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Was this neighbourhood a place with a relatively low cost of housing per sf? I mean if you try to put yourself in the mind of a low income immigrant, you might be willing to crowd up if you don't have any alternatives, but you'd still want to be no more crowded than necessary, so you move to where you can get the most house for the least money.
There's a suburb of Toronto which has the lowest cost of housing per sf in the area (not counting Oshawa, Hamilton and Barrie). It's kind of far from the white-collar jobs and mostly just close to a bunch of massive industrial parks and suburban warehouses areas. It still has higher household incomes than the parts of Toronto with lots of older apartment buildings, but not as high as the white collar suburbs, hence the housing is not worth as much per sf (but it's still booming since there's a lot of space to build more homes).
In the last 10-20 years, there's been a lot of Indians (mostly Punjabi Sikhs) moving in. However, unlike your neighbourhood, they're mostly going for the bigger (2500 sf + 1000 sf basement) newer homes in that suburb, with about a dozen rooms, including typically 3 rooms in the basement, and then 4-5 on the main and 2nd floor, double car garage, and driveway for 5 additional cars. They'll move in with the whole extended family, maybe convert the basement into a small apartment to rent out or maybe just have additional relatives living there, so it's not that unusual to have 10 people in a house. There might be cases with 20-30 people in a house, but I think that's pretty rare, 6-12 would be more common (5-7 is the average, but that includes smaller homes and obviously you'll have some below average which means you need a decent bit above the average, i.e. 7-12 to make up for that).
Anyways, interestingly there's been some of these Punjabis objecting to building townhouses in their neighbourhood because they're not as compatible with their way of life, i.e. too small to house large extended families. Just thought that was an interesting contrast to your area where you say Indians don't mind crowding 3 families into a townhouse.
(mind you the townhouses the developers wanted to build were 1-2 bedroom stacked townhouses, I'm not aware of there having been objections to the 3-4 bedroom non-stacked townhouses in other developments)
Yes, my neighborhood was a place with a relatively low cost of housing per square foot. In fact, it's what attracted us to it. We were renting an apartment a couple of towns away but found that the affordable starter homes there were either in crappy areas (next to low income housing) or were really run down. So, we bought a 2 level townhouse as a starter home---and at the time, the rest of the neighbors were in the same boat as us.
Ten years later, our daughter was in middle school and we had an opportunity to trade up to a new single family house and keep her in the same school district. Things were fine at first. We were next to a townhouse community that also was new but these were nicer houses than our starter home. Over time Indians and Middle Easterners started buying the townhouses and overcrowding them. Before we knew it, our neighborhood was overrun with the townhouse residents' cars as each townhouse came with a 2-car garage and when they're overcrowded...
If you were to ask these people why they are overcrowding, they will whine and say it's the only way they can live close to their jobs. Yet some of their neighbors are enduring 25 mile commutes into the city because here is where they can afford a house and live normally---one family to a house.
Right now, our community is fighting with the county to make our neighborhood permit parking only. What was supposed to be a 6 month process is now dragging on 2 1/2 years later. It's really depressing and to be honest, some days it makes me despondent.
Our goal is to get out. Despite the surrounding townhouse mess, we can still profit when we sell the house after we spend some money updating it. What we have going that just might start to turn things around---a rail station that will be a mile away is coming---in 4 more years.
Well, I hope it doesn't change but I know that Southfield used to be something of quality and now it's becoming like Detroit for the most part with the Tyqueshas and Deshawns moving in. I'm a black man for the record, an educated/middle class black man, and it's basically damned if you do and damned if you don't for me. If I move out of the crime-infested area (mostly being done by blacks), I'm called a sell-out by black people and they say I'm "acting white". But if I STAY in the area, I'll probably get shot, stabbed or robbed within 12 months as well as having to live in poor conditions.
Illustrating what others in this thread have called "middle class flight" low income families start to move into more middle class neighborhoods, the middle class residents don't like it, move out to newer communities, allowing more lower class families to move to the community. There's nothing wrong with you feeling like that. I know if my neighborhood started becoming more dangerous and lower class, we'd probably move out too. It's a pattern. The question is when will it end, you can't keep building new subdivisions forever. Clinton township is pretty far north of Detroit though, I doubt youre in danger of ganstas moving in any time soon.
Well, I hope it doesn't change but I know that Southfield used to be something of quality and now it's becoming like Detroit for the most part with the Tyqueshas and Deshawns moving in. I'm a black man for the record, an educated/middle class black man, and it's basically damned if you do and damned if you don't for me. If I move out of the crime-infested area (mostly being done by blacks), I'm called a sell-out by black people and they say I'm "acting white". But if I STAY in the area, I'll probably get shot, stabbed or robbed within 12 months as well as having to live in poor conditions.
I'd be curious to know more about Southfield. Are you from there?
Looking at census tract level data for Southfield on city-data for median household incomes for whites vs blacks, then combining all the census tracts to get the overall average for the whole town (so an average of medians, not ideal but you work with what you have), you get:
Southfield
White households: $47,878
Black households: $55,385
Eastpointe
White households: $46,855
Black households: $42,729
Harper Woods
White households: $46,681
Black households: $41,481
For all of metro Detroit it's about $57k for white households and $28k for black households, so it seems like at least as of when the data was taken (I think 2010, if not 2009 or 2011) Southfield was still middle class and a pretty big difference from Detroit.
BTW do you know what's up with the white households in Southfields having lower incomes? Is it a lot of white retirees? Or is there just more demand for living there from black middle class than white middle class?
BTW do you know what's up with the white households in Southfields having lower incomes? Is it a lot of white retirees? Or is there just more demand for living there from black middle class than white middle class?
