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Not to divert the thread but it looks like the city of Atlanta gets clobbered on diversity by its suburban neighbors. Just an observation in passing.
Your not wrong at all, although I hesitate to admit it.
I actually saw an article from a blog I highly respect and started to get a bit self-defensive when I first read it.
Basically it called Atlanta the 2nd most segregated city in the country after only Chicago.
Well I found this odd, because most studies I have run into the last few years show sunbelt cities have been far less segregated. Northeastern and Midwest cities tend to have very defined established neighborhoods.
I started to realize the data was strictly discussing the city proper itself. Sadly, I think the overall study he is citing has some errors with the findings from extraneous variables and the author is better off trying to look at the entire metropolitan areas to remove some of them and control for them better. In fairness, they know this and briefly mentioned it.
And I'm still not sure I'm ready to concede Atlanta is the 2nd most segregated in the entire country, but I have to admit when I don't look at the region (which I typically do more so of) the city itself is very segregated.
The problem I see is the area is poor, cheap and black or rich, unaffordable to most and white. Divisions exists more at the extremes.
The suburbs break this pattern considerably with properties costing everywhere in-between.
What I find even more pronounced is how much the city is having trouble attracting foreign immigrants. With segregation there are always transitional/border areas, but the map of foreign immigrants is very sparse inside the city.
Your maps do show the fact that two-thirds of Clayton County are AS diverse as vast swatches of Gwinnett County (especially the northeastern swatch of Clayton (Forest Park/ Morrow/ Lake City...clear down to the City of Jonesboro and the Lake Spivey Community) Yes the western/ northwestern parts of the county (College Park/ Riverdale/ Lovejoy) are overwhelmingly Black, which kind of tilts the countywide demographics making it seem less diverse. Really the communities east of 19/41 are literally a mini United Nations. You will notice that communities around Forest Park and Conley trend a little more Hispanic (there are LOTS of older White folks there, too) Morrow and Lake City trend more Asian (also with a plurality of older White folks). Here in the Lake Spivey Community we have many South Asians (Indian and Pakistan) as opposed to the Southeast Asians (Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laos, few Koreans) of Lake City and Morrow, Our community also trends whiter than our county as a whole, but is still VERY DIVERSE. On my street we have many small business owners of Asian, Black, White, and Hispanic ethnic groups and many retirees of all races.
Tonight I attended the Fayette County High football game. It was homecoming (4th game of the season, go figure. ) While the majority of the homecoming court was black, there were several things that stood out to me. Notably was the number of interracial kids (one black and one white parent, whom they walk out on the field with). Another was the range of diversity in the remaining students: White, Asian, Hispanic and Indian. The sophomore prince was named SINGH. The Homecoming King was a Hispanic boy (forgot his name) who is also captain of the band color guard (i.e. Flag Corps). The junior princess was white. An equal number of white, black and Hispanic students were crowed various other titles. I noticed that all the kids in the stands squealed and cheered for their peers on the field regardless of race. Remember, these kids are voted on by the entire student body, which last I checked was about 75 percent minority.
Someone had recently told me that FCHS had become a fishbowl of harmonious racial diversity, thanks in no small part to a very good administration that has worked hard to unite the Fayetteville school community in the face of rapidly changing demographics. Dr. Dan Lane, the school principal, has been very honest about this and written letters, guest editorials etc in the paper. I saw the result of their efforts on display tonight.
I also noted, when they were reading out the bios as the homecoming court was introduced, that quite a few are members of the FCHS GAY STRAIGHT STUDENT ALLIANCE. Wrap your heads around THAT! Fayette County! Whoo-hoo! (The FCHS Tiger Band has 4 boys on the flag line this year BTW).
I know this has nothing to do with Gwinnett County. But it's an anecdote that I observed tonight FIRST HAND about a formally ALL WHITE metro Atlanta suburban county where shifting demographics and the influx of immigrant families etc is having a profound effect in ways many of us NEVER EVER could have seen coming 15 years ago. It has literally happened that fast, and is continuing to happen.
PS -- There were 8 black kids in my entire graduating class at FCHS (xx) years ago. Zero Asian. One Hispanic ... I think? Openly gay kids? HAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Tonight I attended the Fayette County High football game. It was homecoming (4th game of the season, go figure. ) While the majority of the homecoming court was black, there were several things that stood out to me. Notably was the number of interracial kids (one black and one white parent, whom they walk out on the field with). Another was the range of diversity in the remaining students: White, Asian, Hispanic and Indian. The sophomore prince was named SINGH. The Homecoming King was a Hispanic boy (forgot his name) who is also captain of the band color guard (i.e. Flag Corps). The junior princess was white. An equal number of white, black and Hispanic students were crowed various other titles. I noticed that all the kids in the stands squealed and cheered for their peers on the field regardless of race. Remember, these kids are voted on by the entire student body, which last I checked was about 75 percent minority.
