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No Black person with a large amount of money is going to stay in a slummy area. It doesn't matter if that area is predominantly Black or predominantly White. I don't see any middle-upper class Blacks trying to live around the trailer park segment of the White population. And as you say, no White person with alot of money wants to be in the trailer parks either.
As for northern New England, it is what it is, and I don't care.
My husband and I lived in Atlanta in "the bluff" and we made over 6 figures at that time (prior to him starting his business). You'd be surprised that there are many black people who stay in "slummy" areas for various reasons.
ETA: I remember reading an article on this very forum about Milwaukee that featured a black couple who made over $100k who also lived in the hood. Also, I added quotes around "slummy" because that depends on the person. Even though I lived in English Avenue in Atlanta, to me it was a close knit neighborhood. Often the way outsiders view these neighborhoods is not how they actually are. Unless one is involved in a criminal lifestyle or likes to flaunt - they won't have much if any issues with living in a poor, urban, black neighborhood. We never had any issues at all there and actually got to know a lot of people and helped to improve the neighborhood and surrounding communities.
I understand what you are saying. I have heard of black professionals who came to Vermont subsequently choosing to leave for the same reasons. They didn't realize beforehand what it would feel like being the only black people in town despite their white neighbors welcoming them. I have also read accounts of poor black families coming here so as to raise their kids in a safer environment than where they came from. They too had adjustment issues given the magnitude of the demographic change. That's something you can't fully know until you experience it.
I have experienced it. My parents moved the family to a rural, quiet area 45 minutes west of Atlanta. It was the late 1990s and subdivisions were being built left and right in the Atlanta metropolitan area. And the county we moved to was, at that time, 95% White (it is about 77% White and 15% Black now). Being a middle school kid, it was a shock for me. I was the only Black kid in my homeroom class. And this is Georgia, so there is a different dynamic going on than one would see in Vermont or New Hampshire. As it turned out, it wasn't much better. In fact, the schools were worse than where we moved from. I also dealt with racism/racial tensions in school, particularly high school. Now, did I make friends? Yes. I did. I ran into some very nice people when I moved out there. I also dealt with alot of racism. So did some other Blacks who started moving out there. I got over being one of the few Blacks in my classes. Getting over that wasn't the hard part. It was dealing with a really big culture shock. Confederate flags being among the things I can't deal with.
That is understandable. It sounds like they learned something about themselves through the experience. It doesn't make the area wrong because it wasn't for them. In vast America there should be something for everyone.
I agree and will note that many people think I'm weird for moving back to Ohio from Atlanta. One of the reasons I wanted to move back was to have my kids grow up in a more diverse place. The City of Atlanta proper (not including the suburbs) where we lived was VERY segregated and has always been really even though people there like to act like it wasn't or isn't.
My son from kindergarten to 6th grade went to school with 98% black kids. I felt it was important for him and our daughter to have a more diverse group of friends while they grow up so that the stereotypes that people buy into would be less likely to inhabit their minds in regards to their views really about white people. Blacks who are heavily segregated often have a skewed view IMO of whites just like whites do of blacks when they are not around them often. My spouse grew up in Chicago and lived in a 99% black neighborhood all his childhood. I remember when we met he thought some odd things about white people - like all of them were rich. I remember that one because it was laughable to me considering most of the white people I knew were poor to working class families when I was growing up. I didn't know any rich white people and we had a somewhat argumentative discussion about this. He remembers and laughs about it now that we live in my hometown because there is still a lot of poor and working class whites here.
One of my aunts laughs because she always jokes that I moved back to my hometown because I "missed white people" lol. I do admit I did miss having a more diverse group of people to hang out with, including white people even though I did have a very good white friend in Atlanta (still friends).
But the culture in Atlanta IMO is one that is too focused on race and the black people in Atlanta had a lot of biased/stereotypical views of both black and white people versus what I was culturally used to. I grew up in a very diverse place but my hometown was/is 20% black and we have always had a black part of town, black churches, businesses, etc. So I got the best of multiple worlds since I had black friends family, Latino/Latina friends/family, Asian friends/family (I grew up with a lot of Asian refugee populations from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam), white friends/families (of various backgrounds, I'm from NW OH and we have a very diverse white population with people of German, Polish, Greek, Irish, and Italian ancestry amongst others - many of them are very "into" their ethnic origins - many of my white friend's grandparents didn't even speak English - especially the Polish and Italian ones).
Because of my experiences in a heavily all black area, I think I wouldn't like a heavily all white environment either even though I'm sure I'd make some friends and join organizations and get along fine with everyone who isn't an a$$hole lol.
I agree and will note that many people think I'm weird for moving back to Ohio from Atlanta. One of the reasons I wanted to move back was to have my kids grow up in a more diverse place. The City of Atlanta proper (not including the suburbs) where we lived was VERY segregated and has always been really even though people there like to act like it wasn't or isn't.
My son from kindergarten to 6th grade went to school with 98% black kids. I felt it was important for him and our daughter to have a more diverse group of friends while they grow up so that the stereotypes that people buy into would be less likely to inhabit their minds in regards to their views really about white people. Blacks who are heavily segregated often have a skewed view IMO of whites just like whites do of blacks when they are not around them often. My spouse grew up in Chicago and lived in a 99% black neighborhood all his childhood. I remember when we met he thought some odd things about white people - like all of them were rich. I remember that one because it was laughable to me considering most of the white people I knew were poor to working class families when I was growing up. I didn't know any rich white people and we had a somewhat argumentative discussion about this. He remembers and laughs about it now that we live in my hometown because there is still a lot of poor and working class whites here.
One of my aunts laughs because she always jokes that I moved back to my hometown because I "missed white people" lol. I do admit I did miss having a more diverse group of people to hang out with, including white people even though I did have a very good white friend in Atlanta (still friends).
