Tag Archives: minorities

Racial makeup of some (read: one) suburbs being changed by foreclosures

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The suburbs are growing increasingly diverse (evidence here, here, here, and here). And this news story shows that foreclosures in the Detroit area may be helping minorities move to suburbia:

The foreclosure crisis made it possible…

Many of the foreclosed upon Southfield [Michigan] homes were going for $40,000 to $60,000. The median home value dropped from more than $190,000 to below $130,000 over the same period, according to Census figures.

With so many empty houses available, rents also dipped by hundreds of dollars. Renters increased from about 13,100 in 2006 to 15,400 in 2009.

The lure of low prices to Detroiters was obvious — as was the likelihood that their arrival would not be without issues.

“Blacks, like all Americans, want good schools and a safe community, and they can find that in the suburbs,” says Richard Schragger, who teaches local government and urban law at the University of Virginia…

Two things irritates me about this story. First, it seems to be based entirely on some anecdotal evidence from Southfield, Michigan. Is what is described in this article taking place in other metropolitan regions? The story provides little insight beyond this one Michigan community.

Second, the headline seems to highlight foreclosures but the real story seems to be about what happens when poorer Blacks move into the suburbs. The article says the result of this may be that more middle- and upper-class Blacks will continue to move to more far-flung suburbs. Should we conclude that foreclosures in certain areas are actually good for some people or do they change communities too much? The original headline, “Foreclosures helping change color of some suburbs,” is more ambivalent but when the AP story gets repeated in other sources, such as the Daily Herald, the headline changes: in the web edition, the headline is “Foreclosures accelerating changes in suburbs,” while the print edition has the headline “Foreclosures changing the suburbs.” The story says little beyond the Detroit area and yet the new headlines suggest foreclosures are leading to these specific changes throughout all (or most) American suburbs.

Edge city Schaumburg sees growing minority population, declining white population

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The Chicago suburb of Schaumburg has attracted attention in recent decades for being an edge city. The community, full of office parks as well as Woodfield Mall, was mentioned six times in the book that defined edge cities. New 2010 Census figures suggest Schaumburg reflects larger population trends in the suburbs:

U.S. Census figures for 2010 showed that while the overall population of Schaumburg dipped 1.5 percent in the last decade to 74,227, most minority groups grew and the white population decreased by nearly 12 percent.

“It’s good to have that kind of mix as far as population is concerned,” said Village President Al Larson. “That says that Schaumburg is a very attractive place to come to.”

The largest minority group is Asians that number 14,731, according to the census. That’s about 38 percent more than 10 years ago…

Schaumburg’s changes are happening elsewhere,  said Mike Maly, who chairs the Sociology Department at Roosevelt University. He’s studied census numbers and the changing demographics of the Chicago area.

“What’s happening in Schaumburg is part of a larger trend in suburban Cook County,” Maly said. Minority groups are moving out of the city, and into the suburbs. At the same time, the white population seems to be moving to the outskirts of the suburban area, he said.

So like many suburbs, Schaumburg is experiencing growth in the minority population. But it is also interesting to note that the Schaumburg’s total population declined and the white population dropped by over 11 percent. Some questions should emerge out of this:

1. What is the long-term future of Schaumburg? Declining population in a suburb is not particularly a good sign.

2. Where exactly is the white population going in the Chicago suburbs? If you look at the interactive map here, one might guess that the whites are moving to the outer edges of the Chicago region.

3. On one hand, it sounds good that more minorities are moving to the suburbs, particularly communities like Schaumburg. But if white residents are moving out of these places where minorities are moving, are the same issues of residential segregation simply going to be reproduced in the suburban landscape?

Texas population trends, the “demographic revolution,” and comparing Chicago and Houston

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Census data regarding Texas has been released and there are several demographic changes underway:

1. Texas is growing, particularly compared to some other areas of the country:

The first results of the 2010 Census were released in December, showing that Texas’ population grew more than twice as fast as that of the nation as a whole, to 25.1 million.

As a result, the Lone Star State will gain four additional congressional seats, more than any other state.

2. The cities are growing as our minority populations:

Texas’ largest cities grew larger and more diverse, as did many suburban counties, part of what Rice University sociologist Stephen Klineberg calls “this accelerating demographic revolution.”

“The number of Anglos is falling more rapidly than one would expect, and the number of Latinos is rising more rapidly,” Klineberg said.

Latinos accounted for 35.3 percent of the total [population growth in Houston] — 41 percent in Harris County alone — while the number of Anglos dropped to 39.7 percent.

African-Americans made up 17.3 percent of the metro area’s population, while Asians made up 7 percent…

Statewide, the number of Anglos grew by just 4 percent, according to Rice sociologist Steve Murdock, a former director of the Census Bureau.

The number of Hispanics, African-Americans and Asians grew exponentially more rapidly.

“I don’t think most of us expected the absolute amount of Anglo growth would be so low,” Murdock said.

3. Shedding light on my question from a few days ago about what Chicago’s population drop looks like compared to Houston’s growth or loss, here is the answer:

The city of Houston’s population grew to 2.1 million, up 7.5 percent over the past decade, and the metropolitan area — which now encompasses a 10-county area — surged to 5,946,800 people. The area’s incorporated cities are included in the count.

