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I want everybody to feel welcome in Pittsburgh regardless of their race. With that said, the relative lack of racial diversity in Pittsburgh has largely been due to circumstances beyond the city's control, and shouldn't necessarily be confused with intolerance. The United States reformed its immigration processes right around the same time that the economy in Pittsburgh began to deteriorate. If those who were already in Pittsburgh had to leave en masse, then what was there going to be here for any newcomers? The collapse of the steel industry was a gale headwind against any demographic progress. It basically delayed the racial diversification of Pittsburgh by about 20 to 25 years.
Are there prejudiced people in Pittsburgh? Yes. But I've witnessed plenty of racial prejudice in other parts of the country as well, so claiming that a metropolitan area with over 2,000,000 people is "racist" kind of bugs me. And oftentimes the accusation comes from black people who are just as prejudiced against white people as they claim white Pittsburghers are against them. I think people shouldn't care about race so much, regardless of whether they're black or white or some other color. Just be a good neighbor, regardless of whether or not you arrived in the neighborhood first. The minimum threshold for that is minding your own business, but you also have the option to go above and beyond that.
I made a map of hidden majority black areas... It focuses mainly on the stretch from the East Hills to Wilkinsburg to Penn Hills, but I also recognized Broadcrest Drive in Lincoln and a decent hidden lower middle class to working class section of Garfield... https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid...21389,0.052314
There are also lower middle class to upper middle class African Americans sprinkled across the nicer Woodland Hills communities such as: Edgewood, parts of Swissvale, Churchill, Forest Hills, North Braddock Heights, Braddock Hills and Turtle Creek
In the West End there's a decent population of middle class blacks in Windgap and Chartiers City...
In the East End there's Friendship, Highland Park, Staton Heights and Point Breeze North that all have large amounts of middle class blacks...
On the Northside there's a notable amount of lower middle class blacks in the Brighton Heights/Perry North area in the War Streets
As others said Lower Manchester, Upper Hill and Crawford Square are the City's closest things to trendy majority black areas, but Monroeville's Garden City and the areas on the map above are where you can find highest amount of middle class blacks per capita.
Most of Upper Lincoln, Hollywood Place in California-Kirkbride, Crestas Terrace in North Versailles, and southwestern Penn Hills were once middle class black areas, but their all in state of decline now.
Hmm, when I saw the thread title I thought this diversity article would be about the population increase among Asian-Americans, the brain-gain of skilled workers from south and east Asia, the spike in international students from Brazil and the Middle East, the diversification of our neighborhoods, the growing interest in start-up cultural and ethnic programs (including some led by and active among *gasp* straight white men), the men doing graduate work at a traditionally women`s university, to name a few examples. But, no, still looking at diversity as a bipolar, zero-sum racial issue.
Quote:
“Pittsburgh is a place where a lot of people aren’t talking about race,” [CMU grad Evan Frazier] said. “There aren't a lot of platforms where people feel safe talking about race in a way that has a long, meaningful engagement. It will be a hot topic for a minute, but then it goes back to normal life in Pittsburgh.”
No, I think Pittsburgh is a place starting to grow up and looking at race as something more than black and white.
I want everybody to feel welcome in Pittsburgh regardless of their race. With that said, the relative lack of racial diversity in Pittsburgh has largely been due to circumstances beyond the city's control, and shouldn't necessarily be confused with intolerance. The United States reformed its immigration processes right around the same time that the economy in Pittsburgh began to deteriorate. If those who were already in Pittsburgh had to leave en masse, then what was there going to be here for any newcomers? The collapse of the steel industry was a gale headwind against any demographic progress. It basically delayed the racial diversification of Pittsburgh by about 20 to 25 years.
Are there prejudiced people in Pittsburgh? Yes. But I've witnessed plenty of racial prejudice in other parts of the country as well, so claiming that a metropolitan area with over 2,000,000 people is "racist" kind of bugs me. And oftentimes the accusation comes from black people who are just as prejudiced against white people as they claim white Pittsburghers are against them. I think people shouldn't care about race so much, regardless of whether they're black or white or some other color. Just be a good neighbor, regardless of whether or not you arrived in the neighborhood first. The minimum threshold for that is minding your own business, but you also have the option to go above and beyond that.
