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I don't think the above is any different than in any other city. Some of the midwestern cities are supposed to be among the most segregated in the US. Most of the suburbs of Pittsburgh are 90%+ white. The high school in my parent's old neighborhood in suburban Pgh is 98% white. My kids went to Monarch HS in Louiville, which is sometimes criticized for its lack of diversity, and it is 87% white.
note i'm not saying that the midwestern or pennsylvanian way is the right way. and incidentally, i do believe that there can be a difference between almost exclusively >2nd generation mid/mountainwestern caucasian and <=2nd generation irish, polish, estonian, italian, jewish, ... not that one is better than another, but i can imagine which one might be more accustomed to or engaged by "differences". i know, "engaged by" might not be a positive thing.
you've lived in albany, NY, illinois, etc.. speaking frankly, how do you think things here compare to those places in these regards? you've read many threads here concerning people's experiences with "acceptance", and gotten a feel for where they come from. what trends do you notice there? you've read about some of the front range "consumption habits" relatively, and some of the "quality" of some of the development. what do you think the demographic structure (fractions as well as integration) might have to do with some of the politics and interpersonal nuances of the place's culture that might go into some of this?
please don't get me wrong, i do not think denver is patently bad or 1D. i do believe that the denver metro is often MORE 1D than most places it's size, and i think that affects some of the experiences we read about here (as well as some of the bigger picture), so seems worth a look!
I don't think the above is any different than in any other city. Some of the midwestern cities are supposed to be among the most segregated in the US. Most of the suburbs of Pittsburgh are 90%+ white. The high school in my parent's old neighborhood in suburban Pgh is 98% white. My kids went to Monarch HS in Louiville, which is sometimes criticized for its lack of diversity, and it is 87% white.
And a couple of other high schools in BVSD:
Boulder High is 76.7% white; 15.2% latino; 5.3% asian; 2.1% african american; .7% american indian
Centaurus is 65.7% white; 25% latino; 6% asian; 2.6% african american; .7% american indian
Boulder High is 76.7% white; 15.2% latino; 5.3% asian; 2.1% african american; .7% american indian
Centaurus is 65.7% white; 25% latino; 6% asian; 2.6% african american; .7% american indian
how integrated are these students? what are the demographics of highschools in other states? say, near chicago, charlotte, seattle, richmond, KC, or albany (i keep getting back to albany as pittnurse has some exposure to that)? how representative of the rest of the community is highschool? which of these places seems to best leverage it's variety?
these are subjective things, i know, but seemingly worth the discussion as i guess people's preferences and the context of how these things reverberate with the outside world (and so back to people's individual lives) have a bit to do with some of this...
on a related point, i wonder how many of us would feel enabled to have conversations like these out in our community relative to other communities. i can't help but notice that several posters here tend to either be from the northeast (buffalo, pittsburgh, some new yorkers, etc.) or otherwise "enjoy" engaging in the debate, even having our perspectives challenged so maybe "improved" by our own estimation (which i'd imagine some people reading this remembering having over a drink or the dinner table, even with strangers becoming friends, in pittsburgh, NY, buffalo, e.g.)...do you suppose, for some of us, this is the medium to do that in part due to some of what we're talking about here?
Last edited by hello-world; 01-13-2008 at 02:10 PM..
To live diverse is to live needy--in need of other people--that is what a old village is--interdependence on each other to survive and if you did not--you died.
I have read your posts--your are educated and want to live in a better area but at the same time you will leave diverse environments behind. Living the good life with people who also have acheived success is not diverse, whether they are black, white or hispanic. What is wrong with that--that is the success that most people strife for to acheive. You have reached your goal--you do not have a need for others to survive--you do not need the village.
Livecontent
everyone needs the village. if anyone thinks they don't, just wait til a big recession, a big illness, or disaster hits.
I'm not at all interested in raising my child to feel above everyone else. my dad was a sharecropper, I don't come from money. I was bussed to school, lived in segregated neighborhoods and went to segregated schools before that. our success is temporary. if my husband's job ends tomorrow and he can't get another one, we're back to being poor folk like many of our family members, no matter what our education. I want my daughter to be there for others, to grow up as part of a community, to feel part of a community, to realize that community consists of people that are economically better off and worse off than she is, and that she and every one on this planet has an obligation to do something to make things better.
in los angeles, the church we belonged to was extremely diverse. it had hollywood big shots (the guy from Monk for example, cecily tyson etc) all the way down the economic ladder to the homeless who were welcomed with open arms. The old money of Pasadena was there, as well as folks like us, new families with a little bit of new money, and families with no money. all were welcomed to share space.