Chicago’s population dropped by 7 percent, but it remained well ahead of Houston at 2.7 million and No. 3 in the national rankings.

4. This will affect what Texas suburbs look like in the coming years:

And if the lessons of the 2010 Census are any indicator, the new residents will be a diverse lot.

“The idea of predominantly white suburbs” no longer holds true, Murdock said.

Texas’ growth has some similarities and differences compared to the rest of the country. The main difference is the overall population growth. The similarities are that the population growth is being driven by immigrant and minority populations and the urban areas, particularly the suburbs, are becoming more diverse.

Charlotte columnist suggests suburbs will face four problems

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American suburbs contain the majority of United States residents (and this figure is likely to grow in the latest 2010 Census figures). And yet, there are a lot of questions about what the future of suburbs will be. A columnist/editor in Charlotte suggests suburbs will face four problems in the near future:

Demographics. Population trends favor urban-style, multifamily development. Gen Y’ers have a clear preference, at least for now, for urban living. Meantime, aging boomers will be selling houses and moving to condos or apartments. As illness and infirmity hit, many will have to give up driving. They’ll want walkable neighborhoods.

With the foreclosure crisis, the single-family home market will be sluggish for years. The nation is overbuilt on large-lot suburbia, and underbuilt in cities. The Urban Land Institute’s “Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2011” has this advice to investors: “Avoid commodity, half-finished subdivisions in the suburban outer edge and McMansions; they are so yesterday.”

Fuel prices. Remember when $4-a-gallon gas walloped the economy in 2008? Now, gas prices are over $3 again. Gas prices are likely to keep rising, and already, transportation is the No. 2 cost for average U.S. households. With pay and jobs sinking, more people are likely to want to live where they can drive less.

Carbon footprint. If we’re to avoid creating even more destructive changes in the world’s climate (more droughts, floods, blizzards or heat waves) for our children and grandchildren to live with, more of us will need to live in tight-knit, walkable cities. It turns out city dwellers have a much smaller carbon footprint.

Suburbs on the brink. Although some first-ring suburbs are thriving, others aren’t. Many suburban neighborhoods are seeing rising poverty and crime, dead or dying malls and derelict strip centers and big-box stores. We can’t just abandon them to blight.

These are all possible issues. Some thoughts about each concern:

1. We will have to see what Generation Y and the aging Baby Boomers want in the long term. Will they want to move back to cities or will they be okay with denser suburban development?

2. Fuel prices are up and American driving is down. What happens if most people can access electric cars within 10 years?

3. Carbon footprints – are people convinced that they should change their personal, residential choices based on this evidence? Do Generation Y members choose to live in cities for this reason or for other reasons such as proximity to entertainment and culture.

4. Inner-ring suburbs are experiencing many of the issues that we once thought were limited to cities. Interestingly, a number of these issues are spreading beyond the inner-ring.

The columnist suggests we need to fight the suburban blight, marked by “separate municipalities outside a city, regardless of age or form…development with a specific pattern, typically built after 1945: single-use zones (stores separated from offices and housing, single-family houses apart from apartments); lots a quarter-acre or more; car dependent.”

There are several other issues that many suburban communities face:

5. Budget crunches with the economic crisis leading to a downturn in housing growth. Not much money is coming in and this will lead to cuts in services and amenities.

6. More suburbs reaching build-out and facing questions about whether denser development can fit within a community dominated by single-family homes.

6a. Will American suburbanites want denser development that may threaten their property values?

7. Increasing minority and immigrant populations that challenge the white majority that has dominate American suburban life. Stories like that of a controversy over a proposed mosque in DuPage County could become more common.

8. Of course, lots of empty houses or homes with reduced values (here or here). This limits people’s ability to move, the ability of communities to collect money, and builders and lenders to make money.

Argument: improve educational performance of poor children by moving them to the suburbs

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Academic achievement is a familiar topic in recent American discourse: how exactly do we improve student performance, particularly for those who are behind? One foundation president suggest the answer is to have more poor kids move to the suburbs and attend suburban schools with wealthier children:

One of the most important recent pieces of education research was released last year — and promptly ignored. The Century Foundation’s report “Housing Policy is School Policy” confirms the seminal 1966 finding of Johns Hopkins University sociologist James Coleman: The school-based variable that most profoundly affects student performance is the socioeconomic composition of the school. In short, poor children do better if they attend schools with affluent children.

The “new” news in the report? It highlights the critical out-of-school influence of where the low-income children reside. Poor children attending an affluent school do even better, it turns out, if they also live in an affluent neighborhood.

There is more interesting material in here, including reference to the Gautreaux program in Chicago (see some of the academic research generated in studying this program) that was one of the first programs that moved public housing families to suburban neighborhoods. (However, there is no mention of over similar and bigger programs, like HUD’s Moving To Opportunity.)

As the article suggests, this is a difficult solution to implement. The suburbs tend to have more expensive housing, suburban residents can be resistant to minorities and the lower classes, support networks can be lacking, and transportation by automobile is often required (and is costly). Additionally, it is very hard to create laws that would force movement or impel suburban communities to build affordable housing.