Someone had recently told me that FCHS had become a fishbowl of harmonious racial diversity, thanks in no small part to a very good administration that has worked hard to unite the Fayetteville school community in the face of rapidly changing demographics. Dr. Dan Lane, the school principal, has been very honest about this and written letters, guest editorials etc in the paper. I saw the result of their efforts on display tonight.
I think diversity works best when you've got a relatively balanced mix of ethnicities and cultures. That way you minimize having out groups and individuals.
However, that's just my uneducated opinion. I am far from being an expert on sociology, or anything else for that matter.
I think diversity works best when you've got a relatively balanced mix of ethnicities and cultures. That way you minimize having out groups and individuals.
However, that's just my uneducated opinion. I am far from being an expert on sociology, or anything else for that matter.
And I think this is why Gwinnett County continues to thrive. If you look at the schools, while there are many high schools that are majority this or that, none are 99 percent black like you have in Clayton, South Fulton and DeKalb
A school that is 100 percent black is no more healthy than one that is 100 percent white, IMO.
And I think this is why Gwinnett County continues to thrive. If you look at the schools, while there are many high schools that are majority this or that, none are 99 percent black like you have in Clayton, South Fulton and DeKalb
A school that is 100 percent black is no more healthy than one that is 100 percent white, IMO.
You're largely right, but to be fair Gwinnett does have one spot that is losing this from where it was.
Shiloh at the southern tip of the county has a rapid growing black population, a rapid declining white population, and many other ethnicities seem to be passing over the area. It is a bit far from the jobs that are in Gwinnett.
Many people appear be growing from a fairly strong black majority neighborhoods west and south of Shiloh in Debalb Co.
It is currently 75% black and increasing at a rate of 2%/year, granted that isn't 99% but I fear that is how it is trending.
There is a little bit of potential for Meadowcreek to start becoming Hispanic only, but that has a longer way to go.
I'm curious as to how Gwinnett county went from being almost entirely white to 56% non white in 20 years. Even counties in areas that experience white flight don't always change over this quickly. Last I checked Gwinnett was one of the most diverse counties in the nation, why did so many Hispanics and Asians move to Gwinnett as opposed to Cobb, Fulton or Dekalb counties?
In addition to the factors that the other posters have noted, another factor that should be noted about why and how Gwinnett County changed from overwhelmingly majority non-Hispanic white to overwhelmingly majority-minority in such a short amount of time is the time period during which that dramatic demographic shift occurred.
Gwinnett's dramatic shift from overwhelmingly majority non-Hispanic white to overwhelmingly majority-minority seemed to have began in earnest around the time (in 1990) that the announcement was made that Atlanta would be the host of the 1996 Summer Olympics.
At the time that the Olympics announcement was made in 1990, official 1990 U.S. Census figures indicated that Gwinnett County had a population of 352,910 people that was over 89% non-Hispanic white.
By the time of the next decennial U.S. Census in 2000, Gwinnett County's population had grown to a count of 588,448 and non-Hispanic whites, while still demographically dominant, had noticeably slipped to being only 67% of the county's population.
During the decade of the 1990's, the minority population in Gwinnett grew from less than 11% in 1990 to more than 33% in 2000.
The minority population boom in Gwinnett was spurred in large part by the massive building/construction boom that the county and much of the rest of the Atlanta metropolitan region experienced during a 1990's decade of explosive national and Sunbelt regional growth that was made even more explosive in the Atlanta region because of Atlanta's berth as the host of the 1996 Summer Olympics.
The 1990 announcement that Atlanta would be hosting the 1996 Summer Olympics almost instantly made Atlanta into a city/metro of international importance that would attract an increasingly large international population.
Like the other posters have noted, Gwinnett was in an excellent position to take advantage of the explosive growth sparked by a robust 90's economy and the lead-up to the '96 Summer Olympics because of the county's very close location to the multi-cultural Buford Highway corridor in neighboring DeKalb County.
Gwinnett was also in a good position to experience the rapid growth of its minority population because of the development and developer-friendly culture in the county.