In the neighborhood in which we lived, it was a mixed space. we owned a home, but very close by there were apartments and rental homes. in los angeles, the layout is different: the rich live very close to the poor, black, brown, yellow live close to white. it's impossible to spend your day seeing only white-it can't be done. with the laws in ca for the disabled, you can't avoid seeing/interacting/being friends with folks with disabilities.
colorado is different and has many positives. I'm not trying to make colorado into california. I just wish it weren't quite so segregated here.
maybe I can live off in an upper middle class gated enclave, and send my kid to a private school with no diversity whatsoever, but that's not what for my life or my family's life. I want my daughter to have a firm sense of who she is, of the world around her, not just the spoiled brats from her socioeconomic class. I want her to feel responsible for her fellow human beings, rich and poor, black and white, male and female. I also want her to realize she belongs to a cultural grouping of black people who share a history in this country, good and bad, and all that entails. In short, I want her to be a proud, smart, empathetic, black woman who can cross cultural boundaries, who can speak spanish and french and a little arabic maybe, who can approach and talk to the elderly, who knows why showing the soles of your feet to folks from the middle east is disrespectful, who can tell you about hanukkah and when and why it's celebrated, who can also talk to you about ramadan, who has traveled the world, even if it's just by reading in the library. in short, I want her to live in a diverse world, not just visit that diversity on occasion as many aptly describe. imho, the best way to do that is to actually live around other folks, go to school with different folks, play with different folks. That's what I want for her and I hope to make it work here in colorado.
note i'm not saying that the midwestern or pennsylvanian way is the right way. and incidentally, i do believe that there can be a difference between almost exclusively >2nd generation mid/mountainwestern caucasian and <=2nd generation irish, polish, estonian, italian, jewish, ... not that one is better than another, but i can imagine which one might be more accustomed to or engaged by "differences". i know, "engaged by" might not be a positive thing.
you've lived in albany, NY, illinois, etc.. speaking frankly, how do you think things here compare to those places in these regards? you've read many threads here concerning people's experiences with "acceptance", and gotten a feel for where they come from. what trends do you notice there? you've read about some of the front range "consumption habits" relatively, and some of the "quality" of some of the development. what do you think the demographic structure (fractions as well as integration) might have to do with some of the politics and interpersonal nuances of the place's culture that might go into some of this?
please don't get me wrong, i do not think denver is patently bad or 1D. i do believe that the denver metro is often MORE 1D than most places it's size, and i think that affects some of the experiences we read about here (as well as some of the bigger picture), so seems worth a look!
Well, in the Pittsburgh area, which I know the most about, many people my age are second generation (American born) Polish and Italian. That puts a lot of the Gen X types, who are rapidly approaching middle age and who drive all these SUVs full of kids at 3rd generation, and their kids at 4th gen. OTOH, there were many of us who were > 2nd gen back there, back then. So everyone should be fairly assimilated by now. Yet it is still a very segregated place. What little integration there is happens mostly around the University of Pittsburgh and CMU. I am speaking integration in the true sense of the word with people having friends of other races.
Albany was much the same in terms of segregation. We lived just a few miles away from the city, yet I hardly ever saw a person of color, except for a few Indian (from India) families. My kids were very little then, not in school, but I don't remember any families of color in my daughter's preschool. Even when I went shopping, I didn't see many people of color at the malls, including some of the less fancy malls I went to.
Champaign, IL is a college town. Most of the undergrads are from Illinois as "the University of Illinois does not seek a national student body", per their own statement (I hear this is changing, due to changing demographics in Illinois). Even in the physics dept, where my DH went to grad school, it was mostly white, American males, with a few Asians. The cities of Champaign and Urbana were very segregated. There was a "north end" where many African-Americans lived (and I made home visits as a public health nurse). Then there was the rest of town, where mostly white, middle class people lived. This was a number of years ago, but I visit the Illinois forum and it seems like not much has changed in my absence.
Honestly, I think Denver is more integrated in terms of housing patterns than any of these places.
Well, in the Pittsburgh area, which I know the most about, many people my age are second generation (American born) Polish and Italian. That puts a lot of the Gen X types, who are rapidly approaching middle age and who drive all these SUVs full of kids at 3rd generation, and their kids at 4th gen. OTOH, there were many of us who were > 2nd gen back there, back then. So everyone should be fairly assimilated by now. Yet it is still a very segregated place. What little integration there is happens mostly around the University of Pittsburgh and CMU. I am speaking integration in the true sense of the word with people having friends of other races.
so, do you think that it was easier to bump into people of other ilks in pittsburgh? how about ini other places you've lived? ... relative to the denver metro.
