Who Is Fleeing Whom?

 Image source

Nearly ten years ago, after the 2010 U.S. Census results came out, we did a deep-dive into the shifts in ethnic make-up of America's cities.

At this moment, the full 2020 Census figures are being crunched. As soon as they are out, we shall update this piece to reflect the new face of these metropolises, some of which we suspect will have changed radically in the last ten years.

As we wait for the new numbers, let's revisit the data up until 2010... and predict what changes are about to be revealed.

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Why did we write this piece? Though black criminality in North America has always surpassed that of Euros, separating oneself from Afro neighbors was not difficult for the first 350 years of British North America / the United States.  Even in the North, segregation in housing was permitted de facto where it was not de jure.

 

The 'Great Migration,' waves of Afros moving from the South to the North, began in earnest in 1910, with its second wave after WWII (1945).

Image source

 

However, the flight of Euro-Americans out of the cities did not truly begin until Blacks were free to live where they pleased-- the 1960s.  Since then, a sort of merry-go-round has ensued:  Whites, suffering under Afro dysfunction, flee to suburbs, only to be pursued by the Talented Tenth fleeing same.  The latter are followed, as night follows day,  by the Untalented Nine-Tenths, who promptly re-create the urban hellscapes they left behind. Euro-Americans are forced to pack up, and the musical chairs begin again.  Section 8 vouchers have revved this carousel up to warp speed.

 

We can in fact watch the flight unfold before our eyes via U.S. Census numbers. 

We give the figures from 1960, just before Segregation ended. 

We then fast-forward twenty years to 1980 to see what the first wave of 'White Flight' has wrought.  

Finally, we give the most recent figures (2010), which contain some surprises, especially re: Hispanics, who did not even exist as a census category two generations ago.  

For selected cities, we have also given the figures from 1910, before the Great Migration got underway.  Asians have been included where their historic presence has been strongest.

 

So: Who's fleeing whom?

 

 

 1. The Midwest

We start with the Midwest, industrial center and destination of choice for the Great Migrators:

 

(Detroit is the largest American city to be over 80% black, as well as the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.)

(2020 Census sneak preview says that Illinois is one of the few states to have lost citizens over the last ten years. Is Chicago the reason?)

 

(One of the few majority-white big cities in its region)

(St. Louis had the highest murder rate in the U.S. in 2019)

(K.C. has the 8th-highest murder rate in the nation as of 2019)

(Des Moines and Minneapolis, two reputed 'Whitopias.' Will they stay so? Minneapolis gives pause...)

 

 

 2. The East Coast

The great cities of the East Coast tell us their demographic story:

(The great push by Whites to gentrify NYC by pushing out minorities... has it worked? We shall soon see)

(Newark was decimated by white flight after the 1960s riots)

(Philly is one of the most dangerous big cities in America)

(A huge gentrifying push is underway in D.C...what hath it wrought?)

(Baltimore consistently ranks in the top 3 most murderous U.S. cities) 

 

We've included two far north-eastern cities, considered some of the 'whitest' in the country.  Will these enclaves stay that way?

 

 

 3. The South

The South has lived a different racial story since colonial times.  Home to plantation slavery and thus to most of the U.S.'s Blacks before 1910, she lost millions in the following decades to the industrial centers of the North.

 

(The demographic [and crime] differences between the above two Tennessee cities have been remarked upon.)

(Paul Kersey has well covered the racial merry-go-round between city and suburbs in this 'city too busy to hate.')

(In 2011 Birmingham underwent what was then the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. In 2019, it was the 3rd most murderous U.S. city.)

(The Big Easy had the 7th-highest murder rate in 2019)

 

 Though technically a Southern city, Miami is becoming more Latin American than heritage American:

 

 4. The Great Basin

Home to some of the last real 'Whitopias' in the country, the Great Basin states are nonetheless diversifying in their way, especially due to Hispanics:

(How far will the hispanifying of Denver go?)

5. The Southwest

The Southwest is of course under immense demographic pressure from Latin America.  This region lives its own story, with parts of Anglo-America perhaps already extinct here.  (As the 'Hispanic' census category did not exist then, all pre-1980 'White' figures must be assumed to contain Hispanic presence.)

 

(These two cities are said to be undergoing waves of Chinese and Indian influx. What will the 2020 numbers tell us?)

 

 6. The West Coast

The West Coast is home to a centuries-old Asian presence which seems to have jumped after the 1965 Immigration Act.  What will be the fallout if current trends continue?

  

(Will the ethnic cleansing of L.A.'s Blacks by its Hispanic gangs continue apace?)

 

San Francisco and San Jose: Headed for a Euro-Asian overclass and an Afro-Hispanic underclass?

(Wealthy Whites and Asians are said to be fleeing the city due to leftist mismanagement... Is it true?)

(Silicon Valley's capital is the richest city in the U.S., and seems to be pricing out Blacks almost entirely.)

(An epicenter for the recent spate of black-on-Asian violence)

The Whites of the Pacific Northwest have long sung the praises of people of color, from afar. Are the objects of their affection finally moving into their cities? Stay tuned...

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A nation is not a stretch of ground; it's a people.  The demography of the urban U.S. is changing faster than it ever has.  Housing policy, criminal justice, immigration policy have all brought us here. Will the face of the nation change irrevocably in this century?

We will update all numbers just as soon as the U.S. Census leashes them upon us. 

Watch this space...