Could not agree more. Just keep your grass cut, you jagoff, and I don't care what you look like n'at.
Interesting stuff, UK - but what's your definition of "middle class"? Do you mean a certain income band or cultural norms (like church attendance, children born in wedlock, aspirations to university education)? Or, to put it another way, when you say "middle class", do you mean what Americans usually mean (income alone) or what Europeans mean (synonymous with "bourgeois")?
Eschaton, thanks for the in depth analysis of why Pittsburgh doesn't have any black middle class neighborhoods. It's pretty interesting to look back at. However, my point is that I fail to see what the lack of a black middle class neighborhood is important in today's Pittsburgh. Maybe I'm making too much of an effort to be racially blind, and am blinding myself to some realities, but I don't see the importance of it. I've lived in Pittsburgh for 7 years and have been in a serious interracial relationship for 6 of those years. I honestly don't have a single negative anecdote about race at all during my time here (and very few positive anecdotes as well, Pittsburgh has lived up to its live and let live reputation). So looking at this through my personal experience, I don't see why it is so important.
Don't get me wrong, I can understand why it's important to have neighborhoods where all races are accepted. And if we're just talking about something like Shaker Heights where a mere 30% qualifies as a black middle class neighborhood, then that's a lot more understandable. I can fully sympathize with families that don't want to be the 1 or 2% minority in their neighborhood or school district. So maybe I'm taking the term "black middle class neighborhood" too literally, and the problem isn't people hoping for the inverse of Scott Township, but just a Shaker Heights equivalent?
I think there is a difference between being middle class and "building" a middle class. Undoubtedly there are middle class blacks in quite a few places in Pittsburgh. But if an area becomes a majority black because the most or all of the whites of left I believe that produces a far different result than what Eschaton is discussing: middle to upper income blacks moving into an area create a middle class neighborhood and if it integrates so be it. Or if it doesn't integrate, so be it, it is still a desirable neighborhood. There are entire country club communities around Atlanta and upscale communities south of Bowie, MD that HAPPEN to be a majority black but whites live there too, because, well why wouldn't they?
The reason why many majority black communities are poor is because they were simply much larger when they were white neighborhoods. Without white flight, you have more people paying property taxes and a larger threshold to support businesses. But as we have seen in so many white flight neighborhoods, the black middle class moves in, whites move out in droves but on the way out panic sell (or Section 8 rent) to lower income blacks who then even cause black flight. The businesses close down and the schools get shot to heck & back. So the "black flight" middle class are the ones you see as overwhelming minorities in upper income white neighborhoods.
But imagine if you a middle class minority but single. It would be nice to think that Pittsburgh is benevolent and racially blind so you could just walk up and approach any white female or any white male would walk over and chat you up without anyone batting an eye. However, from my observation Pittsburgh doesn't have any particular preponderance toward interracial relationships which would have to be an essential social climate for a metro area as "white" as Pittsburgh. I wouldn't doubt that quite a few middle class blacks are open to interracial relationships. At least nationally, blacks are almost twice as likely than whites to marry interracially and while black females rates of intermarriage are about the same as that for whites (9%), 24% of black males who marry do so interracially.
So your notion of a post-racial society may not have trickled down to Pittsburgh. Do you want to undertake a political and social crusade just to go out on dates? So if minority singles in Pittsburgh are young, healthy, attractive, have disposable income but don't get to enjoy it with the opposite sex, then they are going to New York, DC, or Atlanta where either race isn't going to be an issue or at least there are other middle class counterparts of the same ethnicity which dramatically increase the size of their dating pool. So think of it as the lack of a black middle class enclave is not just a social discomfort, it hurts the local economy because that is just that many fewer people spending money at restaurants, clothing stores, and on HOUSES!
