK. I stand corrected. And welcome to the forum!

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by Crawford

This has pretty much happened since the beginning of human civilization.

The U.S. postwar trend was a tiny blip countering the global historical narrative where people pay more for a central location.

Well damn! There goes any chance of my ever living in New York! (I was hoping for a replay of the 70s.)

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

And just by sheer coincidence rents went up and neighborhoods were redeveloped and wealthier people moved in behind them.

that is not happening in most of the neighborhoods experiencing the worst of black population loss in chicago. neighborhoods like englewood just keep losing population decade after decade (from a high of 97,595 in 1960 down to 24,369 in 2020), with decay and abandonment left behind as the black middle class continues to move out to the burbs or beyond.


2007: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.7743...!7i3328!8i1664

2019: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.7743...7i16384!8i8192

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

that is not happening in most of the neighborhoods experiencing the worst of black population loss in chicago. neighborhoods like englewood just keep losing population decade after decade, with decay and abandonment left behind as the black middle class continues to move out to the burbs or beyond.


2007: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.7743...!7i3328!8i1664

2019: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.7743...7i16384!8i8192

In Pittsburgh from 2010 to 2020, pretty much the only areas of the city which actually had an increasing black population were the largely historically working-class white portions of the city to the South/West. Historically black and still blighted areas along with gentrifying areas (both historically black and white) both had big losses - mostly to suburbs immediately to the east of the city.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Uptown_Can

Thats not true everywhere; particularly in some of the city neighborhoods further away from the city where black people have been moving for reasons such as schools or larger housing in the suburbs or crime issues....like their white counterparts..this is true in Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia and many other places.

It may come as a shock but not all Black families are perpetual helpless victims like some like to portray and some do make their own choices.

Of course there are poor Blacks; but we often ignore a black middle class that can and do make choices.

For example, my family left inner city Philadelphia to move to a more expensive suburb for the schools. This is common enough.

The neighborhood we left did not gentrify. And most of the South Side of Chicago is not gentrifying, and neither is N.W. Detroit, or Mattapan or Southwest Philadelphia or South west Atlanta...all neighborhoods that have experienced black flight, by choice.

Not to mention Black families who have made their own decision to move down south....by choice.

Black families are not forced to live in mcmansions in Upper Marlboro or Lithonia or wherever.

Black Flight is a thing.

(Long time lurker, lol, this topic compelled me)

I think the situation in Detroit was a little nuanced. Detroit experienced a ton of "black flight" between 2000-2010, but it wasn't only middle class black families fleeing for the suburbs. That was some of it, but a lot of it was also due to the mortgage crisis. Detroit has (or maybe had) a much higher black homeownership rate than most places in the U.S. Black homeowners were much more likely to have subprime mortgages than the general population, so Detroit being a 1) super majority black city, and 2) having very high rates of home ownership, during an economic crisis that targeted these two demos... well, you see where the story is going.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Detroit experienced a ton of "black flight" between 2000-2010, but it wasn't only middle class black families fleeing for the suburbs.

of course not. black flight is a very complex phenomenon with a whole host of different push/pull factors affecting different economic classes within america's urban black communities differently, just as white flight wasn't strictly a simple and straight-forward "white people running away from black people" storyline. sure, sometimes that was true, but there are many other cases of white people bolting for the burbs from white neighborhoods that never saw large increases in black population.

the reasons are complex and varied for "black flight" as well. some of it is happening through gentrification displacement in certain cities (or being forced out of homes during the foreclosure crisis per your example with detroit), but in lots of other cases its middle class families simply choosing to leave for the burbs because they actually want to for a variety of different reasons - get away from violence/crime, better schooling options, a bigger house/yard, closer to their job, etc. - a lot of them not radically different from the desires of the middle class white-flighters before them.


there are LOTS of different layers and motivations within all of these macro-scale demographic shifts that get umbrella-ed under "white flight" or "black flight" for simplicity's sake, but simple it is not. not by a long shot.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

Well damn! There goes any chance of my ever living in New York! (I was hoping for a replay of the 70s.)

nope!

right now at the moment with covidness fallout is a really weird time in nyc. some prices rose, like for some rentals, as people came back, some fell, like for owning.

and i am saying this as someone who has been looking and we just bought a condo THIS WEEKEND. and we even negociated down a bit.

so anyway, it's bargain hunting time -- do not give up the nyc ship!

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

nope!

right now at the moment with covidness fallout is a really weird time in nyc. some prices rose, like for some rentals, as people came back, some fell, like for owning.

and i am saying this as someone who has been looking and we just bought a condo THIS WEEKEND. and we even negociated down a bit.

so anyway, it's bargain hunting time -- do not give up the nyc ship!

