White Flight, the taboo subject.

[catzmeow]

Yes, quite often Asians high tail it outta there too.

My neighborhood is full of upscale black professionals who hightailed it out of the hood.

 

[Big Fitz]

So........white flight is caused by other whites? Sounds like white on white racism.

It's more like the way the stock market works. If a few people start selling, people start wondering what's up, and then suddenly, it's like dominoes toppling, and everyone is selling. The person who sells last loses. It's more a matter of perception than anything. And, I would say that it isn't a purely white thing. It's an economic thing, primarily.

Yes, quite often Asians high tail it outta there too.

It's a socio-economic thing. When you look at the stereotypical cultures of these groups, based on their economic means as well as traditional home life, everyone wants to live with people like them. This isn't Levitown here. This is just natural. Now, if you have a tolerance for the foibles of one culture for another (say you prefer loud screaming families and unkempt lawns over silent conformity of carpet like lawns) you will move to such a neighborhood regardless of color.

On the other hand, regardless of race, if you don't want to live in a place where you have to drive everywhere to get something from the store that's 8 blocks distant and no bus service, you won't live there.

You can also consider "Co-op agreements", Home Owners Associations, gated communities and secure buildings as just one more aspect. I'd feel like I was in hell living in a place where some retiree or stay at home mom found her value in life going around measuring people's lawns to make sure it was not longer than 2.75 inches tall and threatening the people with fines if they didn't cut it. Just as much as I feel like I'm in hell if I have drunks staggering down my apartment building hall, shitting in corners and making me fear for my life when I walked outside.

You live where you're comfortable most times, or you find a way to leave it. Race has nothing to do with it beyond stereotypical percentages of finding certain behaviors that are attached by tradition to each race when it is in the majority in a locale.

 

[Big Fitz]

Yes, quite often Asians high tail it outta there too.

My neighborhood is full of upscale black professionals who hightailed it out of the hood.

well according to some in this thread, there are no such things or if they are, they're staying in the hood to 'better it'.

 

[Tank]

Yes, quite often Asians high tail it outta there too.

My neighborhood is full of upscale black professionals who hightailed it out of the hood.

Wheres this?

 

[catzmeow]

Yes, quite often Asians high tail it outta there too.

My neighborhood is full of upscale black professionals who hightailed it out of the hood.

Wheres this?

North Florida. But, the same is true all over the South. There are extremely upscale majority black subdivisions in Atlanta, DC, etc.

 

[Big Fitz]

My neighborhood is full of upscale black professionals who hightailed it out of the hood.

Wheres this?

North Florida. But, the same is true all over the South. There are extremely upscale majority black subdivisions in Atlanta, DC, etc.

and let me guess, they don't care if you're white and possibly bring down their property values either?

 

[catzmeow]

and let me guess, they don't care if you're white and possibly bring down their property values either?

Thankfully, no. They allow even whites and asians to own in the neighborhood, though my lawn is nowhere near as impeccably manicured as theirs. My actual neighborhood is a small subsection of a larger suburb, and is about 30% black, 60% white, and 10% other (mostly asian, including Indian and Nepali). Home prices in the neighborhood are about 3x the average home price in the overall community. Pretty much everyone has a college degree.

 

[Big Fitz]

and let me guess, they don't care if you're white and possibly bring down their property values either?

Thankfully, no. They allow even whites and asians to own in the neighborhood, though my lawn is nowhere near as impeccably manicured as theirs. My actual neighborhood is a small subsection of a larger suburb, and is about 30% black, 60% white, and 10% other (mostly asian, including Indian and Nepali). Home prices in the neighborhood are about 3x the average home price in the overall community. Pretty much everyone has a college degree.

If I ever get a house, I'm going to have to make enough to hire a lawn/shovelling service. I don't DO lawncare or gardening. YUCK! Otherwise, I'd let it revert back to prairie and file for some US Fish and Wildlife Service preservation program to keep the golf lawn nazis off my back.

 

[catzmeow]

If I ever get a house, I'm going to have to make enough to hire a lawn/shovelling service. I don't DO lawncare or gardening. YUCK! Otherwise, I'd let it revert back to prairie and file for some US Fish and Wildlife Service preservation program to keep the golf lawn nazis off my back.

I do my yard myself, and sadly, it shows. It has a certain non-conformity and overabundance of blooming things in comparison to my neighbors' vast stretches of pristine green.

