The real problem with public transit is that a large % of people don't want to sit next to blacks people. (highway, schools)
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Whites didn't want to sit next to blacks but also didn't want to live next to blacks. So they fled to the suburbs which began the great white exodus to suburbia and the acceleration of urban decline and decay, after WW2. As the cities began to rot from neglect it prompted even more white flight, and more endless sprawl growth that popped up everywhere like weeds.
I know white flight is the popular narrative but it's not really what happened.
White people didn't move to the suburbs to get away from black people. The federal government gave GIs handouts if they moved to the suburbs and nothing if they didn't. It was close to impossible to get a home loan in a city neighborhood and even harder to refinance the house you already owned. Back then no one in Philadelphia or Cincinnati was interested in trying to fix up a 100 year old rowhome that was built before plumbing or electricity. It was easier to just start over and back then trees and grass and a driveway were really attractive to people who had grown up without it.
Anyway, most of the housing that existed in 1950 was obsolete and was too small for the huge families that people were having after the war anyway.
Young, returning GIs bought houses in the 'burbs. Their parents stayed in the city. The young GIs had lots of kids (baby boomers) who grew up in the suburbs then went on to buy houses there. The grandparents who stayed behind in the cities started to die off in the '80s. This is when the white population of big cities really started to tank - it wasn't because people were moving out. It was because they were old and dying.
The growth in the suburbs would've happened either way because the US population has doubled since 1950. All of those people have to live somewhere.
I know white flight is the popular narrative but it's not really what happened.
White people didn't move to the suburbs to get away from black people. The federal government gave GIs handouts if they moved to the suburbs and nothing if they didn't. It was close to impossible to get a home loan in a city neighborhood and even harder to refinance the house you already owned. Back then no one in Philadelphia or Cincinnati was interested in trying to fix up a 100 year old rowhome that was built before plumbing or electricity. It was easier to just start over and back then trees and grass and a driveway were really attractive to people who had grown up without it.
Anyway, most of the housing that existed in 1950 was obsolete and was too small for the huge families that people were having after the war anyway.
Young, returning GIs bought houses in the 'burbs. Their parents stayed in the city. The young GIs had lots of kids (baby boomers) who grew up in the suburbs then went on to buy houses there. The grandparents who stayed behind in the cities started to die off in the '80s. This is when the white population of big cities really started to tank - it wasn't because people were moving out. It was because they were old and dying.
The growth in the suburbs would've happened either way because the US population has doubled since 1950. All of those people have to live somewhere.
Interesting perspective. Sounds pretty logical.
However I still think white flight played some part in it. Though perhaps not the enormous role most think it did?
I wonder how many white people took buses between different cities on the East Coast before the introduction of the Bolt Bus. When I was in college, the only options were Greyhound, Peter Pan and the Chinatown bus. The Chinatown bus was the only one that had whites on it on a regular basis. And the whites on the Chinatown bus were normally students and young professionals trying to get down to NYC on the cheap. The Greyhound and Peter Pan buses were invariably full of lower class Blacks, Hispanics and a smattering of whites and the fact that they're destination was NYC Port Authority didn't help their reputations.
Fast forward a few years later and then Bolt hits the scene. Instead of departing from the Greyhound Station in the middle of the hardcore DC ghetto, you boarded in a parking lot surrounded by office buildings in the middle of Downtown (and the bus can even drop you off at 33rd Street and 7th Avenue instead of the ridiculously vile and nasty Port Authority!). Instead of having to get a ticket print out in a physical location, you could just flash your iPhone to the driver and board. And the buses were equipped with Wi-Fi and looked more upscale than Peter Pan buses. If you take the Bolt between New York and DC today, you'll see families (white families to be exact), young professionals typing up assignments on their laptops, college students, etc. You would never see demographics like that on a Greyhound bus.
Haha, thanks for the memories. I used to take the bus from the DC Greyhound station (the one down the block from Union Station) - it didn't seem like a great neighborhood but didn't seem like hardcore ghetto to me at least, though I just walked the quarter mile or so from Union directly to the greyhound. This was circa 2002-2003 school year. I would usually take the greyhound to see my girlfriend in upstate New York - if the bus went to Port Authority, it was usually majority black, but if it went through Pennsylvania it was usually more white - also less crowded. I hate sitting next to anybody I don't know on a bus, but deal with it nonetheless. Long Island's buses run pretty infrequently so I think anyone with a car avoids them, leaving the buses to those who can't afford a car.