Probably the latter, the fact that there's already a large black population in Southfield most likely attracts middle class blacks to the city.
I wonder what will happen as the White American population as a whole begins to decline. Right now it's only growing due to immigration and growth of Middle Easterners (whom most wouldn't consider White anyway). Deaths exceed births among Whites already. Areas will decline in White population regardless of "flight" simply due to demographic trends, and it'll be interesting to see how it plays out and how much migration takes place.
Illustrating what others in this thread have called "middle class flight" low income families start to move into more middle class neighborhoods, the middle class residents don't like it, move out to newer communities, allowing more lower class families to move to the community. There's nothing wrong with you feeling like that. I know if my neighborhood started becoming more dangerous and lower class, we'd probably move out too. It's a pattern. The question is when will it end, you can't keep building new subdivisions forever. Clinton township is pretty far north of Detroit though, I doubt youre in danger of ganstas moving in any time soon.
I actually touched on this in another thread in the Economics section, but I believe that the welfare, thug, ratchet, lower class of America will actually KEEP growing due to the fact we are moving more into a Specialized Skill Economy where you are only going to have the HAVEs and the HAVE-NOTs, there won't be any "middle".
Those in the HAVEs section will be in demand not just in this country but globally, so I believe more of them are going to move out of the country and leave in other countries, while America becomes more and more like Detroit and Flint, MI on a national scale.
You are already seeing this as in the vast majority of states, more citizens are receiving a government benefit than receiving a paycheck.
I'd be curious to know more about Southfield. Are you from there?
Looking at census tract level data for Southfield on city-data for median household incomes for whites vs blacks, then combining all the census tracts to get the overall average for the whole town (so an average of medians, not ideal but you work with what you have), you get:
Southfield
White households: $47,878
Black households: $55,385
Eastpointe
White households: $46,855
Black households: $42,729
Harper Woods
White households: $46,681
Black households: $41,481
For all of metro Detroit it's about $57k for white households and $28k for black households, so it seems like at least as of when the data was taken (I think 2010, if not 2009 or 2011) Southfield was still middle class and a pretty big difference from Detroit.
BTW do you know what's up with the white households in Southfields having lower incomes? Is it a lot of white retirees? Or is there just more demand for living there from black middle class than white middle class?
I grew up in Flint, MI which is a DUMP. I'm 31 so I grew up in Flint when it went downhill. But I'm not sure where you got those Southfield income estimates?
Crime is way lower than the US average, matter of fact the US Crime average is double that of the average in the Sterling Heights/Clinton Township area.
What's the main difference? It's the percentage of black people within the population. If you are in a town/city where it's majority black people EXPECT the crime to be higher. I'm a black man, so I don't care if that makes me a sell-out, Uncle Tom or whatever, it's in the data and it's the truth. If you want to live in a quality area, you should START your search in areas where black people are not the majority population.
My parents moved from Toronto (Danforth/Coxwell) to Whitby years ago because the city seemed on a downward spiral and they didn't feel it was a good environment for us to grow up in. Keep in mind we lived in my father's childhood home, two doors down from the house my mother's childhood home.
Fast forward to my 20s. Friends of mine bought houses in my father's subdivision in Whitby because it was consideres a premier neighborhood to live in at the time.
In my 40's, we are all leaving. It is not because of "ethnic diversity" nor because any of us want to live in Toronto. It is because we have a problematic high-rise apartment complex on the peripheral of the neighborhood that has brought crime and hard drug use with it. The buildings are overrun with gangs and prostitutes, and are constantly in the news for assaults, domestic abuse and drug busts. On top of this, there has been a couple warnings from the police of high-risk sex offenders moving into the area after completing their sentences. Seriously... When you start getting police warnings about dangerous pedophiles relocating to the neighborhood and the local variety store is selling glass meth/crack pipes to make money of the local addicts, its time to find a new place to live. It is the general consensus that this particular high-rise complex is a blight on an otherwise nice town and the entire area would be vastly improved if it were demolished and its residents relocated to an area more suited to their particular social class.
To illustrate, here's a quote from a pretty recent episode of "The Big Bang Theory" in which Howard and Sheldon pay an unannounced visit to his mother's house in East Texas.
Sheldon, to Howard: "I thought you were waiting in the car."
Howard: "That was an hour ago, Sheldon. A Jew sits in front of a house in Texas that long, 'For Sale' signs start to go up."
Now, that's because Howard is Jewish. Just switch that word for "black" or "Mexican" or "Latino" or "Native American" and it would still work the same! If the writers had written the scene to have Raj go with Sheldon back to Texas the line still would have worked.
Now, that's some unnamed small town in East Texas. The show is funny because the satire on it is TRUE. They could be talking about ANY place in not only the South but most of the Midwest or the Northwest. Parts of "Back East," too.
FYI for those of you who might recognize the episode I'm quoting - Season 7 of "The Big Bang Theory" was filmed JUST LAST YEAR, folks.
I actually touched on this in another thread in the Economics section, but I believe that the welfare, thug, ratchet, lower class of America will actually KEEP growing due to the fact we are moving more into a Specialized Skill Economy where you are only going to have the HAVEs and the HAVE-NOTs, there won't be any "middle".
Those in the HAVEs section will be in demand not just in this country but globally, so I believe more of them are going to move out of the country and leave in other countries, while America becomes more and more like Detroit and Flint, MI on a national scale.
You are already seeing this as in the vast majority of states, more citizens are receiving a government benefit than receiving a paycheck.
The problem is that THIS is what you automatically assume when you see brown skin. If brown-skinned public school teachers who moonlighted as pro-bono lawyers started moving into your neighbourhood you'd immediately associate us with welfare-trash criminal types. Nice.
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