Quote:
Albany was much the same in terms of segregation. We lived just a few miles away from the city, yet I hardly ever saw a person of color, except for a few Indian (from India) families. My kids were very little then, not in school, but I don't remember any families of color in my daughter's preschool. Even when I went shopping, I didn't see many people of color at the malls, including some of the less fancy malls I went to.
but this is the "malls", e.g.. or the suburbs, for example. did you get into downtown albany much? it seems, to me, that the denver metro can sometimes be a bit more of a "mall" or suburb oriented place.
Quote:
Champaign, IL is a college town. Most of the undergrads are from Illinois as "the University of Illinois does not seek a national student body", per their own statement (I hear this is changing, due to changing demographics in Illinois). Even in the physics dept, where my DH went to grad school, it was mostly white, American males, with a few Asians. The cities of Champaign and Urbana were very segregated. There was a "north end" where many African-Americans lived (and I made home visits as a public health nurse). Then there was the rest of town, where mostly white, middle class people lived. This was a number of years ago, but I visit the Illinois forum and it seems like not much has changed in my absence.
so, maybe a little like boulder county?
Quote:
Honestly, I think Denver is more integrated in terms of housing patterns than any of these places.
fair enough. and interesting to me. i, for one, do not see the "integration" happening in highlands ranch, broomfield, louisville, lafayette, boulder, cherry creek, greenwood village, littleton, lone tree, parker, etc. that i have seen in many places. on public buses, i see maybe 80, 90% white people a good part of the time. it looks to me, when i go out and about around denver, a lot of those places i just listed populate it, only to leave it for home. i also see more "white non-hispanic" (and less black, middle eastern, asian, etc. which it seems the latin population replaces the numbers of) in denver metro census numbers than i do in many other places. at the same time, i agree that denver proper could be far more white and segregated than it is (there are probably plenty of examples of more significant cases, though i'm not sure many would be large-ish cities/metros).
and in the end, it's not a bad place, and i personally like some of the latin flavor around town, but some of this seems interesting to me.
so, do you think that it was easier to bump into people of other ilks in pittsburgh? how about ini other places you've lived? ... relative to the denver metro.
Well, the city iself is about 66% white and the burbs are into the upper 90s in some areas. It is, in general, whiter than Denver. I don't remember the figure from that link you gave.
but this is the "malls", e.g.. or the suburbs, for example. did you get into downtown albany much? it seems, to me, that the denver metro can sometimes be a bit more of a "mall" or suburb oriented place.
No, I did not go into downtown Albany much. There wasn't much need to. I actually went into downtown Schenectady more, as that is where our dr's office was. Albany-Schenectady is at least as suburban oriented as Denver.
so, maybe a little like the "diverse and progressive" boulder?
fair enough. and interesting to me. i, for one, do not see the "integration" happening in highlands ranch, broomfield, louisville, lafayette, boulder, cherry creek, greenwood village, littleton, lone tree, parker, etc. that i have seen in many places. on public buses, i see maybe 80, 90% white people a good part of the time. it looks to me, when i go out and about around denver, a lot of those places i just listed populate it, only to leave it for home. i also see more "white non-hispanic" (and less black, middle eastern, asian, etc. which it seems the latin population replaces the numbers of), so it seems the whitein denver metro census numbers than i do in many other places. at the same time, i agree that denver proper could be far more white and segregated than it is (there are probably plenty of examples of more significant cases, though i'm not sure many would be large-ish cities/metros).
Well, look at that list we were discussing last night. There are a number of large cities more "white" than Denver, taking their metros into consideration. Minneapolis is one that seems very white to me.
Well, look at that list we were discussing last night. There are a number of large cities more "white" than Denver, taking their metros into consideration. Minneapolis is one that seems very white to me.
not many, and most are midwestern or bordering on midwestern. again, i do not know that the midwestern way is the right way. boston, for example, seems like it may be rather white, though i am not sure it is non-ethnic in that white community. seems like a lot of irish influence, e.g.. same with buffalo (irish, polish, etc. if i remember correctly), as far as i've seen.
but you're right, if some of these places are more "white" (and there don't appear to be too many of them , at least in terms of "large cities"), regardless of ethnicity, they are more "white". so i suppose another qualification to emphasize is "ethnic", here.
as for albany etc., when i have visited, it seemed like a REAL mix of people downtown (washington park area?). and it seemed sort of more mixed even in just getting around (driving through mixed areas to get to other areas). though, it also seemed really mall and suburb oriented immediately off the freeways.
how integrated are these students? what are the demographics of highschools in other states? say, near chicago, charlotte, seattle, richmond, KC, or albany (i keep getting back to albany as pittnurse has some exposure to that)? how representative of the rest of the community is highschool? which of these places seems to best leverage it's variety?
