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SUNDAY, MAR 20, 2011
In “Escape from New York,” the New York Times’ Charles Blow writes about the significance of New York City in Black America. Soon to be reported census numbers are expected to show that the black population has declined “Black mecca and magnet.” Blow cites Social Explorer’s Andrew Beveridge in his exploration of the shift and the causes behind it.
Next week, the Census Bureau will release local data for New York. And if those data come in as expected, they will show the first drop in the black population of New York City on a census since at least 1880, according to Professor Andy Beveridge, a sociologist at the City University of New York. (The white, Asian and Hispanic populations are all expected to grow.)
Part of the shift is likely from an overall trend in black migration toward the South and the suburbs. For example, the 2010 Census figures show that Georgia’s black population grew by 23 percent and Florida’s by 25 percent, but as The Associated Press reported Friday: “The share of blacks in large metropolitan areas who opted to live in the suburbs climbed to 58 percent in the South, compared with 41 percent for the rest of the U.S.”
There is also the city’s continued shedding of manufacturing jobs and shrinking middle class that is pushing it ever closer to becoming a dim, stilted wasteland of the wealthy, from edge to edge.