I wonder how many white people took buses between different cities on the East Coast before the introduction of the Bolt Bus. When I was in college, the only options were Greyhound, Peter Pan and the Chinatown bus. The Chinatown bus was the only one that had whites on it on a regular basis. And the whites on the Chinatown bus were normally students and young professionals trying to get down to NYC on the cheap. The Greyhound and Peter Pan buses were invariably full of lower class Blacks, Hispanics and a smattering of whites and the fact that they're destination was NYC Port Authority didn't help their reputations.
So, here's what I would like to know. What do you think would be the response of the passengers on a Bolt run between... say NYC and Chi Town to a very black man of middle class presentation being their traveling partner for two days?? It's interesting riding mass transit in Portland. I start out in a far suburb and I'll get a seat because its the start of the run. As we get closer to the city and the train fills up no one ever takes the seat next to me. Even after people are standing no one goes for the empty seat next to me five rides out of ten. I've learned to watch out for crazy, white, homeless people because I have been kicked twice by Vietnam Vet types near the Library stop in Portland. Sane, white people leave me alone and this is noteworthy because Portland is an extremely friendly city and all sorts of total strangers hit it off on MAX trains during a trip and I observe these interactions but have never myself been party to one.
About 5 years ago I took Greyhound from NYC to Ann Arbor, MI for a job interview. OMG... two and one half days of exposure to some of the most intense misery of my existence. Most of it due to the fraught emotional climate in the coaches. There were virtually no whites and they kept very much to themselves. So did most everyone else. When there was interaction it was usually terse or openly hostile. Very recently a white acquaintance became re-united with her father after 40 years. He lives in a convalescent home in Georgia. He wont fly. He rode Greyhound 5 days to meet his daughter. When I learned of this I was aghast. I tried to get them to cash in his return ticket and fly him back home but that didn't happen. He took the bus back home as well. I wish I had known about this Bolt service. But how does Bolt treat its black ridership?
However I still think white flight played some part in it. Though perhaps not the enormous role most think it did?
It happened in two stages, more or less.
From 1945 to the early 1960s, white people left cities because they wanted to move to the suburbs. Black people didn't because racist practices stopped them from getting home ownership loans (redlining) or in some cases even moving into neighborhoods (restrictive covenants).
Starting in around 1963, the U.S. began its urban riots period, which lasted until around 1980. It's also the era where there was the largest proportion of public housing going into formerly all-white neighborhoods, and the battles over school desegregation were the greatest. Real Estate companies also used "blockbusting" techniques to foster racial turnover. I think most genuine white flight happened during this era. This is the period that virtually every city (even places that quickly recovered later, like San Francisco and Boston) lost population.
Post 1980, things normalized. Some cities began recovering, although the Crack epidemic turned many of the formerly pretty safe black neighborhoods into ghettos. All racist tools used to force blacks to stay living in the cities pretty much evaporated (although real estate agents would still try to steer people of certain races into certain neighborhoods), so blacks could finally move to the suburbs. Everything since has been basically a deepening of these basic trends of urban recovery, and minority suburbanization.
So, here's what I would like to know. What do you think would be the response of the passengers on a Bolt run between... say NYC and Chi Town to a very black man of middle class presentation being their traveling partner for two days?? It's interesting riding mass transit in Portland. I start out in a far suburb and I'll get a seat because its the start of the run. As we get closer to the city and the train fills up no one ever takes the seat next to me. Even after people are standing no one goes for the empty seat next to me five rides out of ten. I've learned to watch out for crazy, white, homeless people because I have been kicked twice by Vietnam Vet types near the Library stop in Portland. Sane, white people leave me alone and this is noteworthy because Portland is an extremely friendly city and all sorts of total strangers hit it off on MAX trains during a trip and I observe these interactions but have never myself been party to one.
The first thing I'll say is that a bus ride from NYC to Chicago sounds completely ridiculous. I'm sure people do it, but just not me.
The second thing I'll say is that people may not be sitting next to you because you're ugly. I'm not saying you are ugly, but that could be a reason. I don't think many people would hesitate to sit next to Denzel Washington or Will Smith. Just sayin.
However I still think white flight played some part in it. Though perhaps not the enormous role most think it did?
It depends on where. Many neighborhoods flipped from white to minority very quickly, faster than can be explained by housing preferences. Neither would you have neighborhoods turning almost entirely minority, without white flight. In some city neighborhoods you can see the difference between ones that have aged — the white population is predominately older [some call it a "grandma neighborhood"] and the younger population is heavily minority and ones that are white flight neighborhoods — almost all the white people left. A friend to told me his mom (or rather his mom's family) left her neighborhood because it was changing*. The housing stock certainly wasn't changing.
*It's Queens Village, NYC if it means anything to people here. It's a bit unusual as a white flight neighborhood — 16% white, $74k median income.
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