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That is in the Northeast, South Florida, and Midwest. In the South from Maryland down to Georgia out to Texas it is a Mixture of Mexicans and Central Americans such as El Salvadorians/Hondurans that dominates the Latin Population in the DC/Maryland/Virginia area........
That's a very recent phenomenon though. Puerto Ricans have been in the US Northeast since the turn of the last century, while the Central Americans and Mexicans didn't really come into MD/VA/DC or the South until the 1980s, and not in real large numbers until the 1990s.
Black culture has always remained kind of Southern, but until recently the South was not such a nice place for black people, and until recently the South had a very backward economy. Since both of those things are now changing, it's only natural that many would want to return to their cultural homeland (of sorts).
White gentrification has also caused some blacks to leave northern cities for financial reasons.
It's sort of weird what's going on in D.C. and Atlanta: both of these cities are getting whiter due to gentrification, even as the black population of the metro areas keeps increasing.
Location: The Greatest city on Earth: City of Atlanta Proper
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Originally Posted by j_cat
Black culture has always remained kind of Southern, but until recently the South was not such a nice place for black people, and until recently the South had a very backward economy. Since both of those things are now changing, it's only natural that many would want to return to their cultural homeland (of sorts).
White gentrification has also caused some blacks to leave northern cities for financial reasons.
It's sort of weird what's going on in D.C. and Atlanta: both of these cities are getting whiter due to gentrification, even as the black population of the metro areas keeps increasing.
Not really.
Both cities were in the weird postion in the late 20th century of having dropped below their peak population not because of deindustrialization like the rust belt but entirely because of white flight. Given the small city limits of both places, and urban living becoming popular again, their white populations had no where to go but up.
With that said, I think the growth of white populations in both cities is way overplayed in it's significance. The demographics of those whites who have returned are decidedly young and liberal. Without a political powerbase to work from due to their recent migration, the direction of both inner cities leadership wise won't be changing any time soon.
I know you guys have been debating about Baltimore, but here's story from today's Washington Post that speaks on the topic as it related to DC, and it makes a distinction between how Blacks view D.C. versus other races....
"...Greg Carr...chairman of Afro-American Studies at Howard University, said he recognizes the fading signs of the Old South in this region. "For black folks, this is still very much a Southern city," Carr said. "D.C. has very little in common with a stereotypical Northern city." ...Carr cited the presence of an entrenched black elite in Washington as a characteristic of Southern cities, along the lines of Atlanta and Charlotte. Its still-living history of sharply segregated neighborhoods is another sign, as well as the paucity of white ethnic neighborhoods, such as Italian or Irish sections of Baltimore, New York and Boston..."Even the architecture is more Southern," Carr said. "You have no concrete canyons in Washington."...Even as black residents from other states and countries move to Washington in greater numbers, the cultural feeling of African American communities remains Southern, he said...."Anacostia, that's the South over there," Carr said. "Folks with their shirts off washing their cars, waving at you as you pass by. That's Southern." Full Story: D.C. area and Dixie drifting farther and farther apart
I saw several posts about the growing black population in Nashville due to the presence of many universities.
Why aren't African-Americans attracted to Knoxville, TN?
The University of Tennessee (UT) also happens to be an excellent university. I think it will be wonderful if Knoxville become more diverse. It is still an ideal place to raise a family despite the fact that America is still somewhat in a recession.
I wonder if African-Americans are turned off by small black population in Knoxville with its location by the mountains. I know it can't have anything to do with racism because many of my black friends enjoy living here and attending UT. That's why I encourage people to visit and check out Knoxville before assuming anything.
It's a cultural/ethnic thing. First of all, Latins in the East tend to be Puerto Rican or Dominican or Cuban or Panamanian, and all of those groups have strong African heritage. Also, many Latino groups, especially Puerto Ricans, as they become Americanized, become African Americanized as well. In California and other Western states, Latinos tend to be of Mexican origin, and there is no large black population or strong Afro-Mexican heritage to draw these groups together.