Congrats, did you buy in Manhattan?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by DCReid

And DC was referred to as 'Chocolate city'. It's really not that any more.

going back to look at DC over the years, it's been on one of the wildest demographic rides of any US city.

it went from being 71% white / 28% black in 1940, to 27% white / 71% black in 1970. a complete racial demographic inversion in just 3 decades, earning the city its former (and now very un-PC) nickname "chocolate city".

but it is "chocolate city" no more. over the past several decades the black population has fallen while the NH-white population has taken off. as of 2010, blacks still held an ever so slight outright majority in the city at 50.7%, but over the last decade, the NH-white population surged by +25.0% (possibly the largest NH-white population growth of any major US city last decade) while the black population dropped -6.3%, bring the two groups fairly close to parity with each other. by 2030, the NW-white population will almost certainly hold a sizeable plurality, barring major upheaval of current trends.

some of this change is indeed driven by white gentrification displacement, but we also can't neglect to factor DC's huge black middle class into the equation either. DC has some of the largest, most well-off & middle class black suburbia in the nation, and they certainly didn't all end up out in the burbs because they were "forced" to. it's probably impossible to know exactly what the break down was in DC between choice black flighters and those forced out due to rising housing costs over the past several decades, but i think its a pretty safe bet there's likely a good deal of both.

[Crawford]

I'm not sure if DC's demographic change is all that different from other metros. DC is a small geography, and black DC mostly just moved into adjacent PG and Charles counties.

I mean, if Chicago were the geographic size of DC, you'd probably see similar black gains from 1940-1970, and similar black declines from 1980-2020. Core Chicago had sizable black populations close to the Loop. Cabrini Green and environs, and much of the South/West Loop. I believe Cabrini Green was heavily Italian/Irish until 1950 or so.

In the past few decades, Chicago's black population has mostly shifted south, into the furthest southern reaches of the city, and the south suburbs. DC's black population mostly shifted east into adjacent suburbs.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

some of this change is indeed driven by white gentrification displacement, but we also can't neglect to factor DC's huge black middle class into the equation either. DC has some of the largest, most well-off & middle class black suburbia in the nation, and they certainly didn't all end up out in the burbs because they were "forced" to. it's probably impossible to know exactly what the break down was in DC between choice black flighters and those forced out due to rising housing costs over the past several decades, but i think its a pretty safe bet there's likely a good deal of both.

Maybe this is off, but I don't think there is really a straight line from D.C. to PG County. While the county does border the district, I think a lot of people who live in the county don't have roots in D.C. at all. It's not like a Southfield, MI, where just about every middle class black family moved directly to the suburb from the city of Detroit.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I mean, if Chicago were the geographic size of DC, you'd probably see similar black gains from 1940-1970, and similar black declines from 1980-2020.

that's an interesting point, and there's probably some truth there with chicago's city limits being roughly 4x larger in land area than DC's. Chicago city proper had an order of magnitude more early 20th century street car/bungalow belt "suburbia" for the black middle class to move into while still staying within city limits. DC proper runs out of that in-city housing typology A LOT quicker than chicago does, and thus in DC, more of the black middle class ended up out in proper suburbia earlier, and in higher proportions, than in chicago's case.

it'd be interesting to draw a 60 sq. mile circle around central chicago and track the demographic changes within it over the past century.

Originally Posted by Crawford

In the past few decades, Chicago's black population has mostly shifted south, into the furthest southern reaches of the city, and the south suburbs.

true, and an example of how even the movement of black people from the older inner urban core to outer bunglaow belt type areas within larger land area cities like chicago has also eroded the former "inner city = black" connotation.

i mean, if you mentioned "inner city" to joe six pack white suburbanite in 1990, he probably wouldn't have conjured mental images of Austin (far west side) or Roseland (far southside).

yet those are the kinds of outer bunaglow belt neighborhoods that chicago's black population is increasingly living in (or now even flighting away from out to the real burbs).

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Maybe this is off, but I don't think there is really a straight line from D.C. to PG County. While the county does border the district, I think a lot of people who live in the county don't have roots in D.C. at all.

yeah, PG county, by becoming one of the "it" counties in the nation for middle class & up blacks, it has certainly attracted more than its fair share of that demo from other cities/regions, people with little or no previous ties to the DC area.

that said, there still have to be plenty of black people in PG county who have/had roots in DC city proper as well.

[DCReid]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

that's an interesting point, and there's probably some truth there with chicago's city limits being roughly 4x larger in land area than DC's. Chicago city proper had an order of magnitude more early 20th century street car/bungalow belt "suburbia" for the black middle class to move into while still staying within city limits. DC proper runs out of that in-city housing typology A LOT quicker than chicago does, and thus in DC, more of the black middle class ended up out in proper suburbia earlier, and in higher proportions, than in chicago's case.

it'd be interesting to draw a 60 sq. mile circle around central chicago and track the demographic changes within it over the past century.




true, and an example of how even the movement of black people from the older inner urban core to outer bunglaow belt type areas within larger land area cities like chicago has also eroded the former "inner city = black" connotation.

i mean, if you mentioned "inner city" to joe six pack white suburbanite in 1990, he probably wouldn't have conjured mental images of Austin (far west side) or Roseland (far southside).

yet those are the kinds of outer bunaglow belt neighborhoods that chicago's black population is increasingly living in (or now even flighting away from out to the real burbs).





yeah, PG county, by becoming one of the "it" counties in the nation for middle class & up blacks, it has certainly attracted more than its fair share of that demo from other cities/regions, people with little or no previous ties to the DC area.

that said, there still have to be plenty of black people in PG county who have/had roots in DC city proper as well.

