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I've read this but for some reason on the ground Cobb still seems relatively "white". I am guessing the few areas I go or drive through in that county don't have a lot of minorities and it doesn't help that there are stores with confederate flags on the outside around there.
Well, with non-Hispanic whites still making up about 52.7% of the population as of 2016, non-Hispanic whites continue to make up the majority of the population in Cobb County.
And though Cobb's minority population seems to be booming to the point of pushing the county towards 'majority-minority' status in the not-too-distant future, areas like much of East Cobb (in the clusters of schools anchored by Walton HS, Pope HS and Lassiter HS) and much of West Cobb (particularly in the clusters of schools anchored by Harrison and Allatoona high schools) continue to be overwhelmingly predominantly white.
So yeah, Cobb continues to be in effect "relatively white" in a way. But the county clearly seems to be moving towards 'majority-minority' status in the not-too-distant future.
I love it, and envy Gwinnett for its incredible diversity. I enjoy occasionally venturing up to Gwinnett Place to get a taste of what I wish we had more of intown.
FYI...believe me, it gets old.
The other day I was in the Gwinnett Place area doing some Christmas shopping. Was looking for a decent place to eat. If you don't want Asian food or mostly lower-end chain places or pretty crummy grease joints, there really is nowhere to eat around there anymore. I remember when there was a lot more variety. Now you can't find decent continental or Italian cuisine in that area like you can in Johns Creek, on the Sugarloaf corridor, or downtown Duluth.
No different than people complaining and being vocally upset (mostly African Americans) that the city is becoming increasingly white by the week. Goes both ways. Can’t speak of one while ignoring the other.
There is nothing wrong with White people moving into the city. Just like there is nothing wrong with someone who is Black moving to Gwinnett. There is a clear resistance right now about white people moving into the city and it is no different than what was discussed in the linked article whether you want to admit it or not. Sorry.
I agree with you, that people can move wherever but you cant ignore that its a proven fact, for whatever the reason when too many black families move into a community it automatically decreases property values. Say a street with 10 homes. If half of them have black families, the value of the area will be lower. That's just how are society is built which sucks. All kinds of stats on crime, school report, etc... So people voluntarily begin looking elsewhere.
There are still probably half a million white folks in Gwinnett and they still hold all the seats on the county commission, the school board and nearly all the judgeships. So I am hesitant to think of them as a lonely forgotten minority.
Is this true?
A while back I remember a discussion about how some black people upon becoming more successful don't stay in their neighborhoods and give back or try to grow the community. They instead move out to a different area that may be nicer, lower crime, or have better schools.
Also why is it when white people move in everything gets more expensive? Are black people truly priced out?
A few years ago I was talking to a black lady who had just sold her home in Edgewood. I wondered why she sold it as she owned it free and clear and the area property values were going up. She wasn't forced out at all. She simply wanted to cash out now. Now I can see where rentals might become more expensive and low income people might be forced to leave, but what about all the homeowners who voluntarily sell their homes in areas that are now up and coming?
That's a great question!!!! I think our society still has this prehistoric assumption as their foundation for development, that predominately white areas are more inclined to higher priced products, goods and services. That's why most areas that have a substantial white population have everything from Dollar Tree to Whole Foods. I mean, I think it's pathetic that if you check a map view for Starbucks there's basically none in black areas. Regardless of income, I think when people get paid, they will find $5 to spend on a cup of coffee. Especially when it's only $5! Starbucks isn't super fancy anymore as it previously was, and I honestly view them like a Mc Donald's. Not in terms of quality but the expectation to be in high traffic areas and offer courtesy wifi... Just like malls when an Apple store moves in, there are stats on traffic and sales.... Trust me, they do the same thing with race/ethnicites in a given area for development. They just haven't been updated in probably 100 years.
I was raised in a predominately white area, (now predominately Asian) and can now speak on the changes I've seen in black neighborhoods after university. For example, I picked up a copy of this paper called "Crossroads" for Dekalb communities. Recently a Kroger and now a Publix are closing due to lack of profits. My whole thing is, why didn't the store adapt its products to the community. If Whole Foods comes into an area, and build their stores to suit, why can't Kroger and Publix... Why are you stocking a store with $6 jars of sun dried tomatoes when maybe you should stock it with only fresh or can tomatoes?!?!?....The paper interviewed 2 white customers (which it matters) who have lived in the area for over 50 yrs and they both said they believe it's more than just profits and they feel the companies have not tried everything to remain competitive and are turning their backs on the community
So even with Food, it's an issue. That's why I totally see why people say black neighborhoods are food deserts. Now in terms of schools, etc I have no kids but would not put my kids in an all white or all black school. I prefer schools that are like North Atlanta or Riverwood. All pieces of the pie in terms of race and incomes.
To understand what has happened demographically in Gwinnett County, one has to look at the "wave effect" of populations in Metro Atlanta. For example, back in the 1910's, wealthy white Atlantans moved to the western area of what is now called Buckhead and built large homes on acreage (some as large as 10 acres) and they established the northern areas along Peachtree St. as the destination for those with wealth. The City of Atlanta actively sought to annex this area and built a fire station in what is now The Shops at Buckhead Atlanta (it was actually where the East Village Grill was located) in order to entice these wealthy residents to be annexed into the City. It worked and most of Buckhead was annexed in 1954. After this time, the subsequent developments north of Buckhead were also of high quality and we see this wave of high dollar residential development continued though Sandy Springs, Roswell, Alpharetta and into southern Forsyth County. There were also a couple of east and west fingers from this wave, specifically East Cobb, which was a spillover from Sandy Springs and Johns Creek, which was a spillover from Roswell/Alpharetta. It is rare to see large scale neighborhoods with homes priced $700K and up outside of this area which I described.
