Black Flight? (San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland: lower-class, rent, lofts)

[Motion]

San Francisco hopes to reverse black flight - USATODAY.com

Check out this USA Today article. Is there a particular reason you think the Black population in San Francisco has declined other than the reasons mentioned here?

[sonarrat]

People are more mobile now than they have ever been. Freeways have improved to the point that I know people who commute from Roseville to San Jose, a concept which would have been horrifying twenty years ago. So if people decide it's not in their best interest to stay, they'll leave. It's not that they're being priced out - rent control and property tax increase caps make that seem unlikely - but more that they see greater opportunities elsewhere. If I was dissatisfied and thought I could do better elsewhere, I'd move too.

[gizmo980]

Couldn't tell ya, honestly. I think it's just a matter of numbers/math, as we're losing people overall... and since the Black population is small to begin with (for a big metro), it seems like a bigger loss. Hopefully that's it!

[veganwriter]

The story is pure crap and it's an old story at that. Blacks aren't voluntarily moving out of their homes ... at least most ... it's called Gentrification. Yeah, some are members of the "Reverse Migration" (blacks returning to the South) but the real story now days is different.

In the case of San Francisco, the story is over 20 years old. It was called the Yurba Buena Project. It was full of smiley faces ... even hired some in-ept brothers as tokens to put a good face on it. They didn't have real job descriptions ... but they had some desks in an office that was out of the way.

The mayor and The City of that time basically moved a HUGE black population that inhabited the Western Addition (also called The Filmore) out of the City. They were the black middle class. Only a few remain.

Blacks still live way out in Hunter's Point and Sunnydale. These were traditionally poorer areas. Housing projects were built in Sunnydale to house the poor way out on the out-skirts of S.F.

Economic Racism is still alive and well in the SF Bay Area. It's happening in Okland right now. Million dollar plus lofts are going up all over downtown Okland. The industry that's been attracted to Oakland just aren't hiring blacks... and in the case of companies like Whole Foods (they've just opened one of the largest and swankiest Whole Food Stores I've ever seen), the blacks who are hired are ... well ... let me stop.

Social Control is the way the country seems to be going. I'm a truck driver and I travel the country. What I see is causing me some concern ... but I've already said that I'm trying to find me a place waaaaay out in the country, put up some big fences and purchase some BIG dawgs. It looks like the model is going to be what Portland, Oregon has already become. The rich and wealthy will live in plush lofts in the convenient urban center, and those Yuppies who never learned how to play well with others will be paid to serve them. The lower middle and the poor will ... well ... I don't know where they will live ... 'cept it's clear they won't live where they have.

"He who doesn't engineer his own destiny will have his (or her) destiny engineered for him."

[Motion]

Originally Posted by veganwriter

Blacks aren't voluntarily moving out of their homes ... at least most ... it's called Gentrification.

Much of that gentrification is comming with the dot com boom in the Bay Area right?

I'sn't part of the problem is that not enough Blacks are studying and entering technology fields? So you end up with fewer Blacks in the Bay Area benefiting from technology?

[Milliano]

If I had a low income job and owned a $500,000 home, I'd sell it and move somewhere else too.

[mandom]

gentrification or not, not a day goes by that you won't find news in the paper about some black person being shot and/or killed while in the bayview or HP. that would be reason enough to run, if one was smart and able-bodied.

and this is the stuff they're running from:
YouTube - vato

[Motion]

As far as violence in Hunters Point. It's related to similar causes of violence for other low income urban areas.

Here's some interesting info on urban violence in general.

" Many consider Bayview-Hunters Point a marginalized community, with nearly one-third of San Francisco's toxic waste sites with concurrent endemic health issues from those toxins. A 30% unemployment rate along with marginal city services create a volatile social powderkeg. Black-on-black crime is a huge problem with gang wars surrounding territorial drug trade accounting for a high murder rate. Blacks comprise less than 8 percent of the population, yet they made up 63 percent of San Francisco homicide victims in 2005..."

Bayview-Hunters Point



" I see a very strong association between some of these problems like gang behavior and violent crime and joblessness. For example, if you look at a recent longitudinal study conducted by my colleague at the University of Colorado -- we are doing a book together -- Delbert Elliot. He found, for example, that by the time white males and black males reached the late 20s, the violent crime ratio is 4 to 1 -- 4 black to 1 white. Much higher violent crime rate among black males. However, when he controlled for employment, there was no significant difference in the violent crime rate between white males and black males. No significant difference.
The reason that they had a much larger rate of violent crime among black males is because of the very, very high jobless rate. A lot of these people are concentrated in the inner city neighborhoods. Joblessness triggers a whole lot of other problems.
It's one of the things I try to emphasize in my latest book 'When Work Disappears' that a neighborhood in which people are poor and working is entirely different from a neighborhood in which people are poor and jobless...

frontline: the two nations of black america: interview with william julius wilson

[gizmo980]

Originally Posted by mandom

gentrification or not, not a day goes by that you won't find news in the paper about some black person being shot and/or killed while in the bayview or HP. that would be reason enough to run, if one was smart and able-bodied.

and this is the stuff they're running from:
YouTube - vato

I live 3 blocks from Bayview/HP, and there isn't a shooting every day... yes, it's the most dangerous part of SF, but I've managed to survive here! And I don't think that's scaring away people outside of Bayview, since we rarely see people visiting from other parts of the Bay Area. Not to mention, it hasn't scared away the Black communities in Detroit, D.C., and other high crime areas.

As for the rest of the comments (gentrification, employment, etc.), I sadly have to agree - this just isn't the place for the lower-classes, which unfortunately includes many African-Americans. It's all a matter of socioeconomics and institutionalized racism, if anything.

[Milliano]

Gang wars, high murder rates, high unemployment - these are things facing numerous poor urban black neighborhoods in the USA. It's not unique to SF. It's just that in those neighborhoods in Chicago for instance, land values aren't high. In the USA they live either where land values are low in the inner city, or in subsidized housing. A city like SF is naturally going to have very high land values, and no room for blocks of abandoned houses, empty lots, etc etc that you might find in Detroit/Chicago/etc..