 

[Tank]

My neighborhood is full of upscale black professionals who hightailed it out of the hood.

Wheres this?

North Florida. But, the same is true all over the South. There are extremely upscale majority black subdivisions in Atlanta, DC, etc.

North Florida is a neighborhood?

 

[catzmeow]

North Florida is a neighborhood?

I live in a city in North Florida. That's sufficient detail for an internet race baiter.

 

[High_Gravity]

Yes, quite often Asians high tail it outta there too.

My neighborhood is full of upscale black professionals who hightailed it out of the hood.

Wheres this?

Tank those places are all over the place, come on now.

 

[High_Gravity]

For the record I live in the city for now because I don't want to drive 30-45 minutes from the burbs to get to a decent night club, bar or concert.

 

[manifold]

The one black family in my neighborhood moved out about a year ago or so. And a Lebanese family moved in to their house.

Not sure if that's an upgrade or a downgrade.

But when our departing neighbors told us who bought their house, they made it a point to tell us that the Lebanese family was Christian, not Muslim. I got a kick out of that.

 

[Ravi]

The one black family in my neighborhood moved out about a year ago or so.

With you in the neighborhood, who could blame them?

 

[Tank]

Seems like no one can name a good black neighborhood, but I can name a hell alot of bad ones.

 

[High_Gravity]

Seems like no one can name a good black neighborhood, but I can name a hell alot of bad ones.

USATODAY.com - Minorities make choice to live with their own

 

[CitizenPained]

Good topic.

Racism doesn't exist in America...right?

It does, Marc, but these days, it seems to be far more about class than about color, and that means it's seen quite differently. We have a disproportionate number of Blacks and other minorities still trapped in poverty, and while it's true that poverty does not equal crime,it does correlate with it, enough so that the perception is that with one, comes the other. There's rarely a problem for the Black executive or professional who moves into an upper class or upper-middle class neighborhood; the problem occurs, one might say, closer to the margins; let Blacks move into a working class, or even middle class, area, and white flight soon follows, driven by fear of crime, and fear of declining property values (which often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Perceptions being what they are, one family's chance to move up, becomes another's catastrophe. From an economic standpoint, that doesn't have to be,at least, not in theory; there's no reason anyone can only get his share of the economic pie at the expense of someone else. In the real world, though, that often IS what happens. Add that, to those on both sides of the divide who for one reason or another think fear is a useful tool, and here we go again.

The thing is, we can't, under our constitution, tell anyone he can't sell his home and move; so people move up, ghettoization moves with them, and we're back to square one. Minorities perceive this as blatant racism; a lot of White America sees it as simple fear. Minorities see a thinly-veiled excuse, Whites see it as something legitimate; and it doesn't matter much from either perspective just how much is reality, and how much is just perception. It's hard to deal with, because there is legitimate truth to be found on both sides, in one situation or another. Now put in our current economic situation, in which middle and working class people of all races feel insecure, vulnerable, and threatened, and we have a mess that has no easy solutions.

People aren't going to up and move because someone black moved into the neighborhood. You are in the wrong decade. I appreciate the sentiment, but this is just flat out wrong.

White flight today is based largely on crime and economic factors. The reason why blacks are disproportionately on welfare is because of the cycle of poverty and because there's never been an even playing ground.

That being said, whites are the fastest growing set of poor people in the US.

Not sure if you ever read 'stuff white people like', but urbanized, gentrified, diverse and upper class neighborhoods is what white people love.

The reason why I'd be weary about sending my child to an all-minority school is because I'm a teacher in one and I know what goes on in there. It isn't the skin color, it's the families themselves. You can't blame a white family for not wanting their kids to be part of gangs, drugs, unprotected sex, whatever.

Unfortunately, those kinds of unfortunate facts just inflate racism, but it's not always so, uh, black-and-white.

 

[manifold]

The one black family in my neighborhood moved out about a year ago or so.

With you in the neighborhood, who could blame them?

Obviously not you.

But still, I'd guess that it had a lot more to do with the fact they were getting a divorce because the husband was cheating than anything I did. But I guess maybe they got annoyed the couple times I carried their empty trash barrels up for them because they'd blown into the road. You never know.

 

[catzmeow]

With you in the neighborhood, who could blame them?

Looking to get out of the zoo, apparently.