But the culture in Atlanta IMO is one that is too focused on race and the black people in Atlanta had a lot of biased/stereotypical views of both black and white people versus what I was culturally used to. I grew up in a very diverse place but my hometown was/is 20% black and we have always had a black part of town, black churches, businesses, etc. So I got the best of multiple worlds since I had black friends family, Latino/Latina friends/family, Asian friends/family (I grew up with a lot of Asian refugee populations from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam), white friends/families (of various backgrounds, I'm from NW OH and we have a very diverse white population with people of German, Polish, Greek, Irish, and Italian ancestry amongst others - many of them are very "into" their ethnic origins - many of my white friend's grandparents didn't even speak English - especially the Polish and Italian ones).
Because of my experiences in a heavily all black area, I think I wouldn't like a heavily all white environment either even though I'm sure I'd make some friends and join organizations and get along fine with everyone who isn't an a$$hole lol.
I've enjoyed your posts in this thread - sounds like you and your husband have your heads screwed on right (no pun intended). In so many ways we are all a product of both our environment and our teaching/indoctrination. I was fortunate to grow up in a home that had no bigotry of any kind, in a city that essentially became desegregated after WWII - I was born in the 1940's and never saw any signs of Jim Crown, but when I asked my Dad about it - he told me when he moved there right after the war, there were separate water fountains/restrooms - but they quickly went away. Just no interest in maintaining that bigotry in a post war growing city I guess. Other priorities.
My home town certainly had a majority black population area - BUT kids went to school in the district in which they lived, which means that I had black students in my class in the mid-60's. Lucky enough to move to a small city that grew to be one of the 50 largest cities in the USA - we have about a 15% black population, BUT there is not a single street in my city that is "all black". No "black neighborhoods", no "black school majorities" at all.
Where we live (and how we were raised) totally effects & affects our perceptions and our "reality". What is "reality" for some in our widely diverse Nation is almost incomprehensible to others. One thing should be clear - "change" is not only possible, but occurs regularly. Be the "change" you want.
Don't settle for less than you can be.
I've lived all over New England, urban, suburbs and rural. The minorities who lived in the rural areas did not like it and left, as well as white people who had previously lived in urban areas. It was too boring and people tend to keep to themselves.
This board will call you racist but let me tell you other successful blacks do the same thing. They know not to live in all black areas either.
I think many of the people who claim to not be racist have never lived around blacks, or any minority. Someone from Vermont cannot really know if they're racist because they've never really been around anything but their own.
I don't think the fact that NE is rural holds up as an excuse.. Look at the chart posted on where blacks live and find the Mississippi river. Explain rural to that chart.
Upper NE never went black because it never had raw industry and it's leaders didn't want them. Thats the hard truth. Come down to Greenville, Atlanta or Memphis if you want to see what NE would look like otherwise. Your politics kept you isolated but now Greenville and Atlanta are booming and NE is sort of in idle as are most all white areas as America changes andcwinners and losers trade places.
Again, NE is too cold in the winter time for blacks. The chart confirms their preference for living where there is no snow in the winter.
So... with all this talk of diversity and NH being 94% white... what is the ideal racial percentages for perfect diverse community???
And keep in mind that overall, in the US is 63% white but only 16.2% is Hispanic, 12.6% of the population is black and 4.9% is Asian.
So according to those numbers, out of 100 people in a room, only 13 of them would be black, 17 would be Hispanic and 5 of them would be Asian (and 3 people would be "other"). However, liberals wouldn't be happy with those numbers.
I get the impression that some people think that a perfect diverse community should be 25% each of white, Hispanic, black and Asian. But our population by race doesn't make that possible.
And it is true that people prefer to live around other people of their same kind (religion, morals, life goals, traditions, socio-economic status). And many of those aspects do follow racial lines.
Again, NE is too cold in the winter time for blacks. The chart confirms their preference for living where there is no snow in the winter.
Part of the Midwest are colder than New England. If cold weather is the problem, Blacks would not have moved to Detroit in large numbers. Plenty of Blacks living in Grand Rapids, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Cleveland. Cold isn't the main problem.
And the reason there are so many Blacks in the rural South has nothing to do with warm weather. It has everything to do with the legacy of slavery. The vast majority of slaves were in the South. And alot of the rural South saw a large exodus of Blacks between 1910 and 1970.
And in my own experience, I've met plenty of White people who don't like the cold at all.
Part of the Midwest are colder than New England. If cold weather is the problem, Blacks would not have moved to Detroit in large numbers. Plenty of Blacks living in Grand Rapids, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Cleveland. Cold isn't the main problem.
And the reason there are so many Blacks in the rural South has nothing to do with warm weather. It has everything to do with the legacy of slavery. The vast majority of slaves were in the South. And alot of the rural South saw a large exodus of Blacks between 1910 and 1970.
And in my own experience, I've met plenty of White people who don't like the cold at all.
No. Living in a cold Northern city is not at all the same with living in a cold rural area where there is no public transportation and driveways need to be shoveled out after snowstorms.
Blacks moved to Detroit originally for the auto factory work, then stayed because it's a super cheap city to live in. And the same goes for the other northern cities you listed.
1. Northern New England, like everywhere, wants to have a strong and vibrant future
2. Birth rates - especially amongst white people, has fallen to below replacement level
3. To solve the above northern New England will have to attract talent, much of whom may be immigrants and/or non-white
4. Everybody else also wants to attract talent, and more diverse areas might have an advantage, northern New England is brainstorming ways to stay competitive
1. Whose definition of strong and vibrant?
2. Why does population need to be replaced? Is there some ideal number? What happens if the population goes above that number?
3. and 4. are moot unless 2. can be answered satisfactorily.
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