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Raleigh-Durham is - per-capta - the whitest of those MSAs. The African-American population however spits neatly into 2 or 3 groups:
Durham's African-American middle class, which has a very, very extensive history there.
LOTS of transplants - African-American, African, Asian, European expats - who are drawn in because of RTP, UNC, Duke, NCSU. Those folks are very high-achieving, heavily in government or academia, much moreso than business.
That noted, there are some big pockets of relative blight in east Durham as well.
The other thing that might have made RDU score so high - affordability relative to the NE or West Coast, and schools. Durham's schools are not so highly regarded; Raleigh/Wake County schools have historically been extremely well-regarded and very diverse throughout the county, though political turmoil in the school board there may have an adverse effect on that. Chapel Hill/Carrboro has one of the top rated public school districts on the East Coast - I know people who have moved from several states away, into a town with a median home price twice the state average, just go to get their kids into the schools here. Orange County schools are only slightly less impressive. Unemployment rates are well below the state average. And lastly - it's politically a very left-of-center area - massively moreso than any other city in the Carolinas (save for Asheville), very diverse and multi ethnic.
The influx here is definitely African-Americans who are middle-class or better, and are very integrated through the area - save for parts of Durham, there are very few (by Southern standards) geographical African-American communities of the traditional kind. That can offer a certain kind of appeal.
As a native of Raleigh, I think this is a very well written post. Especially the latter paragraph on the African-American families being intergrated throughout. It is very rare in an urban area to be so intergrated. Which now in my mid-twenties before married and starting a family I want to move away to a bigger city with more to do. I'm finding it hard to find a big city area in the south and West like Raleigh-Durham.
It looks like crap to me. Black kids are best raised in placeswhere there are not a lot of other black kids. All ten of those cities are thus disqualified.
Better list:
1. Boise, ID
2. Fargo, ND
3. Butte, MT
4. Huntington, WV
5. Walla Walla, WA
6. Missoula, MT
7. Dubuque, Iowa
8. Tigard, OR
9. Anchorage, AK
10. Vermillion, SD
To be clear, this poster is stating that black kids are not best raised in black communities. Another way of rephrasing it is that this poster believes that black kids should be raised by and within largely white communities (going by his suggested cities) because their own communities are failing their kids.
Both black people and white people should have big issues with this posters opinion.
Black people should be offended that this poster doesn't believe that they have it within themselves, as a culture, to raise their kids correctly.
White people should be insulted that this poster believes that their communities should be held responsible for being the primary influence in raising black children and fixing the poster's perceived problems in the way black communities raise their kids.
No amount of 'strategic moving' is a legitimate or ethical strategy if it is toward the end of foisting children into a community that provides an environment that your communities cannot or will not provide. Every family and, by extension, culture needs to be directly responsible for their kids.
Yeah, you can move where you wish. No one is stopping you or commenting on a families ability to do so. Its a free country. But the ethical and logical move isn't to abandon the places where your culture has its roots if you aren't satisfied, but to instead to help fix what you believe to be wrong in the community. It's called taking responsibility. All "best places" are built by taking responsibility, not running away from it. If a person can not take responsibility for their own cultural environment that their kids are raised in, then why is it ethical that they move their kids to live where other communities exist? Move for a job. Move for family. Move for scenery. But if you are moving to run away from the communities that your culture has built, then that is unethical. Building a "best community" is hard work for any culture. All cultures should build their own best communities rather than abandon what they have created for what they perceive as being a better environment. That better environment takes work. If you can't work on your own communities, then why would the people in the "best place" environment welcome you there?
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Especially the latter paragraph on the African-American families being intergrated throughout. It is very rare in an urban area to be so intergrated. Which now in my mid-twenties before married and starting a family I want to move away to a bigger city with more to do. I'm finding it hard to find a big city area in the south and West like Raleigh-Durham.
