Affluent Blacks in Cleveland? (Shaker Heights, Solon: real estate, school, college)

[han23]

Hey!

Very interesting question. I've lived in Cleveland Heights most of my life, it's diverse but not what I think you're talking about. I'm biracial and my husband is white, from Cincinnati also (Harrison). I agree with everyone else about Solon, Woodmere, Orange, etc. In fact, my husband works at the Whole Foods in Woodmere and everytime I go out there I am taken back by the community. I always ask my husband about the culture out there because it's so "suburby" to me and I see so many well-to-do minorities. I love it, I just had no idea! The schools are awesome yes. I don't know what the day to day life is like in the way of culture but that's just me. I say come here at once! Cleveland is great in a lot of ways. You will find what you're looking for.

[lisa12230]

Originally Posted by han23

Hey!

Very interesting question. I've lived in Cleveland Heights most of my life, it's diverse but not what I think you're talking about. I'm biracial and my husband is white, from Cincinnati also (Harrison). I agree with everyone else about Solon, Woodmere, Orange, etc. In fact, my husband works at the Whole Foods in Woodmere and everytime I go out there I am taken back by the community. I always ask my husband about the culture out there because it's so "suburby" to me and I see so many well-to-do minorities. I love it, I just had no idea! The schools are awesome yes. I don't know what the day to day life is like in the way of culture but that's just me. I say come here at once! Cleveland is great in a lot of ways. You will find what you're looking for.

I have to agree with you...Im black and my husband is white.. we just moved here from Washington State/Idaho, and my husband is blown away about how nice and pollite the people are here and how diverse it is...I was born and raised here so that is normal for me...what wasn't normal was how they were over on the west coast...That was not good ....

[ECBeastor]

Woodmere is a city of about 800 people that is about 50% Black. That's not really a large population, lets not get carried away.

However, It is part of the Orange School District which the High School is about 30% Black and includes the very affluent areas of Pepper Pike, Hunting Valley, Orange Village and Moreland Hills which all have average household incomes of $100,000 or more and are all 90% white except Orange village which is 80% white. Woodmere has an average household income of $32,000 so I wouldn't consider it affluent. To me that's middle class range and possibly lower middle class. Bedford which is a much larger city at around 15,000 residents of which 18% are black has an average household income of $37,000 and nobody considers that an affluent city. I think since a lot of the shopping for the orange area is in Woodmere, many people think the affluent people are from woodmere when they are in more cases than not from orange village, moreland hills, Pepper Pike or Hunting Valley.

[Marty711]

Originally Posted by ECBeastor

Woodmere is a city of about 800 people that is about 50% Black. That's not really a large population, lets not get carried away.

However, It is part of the Orange School District which the High School is about 30% Black and includes the very affluent areas of Pepper Pike, Hunting Valley, Orange Village and Moreland Hills which all have average household incomes of $100,000 or more and are all 90% white except Orange village which is 80% white. Woodmere has an average household income of $32,000 so I wouldn't consider it affluent. To me that's middle class range and possibly lower middle class. Bedford which is a much larger city at around 15,000 residents of which 18% are black has an average household income of $37,000 and nobody considers that an affluent city. I think since a lot of the shopping for the orange area is in Woodmere, many people think the affluent people are from woodmere when they are in more cases than not from orange village, moreland hills, Pepper Pike or Hunting Valley.

Woodmere is 80% rentals and most of the households there are young single minorities. While Woodmere is 50 percent black, the village is 65 percent minority. 20 percent of it's residents are foreign born. That greatly skews Woodmere's numbers. There are very few families in Woodmere and even fewer single family homes. Woodmere is almost entirely retail and office with a few apartment complexes. It's residents aren't really affluent, but again, those numbers are dragged down by their demographics. Unlike Bedford which is primarily single family homes, you won't find that in Woodmere, which probably has the highest concentration of rentals in the area.

Orange Village has significant pockets of black population on the streets surrounding Woodmere. You will find that many of those streets are majority black. It's a relative small number, but that's where most of Orange's minority population is located.

Just to compare age demos, the median age in Orange is 45, in Bedford it's 44, while Woodmere's is only 33. That's one of the lowest median in the area, comparable to Cleveland, Lakewood and Cleveland Hts which hover in the mid to upper 30's.

[shakeababy]

Originally Posted by LewLew

I live in Shaker, and I find there are nasty people of all races, and highly professional folks of all races.

hahahahah

[shakeababy]

I realize that the language in this post may disturb some, but since the person who started the post is black herself/himself, I'll continue to use the same language, without holding any stereotypes against the people -- just reporting on what I notice in the area:

Shaker Hts. is home to "affluent" blacks (and ghetto blacks as well.) Many affluent blacks in their 50s, 60s+ who have seen a lot of changes in Cleveland call Shaker Hts. home.

Beachwood is gaining in popularity for affluent blacks, due to the good school system and lower property taxes. I notice that Twinsburg is attracting some nouveau-riche blacks as well. Solon has a healthy black population too.

[lisa12230]

Originally Posted by shakeababy

I realize that the language in this post may disturb some, but since the person who started the post is black herself/himself, I'll continue to use the same language, without holding any stereotypes against the people -- just reporting on what I notice in the area:

Shaker Hts. is home to "affluent" blacks (and ghetto blacks as well.) Many affluent blacks in their 50s, 60s+ who have seen a lot of changes in Cleveland call Shaker Hts. home.

Beachwood is gaining in popularity for affluent blacks, due to the good school system and lower property taxes. I notice that Twinsburg is attracting some nouveau-riche blacks as well. Solon has a healthy black population too.

I know we're everywhere, lololol..Even my husband says that and he's white,

[Rockmysawks]

Originally Posted by high mileage

Yeah I know you have the ghetto and affluent blacks everywhere but it seems the ghetto ones are definitely the majority in Cincinnati. There also seems to be a large embracement of the ghetto culture here. I don't know, maybe growing up in Connecticut has skewed my perception. I always get asked if I'm from New York and then when I tell them I'm from Connecticut, I get a response like "Oh, I didn't know black people lived in Connecticut." Really don't know where that comes from since CT is a lot more diverse than Ohio.
For starting a family, it's not all that important but I don't want my children constantly surrounded by the "ghetto culture" and then adopting the "too cool for school" attititude. Going through school, I've seen how the smart kids would get riduculed for getting good grades. Kids tend to be influenced more by their friends and environment than their parents.

CT is not "a lot more diverse" than Ohio actually. From the 2009 census CT is 84 percent white while Ohio is 84.7 percent white. The population of Ohio is almost 4 times that of CT, making Ohio numerically much more diverse and nearly statistically more diverse

[Clevelander17]

Shaker Heights, Beachwood, Orange, Pepper Pike, maybe Solon a bit...

[Larry Siegel]

Originally Posted by annuayim

What exactly is "ghetto" culture... I really hope you don't move to Cleveland. We don't need your misguided and frankly unwanted mindset. We already have enough of that here....

Gimme a break. Nobody knows the downside of impoverished black culture better than an educated and responsible black person.

Please leave your political correctness at home.

I don't think affluent blacks wanting to live in Cleveland need look much farther than Shaker or the better parts of Cleveland Heights. They're wonderful.