So your notion of a post-racial society may not have trickled down to Pittsburgh. Do you want to undertake a political and social crusade just to go out on dates? So if minority singles in Pittsburgh are young, healthy, attractive, have disposable income but don't get to enjoy it with the opposite sex, then they are going to New York, DC, or Atlanta where either race isn't going to be an issue or at least there are other middle class counterparts of the same ethnicity which dramatically increase the size of their dating pool. So think of it as the lack of a black middle class enclave is not just a social discomfort, it hurts the local economy because that is just that many fewer people spending money at restaurants, clothing stores, and on HOUSES!
The entire point of me bringing up that I'm in an interracial relationship was to point out that we've had literally zero issues caused by it in 6 years here. It doesn't feel like a political or social crusade to me, it just feels like I've met a nice match for myself and we go on about our business without anybody saying anything. That's how it should feel. If it didn't feel that way, I could understand the desire to move. I'll also clarify that I'm a white male in the relationship, so perhaps the dynamic is different since people don't think I'm "stealing the white women" or whatever, but I doubt that it's much different with the genders and races flipped.
If a particular black person prefers to date people only of their own race, I could see how the lack of a black middle class neighborhood would be a problem for them. However I don't think someone's dating preference is an important problem for the metro to be concerned about. I don't find it necessarily racist, but I do find it narrow-minded.'
Also, you explained the difference between black neighborhoods "happening" and "being built" pretty well. That's a good way to look at it. Of course neighborhoods that experienced white flight are downtrodden today. Any area that loses population that drastically would be hurting from it regardless of race.
...I'm a white male in the relationship, so perhaps the dynamic is different since people don't think I'm "stealing the white women" or whatever, but I doubt that it's much different with the genders and races flipped.
From my experience it's no different. I remember dancing with some black girls at a high school dance and getting accosted by two black guys at my locker the following Monday morning. One of them actually said, "Stay away from our girls." They weren't dating any of those girls; they just could stand the sight of a white guy dancing with black girls. Less than a year later they were both wearing white girls on their elbows.
Maybe men in general have a tendency toward "racial protectionism," for lack of a better term. I hear Asian guys complain about Asian girls dating white guys, and I hear white guys complaining about white girls dating black guys. And as I illustrated above, some black guys seem to want white guys to stay away from black girls. I don't necessarily believe it to be a baseless concern, considering sex is so often used as a weapon, and it is sometimes portrayed as an act of racial dominance by racist men. There's also racial fetishism, where some people see dating outside their race as "taboo" and try to get their fix. With that said, the concern is often irrational since I don't believe that very many men are that pathetic regardless of their race.
Hmm, when I saw the thread title I thought this diversity article would be about the population increase among Asian-Americans, the brain-gain of skilled workers from south and east Asia, the spike in international students from Brazil and the Middle East, the diversification of our neighborhoods, the growing interest in start-up cultural and ethnic programs (including some led by and active among *gasp* straight white men), the men doing graduate work at a traditionally women`s university, to name a few examples. But, no, still looking at diversity as a bipolar, zero-sum racial issue.
No, I think Pittsburgh is a place starting to grow up and looking at race as something more than black and white.
I thought the same thing too, but wasn't going to say anything. I went to The Mintt last night and there were about 30 customers of Indian ethnicity. There are three Indian grocers within a couple miles as well (which signifies to me a large ethnic population...larger than an ethnic oriented restaurant might indicate).
No ethnic group has been as deeply and fundamentally maligned as Africans, so I'm not sure comparisons, at least in the broadest sense, are fair, but the links below give me the impression that creating a shared ethnic community is dependent on intentional networking and deliberate organization.
It's not surprising, but I can't approve of that line of thinking. It's just as upsetting to me as when people seek out white neighborhoods. Outside of recent immigrants and perhaps religious groups, I think it's a hard thing to justify.
I guess that could be true if you choose your dating partners based on race. And I know that many people do do just that, unfortunately. You're just telling it like it is. I'll revise my earlier statement and acknowledge that I can understand the line of thinking that leads to a desire for racially based neighborhoods and clubs, however I find the line of thinking that leads to that conclusion to be upsetting at best.
That is not always by choice. I never cared to limit my interest in women by race. But when I lived in Pittsburgh, I asked many young nonblack women out. Very few were interested. That would give me the impression that Pittsburgh wasn't very receptive to interracial relationships.
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