More broadly, this piece is a reminder of the price of segregated housing in America. We have an ethos that says people can move wherever they want (particularly if they have the money) but there are a variety of factors that inhibit this. As American Apartheid suggests, residential segregation “is the ‘linchpin’ of American race relations.”

Not so fast on integrated American neighborhoods

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Taking another angle on residential integration (based on data from the American Community Survey – also reported on here) suggests it is a very slow process. Two sociologists suggest some has changed – metropolitan whites now on average live in neighborhoods that are 74% white (the figure was 88% in 1980). But minorities still have similar segregation figures to 2000:

•Black-white segregation averaged 65.2 in 2000 and 62.7 now.

•Hispanic-white segregation was 51.6 in 2000 vs. 50 today.

•Asian-white segregation has grown from 42.1 to 45.9.

This index score (and I think this is a dissimilarity index) ranges from 0 to 100 with a score of 0 meaning that two groups are completely integrated while a score of 100 means that two groups live completely separately or in different neighborhoods.

Based on this analysis, it looks like the issue of residential segregation is one that will be with us for a long time yet. While there was improvement for some groups, there were  negative or very limited changes for other groups. All that said, residential segregation looks like it is still an entrenched feature of American life.

An argument: Democrats need candidates who can appeal to white voters

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This is an issue I’ve seen mentioned in a few places now: the Democratic Party has some difficulty in recruiting minority candidates who can win the white support that is needed to be able to be elected for offices beyond the House. Here is some of the analysis from National Journal:

Of the 75 black, Hispanic, and Asian-American Democrats in Congress and governorships, only nine represent majority-white constituencies—and that declines to six in 2011. Two of the party’s rising black stars who sought statewide office this year were rejected by their party’s own base. And when you only look at members of Congress or governors elected by majority-white constituencies (in other words, most of the governorships and Senate seats, and 337 out of 435 House seats), Democrats trail Republicans in minority representation.

In fact, Republicans experienced a diversity boomlet this year. Cognizant of their stuffy national image, party leaders made a concerted effort to recruit a more diverse crop of candidates. That resulted in more than doubling the number of minority elected officials from six to 13—and a ten-fold increase (from one to 10) in the number of minorities representing majority-white constituencies.

The numbers reflect an inconvenient reality—even with their more diverse caucus, Democrats face the same challenges as Republicans in recruiting, nominating, and electing minority candidates to statewide office and in majority-white suburban and rural districts. The vast majority of black and Hispanic members hail from urban districts that don’t require crossover votes to win, or represent seats designed to elect minorities. They are more liberal than the average Democrat, no less the average voter, making it more difficult to run statewide campaigns.

These are far from trivial facts. This means Democrats lack a bench of minority candidates who can run for statewide office, no less national office. Most Democratic minorities make a career in the House, accruing seniority and influence but lacking broad-based political support.

How this issue is addressed by both political parties could have a significant impact on American politics in the next few decades. As the demographics in America continue to change away from a large white majority, I would expect that more minority candidates will be elected to such offices. But whether these changes reflect, even roughly, the demographics of the country or specific states, remains to be seen.

Interpreting the FBI’s 2009 hate crime report

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Hate crime legislation is a topic that seems to rile people up. The Atlantic provides five sources that try to summarize and make sense of the latest annual data released by the FBI:

Agence France-Presse reports that “out of 6,604 hate crimes committed in the United States in 2009, some 4,000 were racially motivated and nearly 1,600 were driven by hatred for a particular religion … Blacks made up around three-quarters of victims of the racially motivated hate crimes and Jews made up the same percentage of victims of anti-religious hate crimes.” The report also notes that “anti-Muslim crimes were a distant second to crimes against Jews, making up just eight percent of the hate crimes driven by religious intolerance.” Finally, the report notes a drop in hate crimes overall: “Some 8,300 people fell victim to hate crimes in 2009, down from 9,700 the previous year.”

This is a reminder that there is a lot of data out there, particularly generated by government agencies, but we need qualified and skilled people to interpret its meaning.

You can find the data on hate crimes at the FBI website of uniform crime reports. Here is the FBI’s summary of the incidents, 6,604 in all.

The changing demographics of American kindergarten students

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Many researchers have noted the existing demographic transition in America away from a large majority of whites to a more diverse population. USA Today has some statistics about what this looks like at the level of kindergarten classes:

•About 25% of 5-year-olds are Hispanic, a big jump from 19% in 2000. Hispanics of that age outnumber blacks almost 2 to 1.

•The percentage of white 5-year-olds fell from 59% in 2000 to about 53% today and the share of blacks from 15% to 13%.

“This is not just a big-city phenomenon,” Johnson says. “The percentage of minority children is growing faster in the suburbs and in rural areas.”

Measuring this at the level of kindergarten classes might be a decent proxy for measuring the next generation.

I wonder how this will impact the image of suburbs which have traditionally been thought of as lily-white places. The suburbs of the 2050s will look quite different in population than the suburbs of the 1950s, post-World War II era.