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Talking about racial diversity with some friends the other day and we were wondering at how rare it is to see any neighborhoods in big U.S. cities that have a substantial mix of black and white residents living together.
There are all sorts of city neighborhoods that are diverse with other ethinc mixes. But the black and white one seems the rarest. Now we can talk about the historical, economic, political reasons for that ad nauseum, but what I really want to know is what are the black/white neighborhoods in cities? And I means a substantial share of both blacks and whites, not just the the three wealthy black people who might live in wealthy predominatnely white areas like Park Ave in NYC or Beacon HIll in Boston, for example.
In New York, Ft. Greene
In Chicago, Hyde Park, Rogers Park
In DC, ?????
In Boston ???????? (Jamaica Plain?
In LA ????????
In Cleveland ???????? (Shaker Heights is a suburb, no?)
IN St. Louis ???????
In Atlanta????????
In Miami ????????
IN Philadelphia ???????
In Dallas????
IN Houston??????
Believe it or not, despite Cincinnatis reputation as being a conservative, and even accused of a being a racist city, Cincinnati does for a metro its size have some nice, middle class stable neighborhoods with a very even mix of black and white. These include:
Pleasant Ridge
North Avondale-Paddock Hills
College Hill/North College Hill
Northside (more appealing to hipster-artsy-bohemians than families)
Areas near downtown like the Gateway quarter of Over the Rhine and Prospect Hill feel integrated as the gentrification is very slow and patchy. Where revitalized streets/cool bars, clubs and restaurants sort of intermingle with "the hood"
Also, Springdale and nearby areas in the far north suburbs near I-75/I-275.
In the Chicago area: Places like Oak Park-Forest Park are integrated, although Forest Park is more "even" as its more affordable. This area is very much like Cleveland Hts in Cleveland metro.
Also, in addition to Hyde Park-Kenwood, Beverly-Morgan Park is an upper middle class area, although alittle more white in Beverly and a little more black in Morgan Park.
River Oaks is a shopping mall in the south suburbs that feels evenly mixed and integrated.
Also, Bolingbrook near Naperville is a middle class suburb that has a rather even mix of black, white, Asian, and hispanic. One of the few areas like it.
Again, I'm not saying that segregation doesn't exist in Chicago, but it's prevalent in all major northern cities due to not being forced to physically integrate.
I grew up in a neighborhood in Charlotte (Easthaven) with a mix of Black, White, with some Asian, Middle Eastern and Latino families. This was during the 1980s, and with our middle school in the neighborhood (I'm black, by the way), I had friends who were Korean, Iranian, White, a few other ethnicities. Since we grew up together, and it was a very quiet neighborhood, it wasn't really a big deal. At the time I was growing up, I think I took it for granted, as I knew there were many other middle-class, or upper-middle-class neighborhoods that were pretty mixed around the East, Southeast and South parts of the city - I had to grow up and move away and see some of the rest of the US to realize that distinctly wasn't true all over the US.
In Charlotte, out of EVERY ethnicity, it seems like segregation is far more tied to poverty - the poor neighborhoods would be all-white-and-poor, or all-black-and-poor, or all-latino-and-poor (which might have as much to do with education and exposure to the world as it does with socioeconomics), but that was far, far less true in middle-class settings.
I would note that Charlotte changed fast - from the 70s into the 80s. I can remember the early days of school desegregation in the 1970s, and bomb threats were routine in schools. Ten years later you could live in a neighborhood that looked like the United Nations - if you were of a certain economic class, or had a certain level of education - and no one gave a damn.
its hard to diversify and mix when someone is gooning you. lets ask somebody that understands diversity at its finest-- on the hood. lets ask the korean store owner on the hood how diversity is done.
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