The new white flight

A reader sent me this link:

As the college educated flock to these progressive El Dorados [ie: Portland, Oregon], many factors are cited as reasons: transit systems, density, bike lanes, walkable communities, robust art and cultural scenes. But another way to look at it is simply as White Flight writ large. Why move to the suburbs of your stodgy Midwest city to escape African Americans and get criticized for it when you can move to Portland and actually be praised as progressive, urban and hip?

That’s an interesting way of looking at it: SWPLs congratulating themselves for moving away from black people.

Comments

[Paradox]

Not all whites run away from black. This white man actully run into black.

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b147419_chris_noth_plights_his_troth.html

[kurt9]

Yeah, it is a good article.

[sabril]

I really liked this line:

"African Americans, the traditional sine qua non of diversity"

[kurt9]

I live in the Portland area and can confirm the fact that its as white as the article claims. I actually live in a neighborhood that is about 20% Asian. However, the area as a whole is pretty much white. Seattle is also mostly a white city, but with a growing Asian population.

[dbp]

SWPLs, otherwise known as hipster douchbags, love to congratulate themselves for acting in basically self-serving ways.

So this fits right in with their normal modus.

[JewishAtheist]

Hate to break it to you, but people go to Portland (and Berkeley and NY etc) to get away from conservatives, not from blacks.

[mike]

It's telling that the author conflates non-black with white. It's much nicer to say that these are the "most white" cities rather than the "least black" cities, even when his definition is "the cities with the fewest blacks".

[I_Affe]

Yes for the reasons stated. However, suburbs tend to be older, full of married people with kids, and more boring than cities in general. I wouldn't recommend living in a suburb to most young, educated, single people with options.

[James Hendricks]

I live in Seattle which while if it does not match Portland in SWPL hipness is in the same category. Anecdotally there is a lot of black on white street crime, and a very weak criminal justice system. Still it has to be better than Chicago or Philadelphia.

[DaveinHackensack]

The odd thing about Western cities like Seattle and Denver to me is the young white junkies. You don't see a lot of you white homeless junkies in New York.

[Francis]

"SWPLs, otherwise known as hipster douchbags, love to congratulate themselves for acting in basically self-serving ways.

So this fits right in with their normal modus."

"Hate to break it to you, but people go to Portland (and Berkeley and NY etc) to get away from conservatives, not from blacks."

Hysterical. Diversity-loving, liberal white morons could always move to Detriot. Let me know when you find a place there, Jewish Atheist.

[Peter A]

It would be very easy to avoid conservatives in downtown Philadelphia, and you'd have better restaurants. Yet white hipsters don't seem to flock there. Hmmm.

[mike]

"I wouldn't recommend living in a suburb to most young, educated, single people with options."

Which is exactly the raison d'etre of places like Portland. It's a place where "young, educated, single people with options" can live in the city without a high risk of being robbed, assaulted, or murdered. Living in a "diverse" city is a deathwish.

[Cody]

Asians, especially East Asians, are more likely to conform to a prevailing social system than, for instance, Blacks or Hispanics. Progressive whites often twist themselves into knots trying to establish solidarity with the last two groups while trying to assimilate them into the mainstream. Blacks and Hispanics, with good reason, see this as patronizing and find little reason to adopt white mores and folkways.

With Asians, on the other hand, they come ready made for progressive society, and they add an aesthetic spice to the prog cities where there would otherwise be none--kind of like decorations.

[ironrailsironweights.wordpress.com]

It sounds as if most of the evidence of a SWPL flight to these cities is anecdotal rather than statistical.

Peter

[icr]

Hate to break it to you, but people go to Portland (and Berkeley and NY etc) to get away from conservatives, not from blacks.

You can "get away from conservatives" in virtually
in any major city in the US-Arpaio's Phoenix a possible exception-plus the whole of New England.
Of course a lot of those cities have a lot of blacks.

[Brutus]

re your tagline--neither..nor

Strictly speaking, the neither/nor construction should only have 2 elements, like the either/or construction

[Young Racist]

Low Black population? Sounds like heaven on earth.

[APH]

Cities with lots of NAMs have - by and large - BAD schools which makes then untenable for average people once they have families(Steve Sailer always writes about this). So most move out, meaning the cool, "progressive" areas are filled with people younger than 30.

School districts with lots of NAMs are a tremendous tax on society.

[Trumwill]

///But another way to look at it is simply as White Flight writ large.///

Well, that is one way of looking at it. A way that's every bit as retarded as reducing suburbanization to a purely racial phenomenon.

[jef]

In the Los Angeles area, it's Santa Monica.

[dearieme]

Are blacks homogeneous? Isn't it possible that Portland not only has fewer blacks, but that its blacks are of higher calibre than, say, Detroit's?

[sfo]

Why isn't San Francisco on the list? Black population at 6 percent and dropping. Very livable, lots of liberals whom I find way more intelligent than conservatives and statistics confirm my opinion.

[superdestroyer]

Peter,

Actually there is statisticl evidence. The number of whites in California has been doing down for at least two decades. They are the ones moving to Portland, Denver, Boise, etc.

Also, there is the statistical evidence when you look at the percentage of the public schools that are white. In NYC it is around 10 percent and in Seattle it is less than 50%.

[ironrailsironweights.wordpress.com]

"Peter,
Actually there is statistical evidence. The number of whites in California has been going down for at least two decades. They are the ones moving to Portland, Denver, Boise, etc."