Gwinnett had had a development/developer-friendly culture in earnest since about the 1970's when the development of the Technology Park Atlanta/Peachtree Corners area started. But because of factors already noted like the county's close proximity to the Buford Highway multicultural corridor, the already existing base of industrial and commercial development in the county and the highly-rated school system, growth (of both development and people) exploded in the county after the 1990 announcement that Atlanta would be the host of the 1996 Summer Olympics.
The massive spike in construction during the lead-up to the '96 Olympics and during the explosive boom years of the '90's created a significant labor shortage both in Gwinnett and around the Atlanta metro region.
The '90's labor shortage created by the unprecedented building and construction boom in Gwinnett and Metro Atlanta was often filled by migrant laborers from Mexico and Central America who often stayed in the area after migrating to Metro Atlanta to work on one of the numerous construction projects underway at the time throughout the region during the lead-up to the '96 Olympics and the explosive boom years of the 1990's.
The construction boom of the 1990's in Gwinnett and Metro Atlanta is one of the major reasons why the Hispanic/Latino population has grown to be so large in such a short period of time in Gwinnett.
As for the Asian population....One of the major factors in the explosion of the Asian population in Gwinnett is the county's highly-regarded public school system in a quadrant of the Atlanta metro area that was already experiencing heavy Asian growth along the Buford Highway corridor in DeKalb.
The excellence of the schools in neighboring areas like Gwinnett, North Fulton and Forsyth pretty much ensured that the heavy growth of the Asian population would spillover into those areas from the Buford Highway corridor and North DeKalb County.
And I think this is why Gwinnett County continues to thrive. If you look at the schools, while there are many high schools that are majority this or that, none are 99 percent black like you have in Clayton, South Fulton and DeKalb
A school that is 100 percent black is no more healthy than one that is 100 percent white, IMO.
I agree with you, but I have to correct one statement. There are no schools in Clayton that come close to 99 percent black. (North Clayton High is the least diverse at 89 percent black while every single South Fulton School is 98 to 100 percent black)
You're largely right, but to be fair Gwinnett does have one spot that is losing this from where it was.
Shiloh at the southern tip of the county has a rapid growing black population, a rapid declining white population, and many other ethnicities seem to be passing over the area. It is a bit far from the jobs that are in Gwinnett.
Many people appear be growing from a fairly strong black majority neighborhoods west and south of Shiloh in Debalb Co.
It is currently 75% black and increasing at a rate of 2%/year, granted that isn't 99% but I fear that is how it is trending.
There is a little bit of potential for Meadowcreek to start becoming Hispanic only, but that has a longer way to go.
Yes, I was aware of the situation at Shiloh, and to a lesser extent South Gwinnett. Of course, you go just a couple miles north of US 78 and you've got Brookwood. It's a strange phenomenon.
I would like to think that white flight as we saw it in the 70s and 80s is a thing of the past. With the exception of the school accreditation crisis in Clayton County, which accelerated not just white flight but wealth and educational flight, it has been my observation that most of the school "diversity" being witnessed in various pockets around Metro Atlanta is more a result of large numbers of minorities moving into formally all-while areas, and not necessarily a mass exodus of whites that left a vacuum. This is especially true of Fayetteville (Fayette) and Powder Springs (Cobb) where the opening of new schools and the contraction of attendance zones has made both Fayette County High and McEachern High go from overwhelming white 10 years ago to the opposite today. But both are stil regarded as among the best high schools in Georgia. See how that works?
I agree with you, but I have to correct one statement. There are no schools in Clayton that come close to 99 percent black. (North Clayton High is the least diverse at 89 percent black while every single South Fulton School is 98 to 100 percent black)
I stand corrected. Several of the South DeKalb high schools are indeed 99 percent black, with just a handful of Hispanics.
I'll admit that it doesn't really make sense why certain areas are least diverse than others. Why is North Fulton diverse but not South Fulton. What so different about West Atlanta that makes it exclusively black? What exactly attracts Hispanics and Asians to Clayton, Henry and North Fayette? It doesn't seem to be an income thing, so why can't all sides of the metro be equally diverse?
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) While the majority of the homecoming court was black, there were several things that stood out to me. Notably was the number of interracial kids (one black and one white parent, whom they walk out on the field with). Another was the range of diversity in the remaining students: White, Asian, Hispanic and Indian. The sophomore prince was named SINGH. The Homecoming King was a Hispanic boy (forgot his name) who is also captain of the band color guard (i.e. Flag Corps). The junior princess was white. An equal number of white, black and Hispanic students were crowed various other titles. I noticed that all the kids in the stands squealed and cheered for their peers on the field regardless of race. Remember, these kids are voted on by the entire student body, which last I checked was about 75 percent minority.
