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Detroit isn't coming back to ANYwhere near what it was pre-1970. Its cold, its old, there's remote locale hiring, there's too much single industry concentration. Despite is cheap land costs, none of the big tech firms or big service/back office opportunities have moved there the last ten years. They've preferred Philly, Pittsburg, Indy, M/SP and Columbus in terms of Midwest locales. In particular, Midwest/Rust Belt contemporaries Pittsburgh, Philly, and M/SP have cleaned up better/faster than Detroit. Detroit is the New Orleans of the north, its made babystep strides but there is just too much competition given its location to ever return to its glorious past.
There is some truth to that....but really, few people expected Detroit to even slow its rate of decent, let alone halt it and actually be near showing growth in a few year (City proper). I can recall reading all the comments, not to long ago, on this and other forums, as well as hearing in conversations, how Detroit was a lost cause. Now that same crowd, in light of changes in the last decade, are not saying that the area is doomed, as they were before, but that it will not be what it used to be. Well, no, it used to be the 4th largest city in America. No one is expecting Detroit to be what it used to be, but rather, to be much better than it was at its low point, which was bankruptcy.
Detroit still has a terrible image problem. People can't get that image out of their heads. The reality of Detroit, currently, is much better than its image, although it has major blight, there are many promising signs. Soon, the visitor facing part of Detroit, downtown, will have improved so much that it will begin to change the national image of the city. People visiting Detroit don't care about the neighborhoods. There is and has never been an attraction to black neighborhoods by outsiders to any city, unless they are black and black tourist and visitors don't set the national tone for a cities reputation. When whites start visiting, unlike in the previous 30 years, they will be seeing a vibrant central district....dominated by white faces. That is what sells and that is what will change the image of the city and slowly bring about the investments that you correctly note are lacking relative to other cities.
Detroit is the center of the Great Lakes Megalopolis. Chicago, Toronto, Cleveland, Buffalo, Columbus, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Hamilton, Grand Rapids, Toledo, Dayton are all within less than a 5 hours drive of Detroit. It has great history, great bones, and is in one of the top 10 most beautiful states in the country, with plenty of recreation, parks and beaches available for a day trip.
People just follow trends. People will continue to move to places because that is where other people are moving, despite the fact that there are other "better" places to live, in many respect. In other words, where people are moving might not be the best places to live, because trends lag reality.
Raleigh was actually the first sizable Southern city to elect a Black mayor in the 70's, shortly before Atlanta did. Charlotte currently has a Black female mayor, its first, and has had three Black mayors before her. And let's not talk about other elected offices because Charlotte in particular has had plenty Black folks to occupy them, including the current police and fire chiefs, sheriff, and chairman of the county commissioners.
Good information and I stand corrected on Charlotte. Good to hear that. I was ignorant of the facts and thought Charlotte, given its place in Civil Rights History (sit-ins) should have a higher destination profile.
But again to my point about AA cultural centers, I've had family reside in Charlotte. I also had an opportunity to move there myself in the 1990s but inquiries about culture/nightlife in the metro area didn't thrill me relative to Atlanta or even Nashville. In visiting about 6 years ago, I still didn't get the sense of it being an AA "mecca" as I did Atlanta or D.C. or even New Orleans.
For me, Tennessee, I think has more appeal given its history of music (Jazz and Stax Records in Memphis), two very prominent HBCUs and more economic diversity in Nashville. Charlotte is economically concentrated in Financial services of TWO big banks - BofA and Wells Fargo. That's not a good thing. They don't seem to be able to attract national/global brands as others have recently. The same with Raleigh which lost out to Austin for its new billion dollar campus this year. The one good thing it has achieved this decade is American Airlines has made Charlotte a hub city; that will help market the city.
Granted NC has more HBCUs but unless you are from the Carolinas, I doubt many know but a few, mainly NC A&T. Texas has two prominent HBCUs in Texas Southern and Prairie View A&M and a fast rising one in Paul Quinn in Dallas due to outstanding new leadership. Again for a State out west, that's significant. By the way, there is an AA museum/hall on the State Fair Grounds in Dallas.
