Why is the Chicago "Blaccent" More Southern than Boston/NYC/Philly's? (Brighton: real estate, prices)

[lakal]

Originally Posted by BajanYankee

There's no doubt this was the case. Somebody had to be there before the Blacks arrived...unless, that is, Black Chicagoans built the South and West Sides from scratch. With few exceptions, many neighborhoods in American cities were largely white, and then became "minority" neighborhoods within a decade or two.

I was hoping to find similar maps of Philadelphia from 1950 through 1980. Even though the city started losing people after the 1950 Census, 1980 is when it all went downhill. The city recorded a 17.3% decline in population between the 1970 and 1980 Census. West Philly went from having black neighborhoods that bordered Italian neighborhoods that bordered Irish neighborhoods to just having black neighborhoods. There were a few exceptions, however.

I'm also wondering if Philadelphia ever had as many contiguous majority-black Census tracts as Chicago from 1950-1970. West Philly is only 14.2 sq. miles in area and was overwhelmingly white in 1950. So the "black" part of West Philly could not have spanned more than a few blocks. By 1960, there was roughly an even split in WP. By 1970, the white population was down to about a third of West Philly's total population. By 1980, whites were down to 27 percent. The Italian-Irish strongholds in West Philly finally gave way around the mid to late 1990s.

Were there contiguous black neighborhoods in North Philly during that era?

[BajanYankee]

Originally Posted by lakal

Were there contiguous black neighborhoods in North Philly during that era?

Certainly. I'm just not sure how big an area they covered. Strawberry Mansion, from what I've heard, was very Jewish. Olney (towards the upper end of N. Philly) had a lot of German/Irish Catholic and Jewish immigrants. North Philly has always been the center of the city's Puerto Rican community though it has begun to fan out towards the periphery. And North Philly also had a large population of poor, working-class whites that remained intact until the late 1990s. There are still some poor whites today scattered among Blacks and Hispanics.


Madison Street in kensington - YouTube

[DAS]

Originally Posted by lakal

That's not what he was saying lol. The majority of Chicago neighborhoods that are now majority black were once majority white, just like every other Northern city.

LOL he didn't say anything, he is trying to figure out why the accent is more Southern than AA's in the NE.

According to the article you had a few neighborhoods that were Black from the beginning to now. That would explain why the accent is more southern than the NE.

Central Harlem in NYC went from rural to Black, it wasn't ever a White neighborhood other parts of Harlem were. Some areas like Lincoln Center went from its original Black neighborhood to White. So LOL not all northern city neighborhoods went from White to Black. I think this is important to know because all the gentrifiers are trying to rewrite history with this claim, and people are too lazy to research, and accept fiction as fact.

[Chi-town Native]

Originally Posted by DAS

LOL he didn't say anything, he is trying to figure out why the accent is more Southern than AA's in the NE.

According to the article you had a few neighborhoods that were Black from the beginning to now. That would explain why the accent is more southern than the NE.

Central Harlem in NYC went from rural to Black, it wasn't ever a White neighborhood other parts of Harlem were. Some areas like Lincoln Center went from its original Black neighborhood to White. So LOL not all northern city neighborhoods went from White to Black. I think this is important to know because all the gentrifiers are trying to rewrite history with this claim, and people are too lazy to research, and accept fiction as fact.

"Bronzeville" has always been an African-American neighborhood. But although that community goes way, way back in Chicago's history there was certainly a different community there prior to the end of the Civil War, which is (for obvious reasons) when Chicago begins to see an influx of black folks.

Douglas

Really, no part of Chicago is unchanged from the City's beginnings. The great fire pretty much ensured that would be the case.

[Chi-town Native]

maybe a better description of the area (it straddles two "official" community areas):

Grand Boulevard

Until 1874 when the South Parks Commission lined with trees a thoroughfare they called Grand Boulevard (Now Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive), the area was a combination of prairie and thick woods. The development of this street, situated at the center of the community, made it a popular carriage route on which many of Chicago's wealthy built elegant mansions. The population of the Grand Boulevard community grew steadily throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century, attracting not only the wealthy, but middle- and working-class American-born whites of Irish, Scottish, and English origin, German Jews, and a few African Americans....

There had been a small African American community in Grand Boulevard since the 1890s, but by 1920 blacks, many of them southern migrants, constituted 32 percent of the area's 76,703 residents. By 1930 African Americans in Grand Boulevard were 94.6 percent of the total population of 87,005. Like other areas of rapid racial transition in Chicago, Grand Boulevard experienced resistance and violence, but the influx of African Americans continued, and by 1950 blacks encompassed 99 percent of the community's 114,557 residents. Grand Boulevard became the hub of “Bronzeville,” the name the Chicago Bee gave to Chicago's South Side African American community.

