Racial Balance/Mixture Question.

[MoonlightFlight]

Blackbarbiedoll -
You come in here with a chip on you shoulder, quoting statistics from seven years ago, and from a newspaper article, no less. This you hold up as a badge of honor to the injustice of predjudice you have, no doubt, encountered yourself. Otherwise, why would you drag up a seven year-old article? One has to wonder if perhaps that chip on your shoulder, ala Alpha Kappa Alpha, has not been your biggest obstacle to success. If indeed, you have been successful in life, why continue to carry such raw racial feelings? What thoughts and ideas are you passing on to the next generation of children? I shudder thinking about it.

[MoonlightFlight]

Ctownchica -
Read your post again. Your own description of driving through Pine Valley at midnight explains why people move away from an area. You don't mention whether those "gangs of people frolicking in the middle of the street" were white, black, or purple. Don't you see that it doesn't matter? When neighborhoods are taken over by that kind of mentality, families are going to move as far away from it as they can.

Schools go downhill in direct relation to the mentality of the students attending them. Not their mental ability or intelligence, their mentality, and no race or color has a corner on this market. As I wrote in a previous post, an eagerness to learn is not color coded. "White flight"? How about family flight, or flight to safety? No color has a corner on that market, either.

[ctownchica]

Originally Posted by Woodlands

Broad River Rd. between St. Andrews Rd and I-20 has also had a few problem night spots that opened and closed over the years. Several had events or parties that turned Broad River Road into Columbia's version of Ocean Drive in MYB. This went on for several years and there were some high profile incidents.. all of which may have discourage some homeowners from buying into the surrounding neighborhoods....

I don't doubt that. And some of the homeowners that were there either sold their homes, or rented them out(some to section 8 renters) and fled further up Broad River. I was just pointing out what I noticed and who I noticed use to live there and who lives there now.

Originally Posted by Moonlightflight

Ctownchica -
Read your post again. Your own description of driving through Pine Valley at midnight explains why people move away from an area. You don't mention whether those "gangs of people frolicking in the middle of the street" were white, black, or purple. Don't you see that it doesn't matter? When neighborhoods are taken over by that kind of mentality, families are going to move as far away from it as they can.

I understand that too.
I know that no one race has a corner on that kind of behavior, but I can only speak from what I personally know. But this isn't just for former white neighborhoods.
For instance: Meadowlakes. Meadowlakes used to be rather nice, all my life I saw all black people. My grandfather was one of the first residents to this area. Only until the last 10-15 years(even though my grandfather used to tell us it was bad with drug dealers and such before then, even though I never saw evidence of this) they seemed to get a lot of homes on section 8 and now the area seems worse than ever. I remember as a tiny child taking family walks around the neighborhood after dinner. Cut to my teenage years, my grandfather would beg us not to go out after dark walking through the neighborhood.
I know people that lived out there for years also moved away to get away from the new behaviors in the area. So yes, I know it's not always all about race or color.

Originally Posted by Moonlightflight

Schools go downhill in direct relation to the mentality of the students attending them. Not their mental ability or intelligence, their mentality, and no race or color has a corner on this market. As I wrote in a previous post, an eagerness to learn is not color coded. "White flight"? How about family flight, or flight to safety? No color has a corner on that market, either.

I don't disagree. Sorry if you feel white flight an offensive term, I've heard it all my life. It usually pertains to the (white)people that move simply because people of other races, namely blacks, move in. Not hood mentality blacks, but any kind black person whether they be upwardly mobile or not. Like the neighborhood I live in now. It's outside Columbia(Lexington county), but it's fairly new. White people lived out here when it was brand new(about 2 or 3 years ago), but a lot of blacks came too, 1 year later I notice it's a lot less whites that live here. Matter of fact, the only white face I still see is a white woman married to a black man.
White flight. It happens. I'm not going to pretend it doesn't just because it makes some people uncomfortable.
I remember being in 4th grade having a teacher tell us her 'white flight' tales because her family was one of the first black families living in her area. Granted, that was 18 years ago, but i'm not going to pretend things are that different when my own neighborhood here in 2008 tell me otherwise.

[waccamatt]

Ctown, I invite you to look at inner city neighborhoods instead of just the suburbs. Most in-town neighborhoods are very much racially mixed with nary a care. I live in a neighborhood that is probably 40% black (non-Hispanic) and 40% white (non-Hispanic), 10% Hispanic and 10% everything else. Trust me, there is a huge difference in terms of diversity between most in-town neighborhoods compared with suburban neighborhoods.

[Palmetto Heel]

Originally Posted by ctownchica

Sorry if you feel white flight an offensive term, I've heard it all my life. It usually pertains to the (white)people that move simply because people of other races, namely blacks, move in. Not hood mentality blac ks, but any kind black person whether they be upwardly mobile or not. Like the neighborhood I live in now. It's outside Columbia(Lexington county), but it's fairly new. White people lived out here when it was brand new(about 2 or 3 years ago), but a lot of blacks came too, 1 year later I notice it's a lot less whites that live here. Matter of fact, the only white face I still see is a white woman married to a black man.
White flight. It happens. I'm not going to pretend it doesn't just because it makes some people uncomfortable.

The sad fact of the matter is that white people move out when black people move in because they know that once the neighborhood hits the tipping point property values will go to pot. google: Institutional racism. I've seen it all of my life but it IS getting better.

[MoonlightFlight]

ctownchica -
I have no problem with the term "white flight". I'm just pointing out that it's more middle class flight than anything else. I think you hit the nail on the head in your recent post with the term section 8. I can agree with you completely there. This happens all over the country. In Columbia and NYC, more Black people live in section 8 housing. In L.A. and Miami, it's Hispanics. In Butte, Montana, its Whites. Once section 8 housing enters a neighborhood, regardless of where it is, the mentality of the neighborhood changes, and its no longer safe. Property values drop precipitously, and you see middle class flight.

There is a shift happening now, and whites are returning to many cities. Louisville is a perfect example, and it's a beautiful thing to see. These cities are taking section 8 areas and 'gentrifying' them, either by razing the entire area and rebuilding, or by updating the homes and apartments and cleaning up the landscape. Columbia is way behind in this endeavor, but it is happening. It all depends on the city's priorities how quickly we will see this change.