In many ways, Spanish-speaking Puerto Ricans or other Caribbean Latinos have more in common (race) with African Americans than they do Mexicans (language).
Perhaps in Florida and a handful of major Northeastern Cities. NC it's all Mexican, and Central America. Here in the Triangle, that demographic is heavily working-class, pretty entreprenurial. The very small number of Puerto Ricans, and SOUTH Americans you find here are very, very academic: docs, professors, writers, engineers, a fair number of artists. I have a friend here from Colombia, and went to a housewarming get-together over there, and it was pretty solidly white collar, or postdocs. A mix of black, white and Asian folks in attendance as well, and it was pretty much the same demographic.
Hmm, I suppose you didn't get the part about that figure being a percentage, not a number. Sure DC, Raleigh, and Nashville saw a larger increase in the number of it's African-American residents that have college degrees percentage wise than Atlanta. However when you consider that Atlanta gained more Black residents than all three combined, times two, then of course our percentages for that metric will be lower. We still however in that same time period increased the percentage by three percentage points.
So, while the percentage is higher for those cities, Atlanta still has the largest numerical amount of African-Americans with college degrees due to the size of our population. One by one:
In DC, about 29% of African-Americans have a college degree. That translates in to 297,062 people.
In Nashville, about 26% of African-Americans have a college degree. That translates in to 49,887 people.
In Raleigh, about 26% of African-Americans have a college degree. That translates in to 70,182 people.
And for good measure, in San Jose, about 29% of African-Americans have a college degree. That translates in to 16,349 people <---that is not a mistake.
Contrast that with Atlanta, where 24.6% of African-American residents have a college degree. That translates into 414,460 people.
So in order to surpass the number of African-Americans with a college degree in Atlanta you would need to added up all of the African-Americans with a degree in DC, San Jose, Raleigh, and Nashville...only then would you pass Atlanta by a measly 20,000 people.
Hell, there are alone more African-Americans in Atlanta with a college degree than there are black people at all education levels in Nashville (black population 197,876), Raleigh (black population 269,932) and San Jose (black population 45,126...again, not a mistake).
In other words, Atlanta not only has the quantity but the quality as well to back up it's claim as the current undisputed true capital of Black America my friend.
In other news, Atlanta gained approximately half a million new African-American residents in 9 years. And that's after most of the people who migrated here from New Orleans after Katrina (close to 100,000 people) went back home. Truly amazing.
Edit:
PS, I'm not hating on DC, Raleigh, Nashville, or San Jose. African-Americans need to keep this type of growth in education levels up in ALL cities. Congrats to those four for doing so.
True enough, and I especially agree with your last point.
But - it's a mistake to underplay the per-capita numbers as well. The NC Triangle has a massive per-capita concentration of PhD's, and it cuts across ethnic and racial lines to some degree. The raw number of Ph.Ds here is lower than in several other US metros, but the per-capita concentration is highest in the US, and I believe the highest in the world. The effect of that - upon local culture and business climate - is therefore massive, and the general effects of that cerebral culture as the prevailing vibe (this is NOT a party or fashion or hip-hop-centric metro area, and if you don't fit into basically a brainiac niche, you'd find this area dull as dishwater) of the area has an outsized effect upon how the area succeeds, at a perception level, elsewhere. In other words, that's who it is going to draw - black, white, or other.
Thus, I think Atlanta is a generalized black mecca, and it rules when it comes to the numbers. Nonetheless, large numbers of black folks who are angling to succeed in any number of specialized niche areas that - even at per-capita levels - are areas that other metros are more famous for (tech in Silicon Valley, Austin, Seattle, Boston, NoVA, NC Triangle - as the example I'm most familiar with) will gravitate to those areas. I know many black tech/r&d professionals, and frankly Atlanta was not on their radar, in academics or career choices.
I think this is Dallas and Houston's decade for attracting the most blacks. I just believe it. Atlanta has a huge bubble, but I hope my people will get it together one day...........
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