[BajanYankee]

Wiki says that the South Side of Chicago is 93% Black. Can that be accurate?

The South Side has a population of 752,496, of which over 93% are African American. Some census tracts in the area (3406 in Armour Square, 4904 in Roseland, 7106 in Auburn Gresham) are 99% black or African American. The South Side covers 60% of the city's land area, with a higher ratio of single-family homes and larger sections zoned for industry than the rest of the city.

South Side, Chicago - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In comparison, West Philly is 76% Black, Southwest Philly is 60%, South Philly is 25%, North Philly is 50%, the Northeast is 18% and Northwest Philadelphia is 50%.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by BajanYankee

Wiki says that the South Side of Chicago is 93% Black. Can that be accurate?

It depends on what you consider "south side", but if you consider it anything east of I-55 and south of the Loop (starting with Near South Side maybe), then I highly doubt it's 93%. Both the SW and SE sides of Chicago are pretty hispanic. Now I want to do some calculations on this..

[DAS]

Originally Posted by Chi-town Native

maybe a better description of the area (it straddles two "official" community areas):

Grand Boulevard

Until 1874 when the South Parks Commission lined with trees a thoroughfare they called Grand Boulevard (Now Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive), the area was a combination of prairie and thick woods. The development of this street, situated at the center of the community, made it a popular carriage route on which many of Chicago's wealthy built elegant mansions. The population of the Grand Boulevard community grew steadily throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century, attracting not only the wealthy, but middle- and working-class American-born whites of Irish, Scottish, and English origin, German Jews, and a few African Americans....

There had been a small African American community in Grand Boulevard since the 1890s, but by 1920 blacks, many of them southern migrants, constituted 32 percent of the area's 76,703 residents. By 1930 African Americans in Grand Boulevard were 94.6 percent of the total population of 87,005. Like other areas of rapid racial transition in Chicago, Grand Boulevard experienced resistance and violence, but the influx of African Americans continued, and by 1950 blacks encompassed 99 percent of the community's 114,557 residents. Grand Boulevard became the hub of “Bronzeville,” the name the Chicago Bee gave to Chicago's South Side African American community.

No matter how small it started you had a group of people there from the south starting in 1779 with the first resident. Most of those mansions weren't built until starting in the 1880's. Alot built in the 1890's which by that time there was a small group, it just grew. But the group remained unchanged. I'm pretty sure that small group was relegated to a block by themselves given the history of Chicago.

Do you have any other reasons that you would think would cause the more southern accent of Chicago's AA's compared to the Northeast besides closer family ties with the South resulting from more recent South to North migration in comparison to the NE?

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by marothisu

It depends on what you consider "south side", but if you consider it anything east of I-55 and south of the Loop (starting with Near South Side maybe), then I highly doubt it's 93%. Both the SW and SE sides of Chicago are pretty hispanic. Now I want to do some calculations on this..

Here are statistics. This is taking the south side to mean anything from Near South Side on south, staying East of I90/94 for the junction north of I-55, and I-55 all the way down south..west and east

Black: 55.08%
Hispanic: 26.45%
White: 14.18%
Asian: 3.66%
Other: 1.26%

However, I do believe that a high percentage of the blacks living on the south side live in census tracts where the black population is at least 90% and a fair number of the hispanic population lives in high hispanic population areas. There are only a few areas of non segregation on the south side - mainly Bridgeport, parts of McKinley Park, Ashburn, Hyde Park, parts of Douglas now, and some areas around Midway airport.

[BajanYankee]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Here are statistics. This is taking the south side to mean anything from Near South Side on south, staying East of I90/94 for the junction north of I-55, and I-55 all the way down south..west and east

Black: 55.08%
Hispanic: 26.45%
White: 14.18%
Asian: 3.66%
Other: 1.26%

However, I do believe that a high percentage of the blacks living on the south side live in census tracts where the black population is at least 90% and a fair number of the hispanic population lives in high hispanic population areas. There are only a few areas of non segregation on the south side - mainly Bridgeport, parts of McKinley Park, Ashburn, Hyde Park, parts of Douglas now, and some areas around Midway airport.

That makes a lot more sense. If it's true that the South Side covers 60% of the city's land area, then there'd be no way it could have only 800,000 people or so.

What percentage of Chicago's blacks live on the South Side?