Yes, but the question remains whether they're SWPL's (a category hard to define statistically) or other types of white people, for example working-class people finding fewer opportunities in California with the decline of the aerospace industry. Or conservative religious people who find California too liberal for their liking.

Peter

[JewishAtheist]

Please, guys. More young affluent liberal whites flock to NYC than to Portland. It's not the blacks.

[Wonder Bread]

I grew up in NE Philadelphia, dead middle-middle class white, considered going to Penn State but at the last minute went to an overall more competitive, relatively SWPL lib arts college, graduated in '94. I would have liked to have stayed in Philly since every generation of my family on both sides had lived there dating back to the 1850s, and I did move back for a year but at the time the job situation wasn't great, the social/chick scene downtown looked OK to me but the people who actually got laid all the time thought it sucked and were always plotting to move to New York, or Europe or something. I didn't really fit in in my old neighborhood, which was full of cops and transit worker types (this is where all the bad people who are against Mumia Abu-Jamal live), so I ended up moving. And yes, I did end up somewhere much whiter, but the main reason for that was a better employment situation and a better dating pool (i.e, more college-educated, low maintenance SWPL white girls. Yes, they are probably all I can get, but at least I have a taste for them). Getting away from blacks per se really wasn't my dominant motive or one of the top three, even if it is entwined with all the other ones.

[not too late]

" However, suburbs tend to be older, full of married people with kids, and more boring than cities in general. I wouldn't recommend living in a suburb to most young, educated, single people with options."

Hilarious! It used to be that, married with kids = young. Older people were the ones with free time. Now the young and fertile have the empty nests and the old and shriveled have the kids.

[not too late]

"Why isn't San Francisco on the list? Black population at 6 percent and dropping."

What county is San Francisco in? What county is Oakland in?

The article listed stats by county.

Similarly Kansas City, MO Jackson County, is heavily black while just across the border in Kansas, Johnson County is has a lower percentage of blacks. It is all one metro area, just a street down the middle "State Line Blvd".

[Trumwill]

///Yes, but the question remains whether they're SWPL's (a category hard to define statistically) or other types of white people, for example working-class people finding fewer opportunities in California with the decline of the aerospace industry. Or conservative religious people who find California too liberal for their liking.///

Portland is a great example of culture being a driving factor because unlike other growing places (Boise, Austin, etc), the job market is not growing. People may be moving to Seattle for jobs, but not Portland.

[Francis]

-Please, guys. More young affluent liberal whites flock to NYC than to Portland. It's not the blacks.-

NYC, especially Manhattan, has been losing black population. What a shame (sniffle). Oh well, we'll just have to wipe the tears from our eyes and somehow get by...
As I said, hipster liberals could easily find places that have lots of diversity and no conservatives. Moved to Detriot yet to take advantage of the insanely low housing prices? Lots of diversity, no conservatives, cheap housing... You could have it all!

[The Engineer]

Not to mention that NYC is practically a police state. The whole pat-down thing is crazy, if you're an African-American in an AA neighborhood. That's the price for keeping the natives in line, and the result has been a spectacular drop in crime (going from ~2500 murders per year to less than 500).

The SWPLs can go to New York, despite African-Americans, because the NYC police keep the AA's in line. It's that simple.

[HS FYI]

HS FYI

This could be part of white flight? You can make post of this if you want.

Now some white americans have become illegal immigrants in China in search of work.

Three white american illegal alliens under investigation.

http://www.yayabay.com/forum/attachments/month_0910/0910212326fc9cbd2adb40d6e3.jpg

American migrant works in Chinese assembly line

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=179830

[Peter A]

If you want to just live with white people you can move to Scranton-Wilkes Barre. But for some reason I'm not seeing a lot of hipsters here. SWPLs need the appropriate amount of diversity. The ideal neighborhood has one or two hip dreadlocked black kids with graduate degrees, maybe a cool older black man hanging out at the coffee shop making wise cracks, some sassy mixed race girls at the clubs, and of course enough Thais, Chinese and Indians to ensure that there's plenty of affordable Asian restaurants around. The afluent college town is the SWPL ideal, and Portland is that on a grand scale.

[sestamibi]

While it is true that places like Portland and Minneapolis/St. Paul are RELATIVELY whiter than counterparts such as LA, NY, DC, etc. that doesn't mean they are as white as they were 30 years ago.

I lived in the Twin Cities back in the 70s. I remember a 1973 Time magazine cover story "The Good Life in Minnesota", and a 1975 study by the Midwest Research Institute that identified two "quality of life" belts: the I-5 corridor from Eugene up to Seattle, and the I-94 corridor stretching from Madison, WI to the Twin Cities.

I don't think I'd want to live in Minnesota today, and Portland has visibly deteriorated (despite all the yuppie bullshit) over the same period.

[Muff]

"What county is San Francisco in? What county is Oakland in?"

San Francisco is both a country and a city. Oakland is in Alameda country.

I'm guessing people aren't moving to SF because of all the homeless people and outrageous living costs.

[Stopped Clock]

I would love to read about the supposed illegal immigrants in China, but I can't find anything about it. The link for it seems to be an image.

The other link goes to a web forum, and a link from it goes to a page about a (supposedly legal) American worker, which is an interesting enough story in itself, but presumably not the same as the other.

Please re-post if you have more information.