But again to my point about AA cultural centers, I've had family reside in Charlotte. I also had an opportunity to move there myself in the 1990s but inquiries about culture/nightlife in the metro area didn't thrill me relative to Atlanta or even Nashville. In visiting about 6 years ago, I still didn't get the sense of it being an AA "mecca" as I did Atlanta or D.C. or even New Orleans.
No Charlotte isn't a mecca like those cities are neither are the Texas cities for that matter, but it's a step under those cities IMO (as is Raleigh/the Triangle). But 1990s Charlotte is DRASTICALLY different than 2010's Charlotte. And I believe you're thinking about Greensboro with the sit-ins.
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For me, Tennessee, I think has more appeal given its history of music (Jazz and Stax Records in Memphis), two very prominent HBCUs and more economic diversity in Nashville. Charlotte is economically concentrated in Financial services of TWO big banks - BofA and Wells Fargo. That's not a good thing. They don't seem to be able to attract national/global brands as others have recently. The same with Raleigh which lost out to Austin for its new billion dollar campus this year. The one good thing it has achieved this decade is American Airlines has made Charlotte a hub city; that will help market the city.
I don't think you're aware of what's been happening in Charlotte as far as companies moving there. Sure BOA and Wells Fargo are still the big banks in town, but a third is coming with the BB&T/SunTrust merger and the pending HQ move to Charlotte. In the past couple of years, Charlotte has landed the corporate HQs/major operations of several companies like Honeywell (a F100 company), Sealed Air, Met Life, etc. and homegrown companies like Lending Tree and AvidXchange have recently announced major expansions. The Triangle hasn't landed quite as many headquarters lately, but it has an extremely solid and growing economic base in place with the universities/RTP and the hospitals. Advanced Auto Parts is in the process of moving its corporate HQ to Raleigh though.
When you look at where Black people are actually moving, I'm not sure how you can say that TN has more appeal than NC. That's a bit puzzling. Memphis has the history and culture but Black folks want to go where there are good job opportunities, there is a sufficient Black cultural infrastructure, and the cost of living is reasonable. Memphis lacks a robust economy and has way too much civic/social dysfunction to be appealing to any group at the moment. Nashville's economy is booming for sure but it has trouble attracting Black folks as its brand doesn't particularly appeal to Blacks. Look at any "Best places for Blacks" list and I guarantee you Charlotte and Raleigh/Durham rank well ahead of TN cities and right along with, or even slightly above, Houston and Dallas.
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Granted NC has more HBCUs but unless you are from the Carolinas, I doubt many know but a few, mainly NC A&T. Texas has two prominent HBCUs in Texas Southern and Prairie View A&M and a fast rising one in Paul Quinn in Dallas due to outstanding new leadership. Again for a State out west, that's significant. By the way, there is an AA museum/hall on the State Fair Grounds in Dallas.
Actually NC's HBCUs are fairly well-known along the East Coast (Southeast/mid-Atlantic), especially with Charlotte being the headquarters of the CIAA and having been the host for its burgeoning basketball tournament for the past several years.
At the end of the day, NC isn't lacking in any way whatsoever when it comes to all things Black compared to TX. I'll just chalk it up to you not knowing as much about NC.
•Every large southern city has grown its black population this decade besides Tulsa, Birmingham, Miami, and Norfolk. Every major Florida city is gaining blacks besides Miami, which is losing blacks at the third highest rate. Anybody know why?
•Every large California city is losing blacks, but its astounding how many blacks are fleeing the Bay Area in general. Not that we don't know why...
•also interesting to see the numbers on the longstanding trend now, of California blacks repopulating the interior West. Salt Lake and Vegas are leading everyone in black growth, fueled by Californian transplants (though I know a guy from Charlotte who moved to SLC and I know a guy from Nova who went to Vegas with his Philly girlfriend). Both Phoenix and Denver are in the Top 17 as well, and when you really look at it, the only major Western cities losing black population are all in California (or Tucson). Very interesting...