these are subjective things, i know, but seemingly worth the discussion as i guess people's preferences and the context of how these things reverberate with the outside world (and so back to people's individual lives) have a bit to do with some of this...
on a related point, i wonder how many of us would feel enabled to have conversations like these out in our community relative to other communities. i can't help but notice that several posters here tend to either be from the northeast (buffalo, pittsburgh, some new yorkers, etc.) or otherwise "enjoy" engaging in the debate, even having our perspectives challenged so maybe "improved" by our own estimation (which i'd imagine some people reading this remembering having over a drink or the dinner table, even with strangers becoming friends, in pittsburgh, NY, buffalo, e.g.)...do you suppose, for some of us, this is the medium to do that in part due to some of what we're talking about here?
We tend to get into these discussions here because people thinking about moving here ask about these issues. Perhaps it's not of such major importance to Coloradans. Certainly our politicians are "diverse." Denver's three most recent mayors: one hispanic, one black, now white; Senator Salazar is from an old hispanic family. (I have no idea about school demographics in other areas.)
everyone needs the village. if anyone thinks they don't, just wait til a big recession, a big illness, or disaster hits.
I'm not at all interested in raising my child to feel above everyone else. my dad was a sharecropper, I don't come from money. I was bussed to school, lived in segregated neighborhoods and went to segregated schools before that. our success is temporary. if my husband's job ends tomorrow and he can't get another one, we're back to being poor folk like many of our family members, no matter what our education. I want my daughter to be there for others, to grow up as part of a community, to feel part of a community, to realize that community consists of people that are economically better off and worse off than she is, and that she and every one on this planet has an obligation to do something to make things better.
in los angeles, the church we belonged to was extremely diverse. it had hollywood big shots (the guy from Monk for example, cecily tyson etc) all the way down the economic ladder to the homeless who were welcomed with open arms. The old money of Pasadena was there, as well as folks like us, new families with a little bit of new money, and families with no money. all were welcomed to share space.
In the neighborhood in which we lived, it was a mixed space. we owned a home, but very close by there were apartments and rental homes. in los angeles, the layout is different: the rich live very close to the poor, black, brown, yellow live close to white. it's impossible to spend your day seeing only white-it can't be done. with the laws in ca for the disabled, you can't avoid seeing/interacting/being friends with folks with disabilities.
colorado is different and has many positives. I'm not trying to make colorado into california. I just wish it weren't quite so segregated here.
maybe I can live off in an upper middle class gated enclave, and send my kid to a private school with no diversity whatsoever, but that's not what for my life or my family's life. I want my daughter to have a firm sense of who she is, of the world around her, not just the spoiled brats from her socioeconomic class. I want her to feel responsible for her fellow human beings, rich and poor, black and white, male and female. I also want her to realize she belongs to a cultural grouping of black people who share a history in this country, good and bad, and all that entails. In short, I want her to be a proud, smart, empathetic, black woman who can cross cultural boundaries, who can speak spanish and french and a little arabic maybe, who can approach and talk to the elderly, who knows why showing the soles of your feet to folks from the middle east is disrespectful, who can tell you about hanukkah and when and why it's celebrated, who can also talk to you about ramadan, who has traveled the world, even if it's just by reading in the library. in short, I want her to live in a diverse world, not just visit that diversity on occasion as many aptly describe. imho, the best way to do that is to actually live around other folks, go to school with different folks, play with different folks. That's what I want for her and I hope to make it work here in colorado.
now if I could just find the right home...
As I said in the reputation, excellent response. I do not see Denver as segregated as you see--that is because I live in a neighborhood that has many different people.
You cannot make Denver into California--we have less people and traditionally less immigration but it is growing all the time with many new immigrants. There are many neighborhoods in the metro area that are mixed and have different people. Obviously you already know that a rich enclave is not the answer for you.
I would suggest these areas because of more African Americans in the mix:
Stapelton has already been mentioned--certainly mixed and it is near a traditional mixed neigborhood.
Areas of Northeast Denver that border the diverse areas of Aurora. I would suggest strongly to look at the Park Hill neighborhood.
There are difinitely nice mixed neighborhoods in Aurora--near the City Center-with many Asians and African Americans.
Lowry Development in the City of Denver.
Other Areas that are mixed but do have fewer African Americans:
The City of Englewood--certainly a very mixed little old enclave
Montclair, Congress Park, an older neighborhood, certainly mixed.
I would look at the areas around the redevelopment of the old university hospital site in Hale, City of Denver.
West of Greenwood, East of Englewood--Virginia Village, Goldsmith
Most of all--please make a home here--we want you.
The village of Denver needs you.
Livecontent
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