Nearly ten years ago, after
the 2010 U.S. Census results came out, we did a deep-dive into the shifting ethnic
make-up of America's cities.
Delayed due to Covid, the 2020 Census numbers are finally out. So here’s our ‘Who’s Fleeing Whom?’ series, updated for 2020.
* * *
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).
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 chaos they left behind. Euro-Americans are
forced to pack up, and the musical chairs begin again.
We can in fact watch the
flight unfold before our eyes via U.S. Census numbers.
1910: Before the Great Migration got underway: Our first figures (where available).
1960: Just before the end of Segregation.
1980: Fast-forward
twenty years to see what the first wave of 'White Flight' has wrought.
2020: Finally, the
most recent figures. Enter en masse Hispanics,
who did not even exist as a census category two generations ago, and Asians,
who have flooded in recently.
So, one-fifth of the way into our new century : Who's fleeing whom?