•Florida cities, Texas cities, and the Charlotte/Raleigh NC duo account for a sizable chunk of black migrants, to no surprise...
•why are blacks going to OKC but leaving Tulsa? Why is Providence losing so many blacks (leading the nation)?
•I never cease to be amazed at the number of blacks fleeing NY and Chicago. The entire state of New York is losing blacks in rapid number...
•there's a trend of virtually all major Rust Belt cities declining in their black populations...
I think that there's a lot of context that needs to be paired with the data. For example, It should be a pretty safe assumption that fast growing cities would be growing in all of their demographic categories by race or any other slice of society that one might choose.
The anomalies should jump out at you, and those should be easy to find. To that end, growing black populations in places with significant black populations should not be surprising (Charlotte, Raleigh), but a rapidly declining population of any demographic cohort, in a fast growing city, is cause for further study (Miami). For Miami, I think it's rapid gentrification of many different neighborhoods within the city itself that has disproportionately accelerated the cost of housing without places within the actual city for people to move to when displaced by the gentrification. While I don't have data on it, I'd bet my life that that's what's happening there. I'd also add that there's a large black immigrant community in Miami that's particularly impacted by gentrification.
Interesting, however, because percentages are going up or down does not correlated with whether the AA population is going up or down overall. I might be wrong, but I still believe that immigration has kept many cities from suffering population declines. If the city of Detroit had Latino and African/Caribbean immigrants on the scale of many cities, Detroit would still have about 1 million residents.
Whites essentially run this country economically (they are the majority and have historically allocated resources and opportunity to their favor via discrimination). Thus, they are like the canary in the coal mine. If whites are moving to an area.....that is a "sign" concerning positive economic direction. If whites are moving out and or declining, that is a sign concerning negative economic direction and opportunity. An area becoming a "good area" or "the place to be" means the area does not have many blacks and or the black population is declining in absolute and or relative metrics, which point to continued issues of race and class. This is why, to me, I am more concerned about the black population in the city of Grand Rapids declining than I am impressed with the black suburban population growth in that area. The "city" is obviously becoming the "place to be" and that being so......why is it not the place to be for blacks anymore?
You know Boston.....I don't. I can't argue the nuances of Boston with you. I just think that any place that is seeing their white and black population grow and flow in the same direction are probably the truly best areas to live in the country (assuming the growth direction and flow is positive). That is based upon native black and white population and not immigrants.
Bostonmasdmabe is to go to person for the Black experience in Boston. Boston black community is so under the radar because of it being mostly immigrant and separated by the main culture of the city. Even though NYC is becoming less African American you still have strong African American presence in the city in places like Harlem, Bed-stuy, South Bronx, Southeast Queens, etc and plus Afircan Americans are well-reprsented in the commercial parts of the city thanks to strong public transportation in Black neghiborhoods hence why identification has become a huge issue in Black NYC.
Bostonmasdmabe is to go to person for the Black experience in Boston. Boston black community is so under the radar because of it being mostly immigrant and separated by the main culture of the city. Even though NYC is becoming less African American you still have strong African American presence in the city in places like Harlem, Bed-stuy, South Bronx, Southeast Queens, etc and plus Afircan Americans are well-reprsented in the commercial parts of the city thanks to strong public transportation in Black neghiborhoods hence why identification has become a huge issue in Black NYC.
Is Boston’s black population mostly immigrant or is it just that immigrants make up a large portion of the population? I ask, because many say this about NYC, but census data shows otherwise.
the city of Boston has an institutionally racist mindset to majority/historically black areas like in Mattapan, Dorchester, Roxbury and Hyde Park. There is a declining share of Black Americans in those areas. Right now we see Black Americans heading to suburbs south of Boston, to places like Brockton, Randolph, Stoughton and Holbrook.