By contrast, there were more middle class and working class whites who lived in East Atlanta. Sometime in the early 1960's, the City of Atlanta decided to build the East Lake Meadows Public Housing Project. This was a catalyst which caused these working class whites to move east. First, they moved to eastern areas of DeKalb County, particularly Stone Mountain, however the black population kept following them and many then moved along U.S. 78 East into southern Gwinnett County. Later, areas near Jimmy Carter Boulevard were developed in the late 1970's and offered affordably priced housing. for about a 15 year period, these areas didn't experience significant white flight until the early 2000s. The process occurred as many of the neighborhoods became populated with empty nesters, yet the neighboring apartments were aging and as their rents became lower, their tenants became increasingly minorities with kids. As a result, the public schools were increasingly populated more and more with apartment residents and less and less with students residing in single family homes. As the older residents who might need to move, attempted to sell their homes, they found difficulty as a result of the test scores for the neighborhood schools.
The net result of the poorly rated neighborhood schools is that few whites chose to purchase the older homes in these areas of Gwinnett and over time, the demographics continued to change with fewer whites residing their each year. This process has been slower than the massive white flight which occurred in South West Atlanta back in the early 1960's, however, over the long term, the net effect has been similar.
The areas around Gwinnett Place Mall were developed in a different manner. Originally, many apartments were built near the mall because it was a strong commercial area. As a result, the schools didn't have as many students from single family homes and the homes which were built in this area were not that expensive. Therefore, there never were the highly rated schools like Brookwood and Parkview, so this area experienced a fast change in demographics.
For the most part in Gwinnett County, the wealthiest areas and the areas with the greatest percentage of whites tend to be those closest to the Chattahoochee River and are thus closest to Johns Creek, which is part of the wave of wealthy development I described earlier. In Cobb County, a similar pattern is seen where the wealthiest areas likewise are those closest to the Chattahoochee River - Vinings and East Cobb. Vinings being a spillover from Buckhead and East Cobb being in the wave form Sandy Springs.
Gwinnett County, by contrast is a long distance east from the wealthiest neighborhoods and thus has not seen as expensive residential development as North Fulton and East Cobb.
Great post! But this is totally like textbook material. The only reason I say that Is you have to mention the intentional acts of the communities that have wealth and spillover wealth. And with intentional acts I mean "Chattahoochee Plantation" of Cobb and even the racial cleansing of Forsyth of 1912 (kinda like Tulsa) which is in that decade of 1910 you mention..... That's why I love history. The areas we have today that have the wealth, glitz n glam etc had some of the largest populations of minorities that were forcefully kicked out, or forcefully banned out. That's why I totally feel its awesome to talk about the aesthetics of a community in terms of the 1st fire house, and the concentration of wealth.....All that is relly cool.... Butttttt on the flip side it's kinda a big deal to leave out a forceful cleanse that was done to build that fire station for example. I used to have a horrible negative view of Forsyth, and when I worked at State Farm and my old coworkers were moving from Philly and Chicago and all moving to Cumming, I would always say, "omg, why are you moving there!", and they'd be like, what's the big deal...... but after reading about the events of 1912, when minorities move up that way, I view it as a homecoming instead.
Last edited by coolieandre; 11-30-2017 at 07:43 PM..
Reason: ..
There are still probably half a million white folks in Gwinnett and they still hold all the seats on the county commission, the school board and nearly all the judgeships. So I am hesitant to think of them as a lonely forgotten minority.
That is an excellent point that considering that they still hold all of the seats on the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners and the Gwinnett County Public Schools Board of Education and hold nearly all the judgeships in the county, non-Hispanic whites cannot necessarily be thought of as a "lonely forgotten minority."
That is also a really good population estimate of the number of non-Hispanic white residents in Gwinnett County.
Though, with non-Hispanic whites making up about 38.5 percent of Gwinnett County's total population of about 907,135 residents as of 2016, the actual number of non-Hispanic white residents in Gwinnett County appears to be about 349,247 as of 2016.
Your comments also raise a really good point:
That with Gwinnett County's diversification happening within a fairly short timeframe (...27 years ago back in 1990, racial and ethnic minorities only made up about 10-11% of Gwinnett County's population and did not become the majority of the county's population until about 2006-2008 or so), there may be a lag in the time that the county starts to see more minorities being elected to public office.
That's because many of the minorities are very often newcomers who are not likely to be involved in the political process immediately upon moving into the county.
But given the continuing trend of a fast-growing minority population that appears to have been accelerating in recent years, it likely may not be too terribly long before a county like Gwinnett starts to see more minorities running for and winning public office.
Gwinnett County is already seeing a few more minorities being elected to public office. In 2017, the Gwinnett County city of Norcross made history by electing its first black mayor while the city of Loganville made history by electing its first Hispanic mayor. There are multiple racial/ethnic minorities already representing parts of Gwinnett County in the Georgia Legislature.
I think Gwinnett's diversity is in some respects even understated by the top line numbers. The black population includes many immigrants from African and Caribbean countries as well as Americans; Hispanics and Asians represent many nationalities; and the white population includes immigrants from eastern Europe (e.g. Romania) and Middle Eastern nations. I don't think there are too many sections of Gwinnett where just one group is overly dominant either. Gwinnett's diversity seems to have developed organically, as its convenient location, amenities and abundance of low to moderate priced housing attracted a very wide cross-section of newcomers the last few decades.
Cobb is a little more affluent, older and has fewer immigrants than Gwinnett, but the same trends are at work here too - the pace of demographic change is just a bit more moderate. Suburban metro Atlanta is definitely a 21st century melting pot or salad bowl, depending on one's perspective. It is definitely evolving into a place where being exposed to different cultures is a regular part of everyday life for many people, whether they embrace it or struggle with being outside their comfort zone, or some of both.
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