DC, being the seat of the Feds, has typically had a lot of people relocating to and from the area. Since many of Fed jobs require degrees, many of the blacks relocating are middle and upper class, and if they have families, will more likely settle in the suburbs of MD and VA. The inner ring of PG county is old and not as nice, and tends to be a destination for some local people pushed out of DC by gentrification (or for suburban lower wage jobs). Further away from DC are the more expensive PG suburbs, like Upper Marboro, Bowie and Fort Washington in MD that attract more middle and upper class blacks. Interestingly some of these suburbs were working class and middle class white, and mostly rural, but have been filled (and continue) with developments of $500K and up homes (probably $600-700K now) of mostly black residents. A few years ago, WSJ ran an article about a dispute between a white neighbor with a old little house and a new black neighbor that was building a 2 story McMansion next door. I think it was in Bowie.

[Crawford]

Yeah, my sense was that inner PG was pretty working class and modest, so a lot of that movement was poorer blacks relocating from DC. Some parts, like Seat Pleasant or Capitol Heights, seem pretty rough, with demographics more like Anacostia or Benning Road in DC.

The outer parts of PG have more of the upper middle class suburban sprawl look that feeds the PG reputation. Places like Bowie, Mitchellville and Upper Marlboro. But now I think the sprawl is well into Charles County, which is now majority black.

[galleyfox]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I'm not sure if DC's demographic change is all that different from other metros. DC is a small geography, and black DC mostly just moved into adjacent PG and Charles counties.

I mean, if Chicago were the geographic size of DC, you'd probably see similar black gains from 1940-1970, and similar black declines from 1980-2020. Core Chicago had sizable black populations close to the Loop. Cabrini Green and environs, and much of the South/West Loop. I believe Cabrini Green was heavily Italian/Irish until 1950 or so.

In the past few decades, Chicago's black population has mostly shifted south, into the furthest southern reaches of the city, and the south suburbs. DC's black population mostly shifted east into adjacent suburbs.

UIC made a report in 2019 comparing black populations in Chicago to other cities between 1980 and 2017. The % decline for so many of the largest Northern cities was so similar regardless if there was gentrification or not that household changes and desire for homeownership seemed to be the main drivers.

NYC may be an exception due to large black immigrant populations from the Caribbean and Africa.

Chicago

1980: 1,187,905
2017: 797,253
Change: -32.9%

LA

1980: 495,723
2017: 349,345
Change: -29.5%

DC

1980: 445,154
2017: 314,705%
Change: -29.3%

Detroit

1980: 754,274
2017: 529,593
Change: -29.8%

St. Louis

1980: 204,970
2017: 143,761
Change: -29.9%

Atlanta

1980: 280,435
2017: 253,556
Change: -9.6%

Indianapolis

1980: 151,757
2017: 236,606
Change: +55.9%

Philadelphia

1980: 633,485
2017: 647,102
Change: +2.1%

Milwaukee

1980: 145,832
2017: 228,720
Change: +56.8%

NYC

1980: 1,694,127
2017: 1,879,876
Change: +11%

https://greatcities.uic.edu/wp-conte...in-Chicago.pdf

[edale]

Originally Posted by galleyfox

UIC made a report in 2019 comparing black populations in Chicago to other cities between 1980 and 2017. The % decline for so many of the largest Northern cities was so similar regardless if there was gentrification or not that household changes and desire for homeownership seemed to be the main drivers.

NYC may be an exception due to large black immigrant populations from the Caribbean and Africa.

I don't disagree with your basic claim about the dominant drivers of Black suburbanization, but of the cities you cited, NYC, Milwaukee, Philly, and Indy all saw growth in their black populations, not decline. In some cases, such as maybe Indy and Milwaukee, I think having larger shares of suburban areas within city limits helps to explain this. Black people might have still been moving out from the inner cities to more suburban areas, but those suburban areas are still within city limits. Not sure that explanation works for Philly. NYC is different than the other cities listed due to the high number of black immigrants the city receives, as you note.

[Steely Dan]

^^ interesting, i wonder if those giant jumps in milwaukee and indy over the past 4 decades were related to black outmigration from metros like chicago and detroit?

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^^ interesting, i wonder if those giant jumps in milwaukee and indy were related to black outmigration from metros like chicago and detroit?

I highly doubt a meaningful number of black people are moving from Detroit to Milwaukee. But Milwaukee has been much less black than Chicago or Detroit since the early 20th century. It seems like the growth in black population has picked up recently there for some reason.