Brockton went from 12% to 40% Black/African in the past 27 years (1990-2017). Theres about 100k residents there.
Randolph went from 7% to 40% Black/African in the past 27 years (1990-2017).
Stoughton went from 3% to 15% Black/African in the past 27 years. (1990-2017)
Holbrook went from 2% to 10% Black/African in the past 27 years. (1990-2017)
These four towns (Among others) are becoming a safe haven, an area for representation and a cultural assimilation point for Greater Boston. I am excited for this area to grow in AA/Black Americans the same way the Malden/Quincy/Metro West is rapidly increasing in Asian American population/concentrations. I think in about 20 years, Brockton will serve as a city with strong AA routes, that self thrives and works on highlighting the Greater Boston diversity.
Detroit isn't coming back to ANYwhere near what it was pre-1970. Its cold, its old, there's remote locale hiring, there's too much single industry concentration. Despite is cheap land costs, none of the big tech firms or big service/back office opportunities have moved there the last ten years. They've preferred Philly, Pittsburg, Indy, M/SP and Columbus in terms of Midwest locales. In particular, Midwest/Rust Belt contemporaries Pittsburgh, Philly, and M/SP have cleaned up better/faster than Detroit. Detroit is the New Orleans of the north, its made babystep strides but there is just too much competition given its location to ever return to its glorious past.
Well your right about one thing, Detroit isn't coming back... Detroit ALREADY has the 2nd largest economy, 2nd largest population, and the 3rd most amount of fortune 500 companies in the mid west. And also a large number of wealthy people in the metro area and state. So your right, it isn't "coming back", it's just moving forward past it's recent hardships and rapidly finding ways to improve.
Since the economic crash and the bankruptcy, Detroit has improved in nearly every category in just a few short years. There has been plenty of businesses moving downtown and development overall is exploding, tons of investments being made, the real estate market is HOT, and the jobs are becoming more and more diversified, the population of the metro area is also growing while the job market has boomed, which nobody expected to happen in just a few short years. Btw, most people I know that make good money here in Detroit don't even work for the auto industry. Including myself.
Black Americans aren't really leaving Boston and if hey are it's tiny numbers. Boston gained 13k American blacks since 1990. It's the share of immigrants that is growing. About 35% of Boston/MA blacks are immigrants but if day 55_
-60% of blacks are immigrants or immigrant descended. The blck percentages in Hyde Park are up and in Dorchester. Mattapan has more Dominicans moving in and Roxbury as more whites moving in.
Brockton is 41% Black and Randolph is 44% as of 2017 (single year estimates). Milton is 14% stoughton is 15%, Worcester is 13%, Cambridge is 10%, Bridgewater is 8% Everett is 19%, Malden is 15%. Lynn is 11%. Chelsea is 7% as is Framingham.
It's important to note these aren't like small little boroughs and towns most of these places listed are large towns or sizable cites ranging from 25k to 185k people. There are other diverse towns out there as well but many of them don't have large black populations.
As of 2017, 8.5% of greater boston is black (excluding NH) and 68% is white. 10.5% OF greater Boston kids are black and 55% are white. When you factor in immigrants and there descendent's I'd say only 3-4% of Boston area is American black and 11% of the city. That's a low black American population, but somewhat large in number. Also cape Verdeans aren't just any other immigrant group, they've been in New England since the early 1800s so just as long as most blacknpeople. They are more integrated into the cultural fabric (due to familial ties and a history in the area) than most immigrant. My half brother s father is cape Verdean. My cousin is 1/2 cape Verdean. They intermarry ALOT with black Americans.
Boston School superintendent, police chief and city council are president are black. Boston blacks just have no involvement in city money-last year minorities got less than 1% of all city contracts in the city. 30 of 5122. Only 27 went to women. 99% of all city contracts went to white men.
There are black festivals, venues and 3 hip hop stations and an RNB station. The city is "blacker" than nyc percentage wise. But the money in the city and all things traditionally "boston" don't involve black people at all.
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Population migration...
