Why do black folk tend to live in cities?

anonymoose

anonymoose

Classical Liberal
This is not meant to be rayciss, just curiosity.
Cities tend to be dirty, crime ridden , violent cesspools with overcrowded traffic.
I’m hoping to get insight from any African descendants that may lurk here.
 
anonymoose said:
This is not meant to be rayciss, just curiosity.
Cities tend to be dirty, crime ridden , violent cesspools with overcrowded traffic.
I’m hoping to get insight from any African descendants that may lurk here.
Click to expand...

Here's a brief history.

A long time ago America started bringing in slaves to the country. The North (where many of the big cities were at the time) got rid of Slavery but the South didn't. Later on the North and the South fought to eliminate slavery everywhere (the South liked slavery). When the North won and slavery was made illegal all over the country the South decided that they really didn't like black people being free so they set out to hurt them in every economic way possible. After the early 20th Century a large number of these black people figured out they could go to the North, and while still a racist place, they at least could get jobs but mostly in the cities. This is called the "Great MIgration".

That meant a LOT of black people moved to the cities for work and to keep their families alive.

In the middle part of the 20th century someone invented SUBURBS and leveraged the magic of a lot more CARS available to lure people out of the cities. The people who could AFFORD to leave did. They were mostly white.

Then some black people discovered the suburbs which scared the white people so they invented "redlining" to keep the black people out. That kept the black people in the cities.

THEN, to make matters even better, the white people were now paying their taxes to the suburban areas and the cities lost revenue. But the white people didn't care and let it slide for decades. The cities got in worse shape and worse shape because the black people left in the citiets were still making far less money than similarly situated white people. This lead to urban decay.

And that's how we got to today.

Hope that clarifies it for you.
 
anonymoose said:
This is not meant to be rayciss, just curiosity.
Cities tend to be dirty, crime ridden , violent cesspools with overcrowded traffic.
I’m hoping to get insight from any African descendants that may lurk here.
Click to expand...
African Americans from the South migrated to northern urban areas during Jim Crow.
The industrial revolution created jobs for them there and back then, there was affordable housing.

Those dirty, crime ridden, violent cesspools are all undergoing gentrification,
and only the African Americans who did financially well are able to afford staying there.

A typical modern urban condo costs over a million bucks in a major northern city,
as does a modest house like mine in the peripheral residential areas of the city,
"cesspool" that you seem to think they are.
 
Kafka said:
Hope that clarifies it for you.
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Not really. I get the history but it doesn’t explain why today . And redlining has been gone for at least 20 years and that’s a low estimate. Probably more like 40 years.
Plus I was asking for the opinion of an African descendant. You’re not in their shoes.
 
anonymoose said:
I get all that but what’s keeping them from moving to the countryside, e.g.?
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Wasn't that clear? Poor people living in urban areas seldom have cars that would allow them not only MOVE to the countryside but LIVE in the countryside where stores are a long way away and there's no bus service.

anonymoose said:
And why continue to live in
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Same reason.

anonymoose said:
Not really. I get the history but it doesn’t explain why today .
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Oh, it's called "generational wealth". White families tend to build that up so that their offspring have advantages they may not have had. Since the black families on average have less money overall (studies show this consistently) they are stuck in the cities which the wealthier white people have abandoned and let the schools decay resulting in poorer education and less opportunities to advance.

Black families almost never develop the kind of generational wealth that would allow future generations to make it out of the poverty.
 
Kafka said:
Black families almost never develop the kind of generational wealth that would allow future generations to make it out of the poverty.
Click to expand...
Some are but not nearly enough.
It's taking too long.

The combined non-white minorities are just about equaling whites in overall numbers now,
and the wealth gap between the tiny uber-rich majority, which is still pretty white,
and everybody else continue to get wider.

This isn't the kind of problem that capitalism fixes by itself.
This requires government inclusion in the economy.
If some ignorant red neck isn't calling you a communist,
you're not being socially responsible in your politics.
 
NiftyNiblick said:
African Americans from the South migrated to northern urban areas during Jim Crow.
The industrial revolution created jobs for them there and back then, there was affordable housing.

Those dirty, crime ridden, violent cesspools are all undergoing gentrification,
and only the African Americans who did financially well are able to afford staying there.

A typical modern urban condo costs over a million bucks in a major northern city,
as does a modest house like mine in the peripheral residential areas of the city,
"cesspool" that you seem to think they are.
Click to expand...
I can’t believe what people pay for housing in New Orleans where I grew up.
They get a little shotgun house where a fairly agile 30 year old can literally leap from his roof to the neighbor’s roof and those houses are $1,000,000+. They have a beautiful view of another shotgun style house across the street.
My house in Anchorage is appraised for about $500,000. I have a view of two mountain ranges and can see Mt. McKinley on a clear day. Behind the house to one side is woods and a field and no more than a pitching wedge away is Campbell creek where I can easily catch my limit of salmon in an hour. We see foxes, porcupines, and moose regularly.
Maybe we got lucky but , e.g., I could rent or buy a house the same size as those shotguns unique to New Orleans on an acre of land in Anita Springs, LA where there’s virtually no violent crime for far less.
I realize a lot of urban dwellers enjoy the adrenaline rush of living in a war zone and are willing to pay top dollar for that.
Anyways, I was trying to get the perspective of an African descendant.
So your opinion means little to me.
 
Kafka said:
Wasn't that clear? Poor people living in urban areas seldom have cars that would allow them not only MOVE to the countryside but LIVE in the countryside where stores are a long way away and there's no bus service.



Same reason.



Oh, it's called "generational wealth". White families tend to build that up so that their offspring have advantages they may not have had. Since the black families on average have less money overall (studies show this consistently) they are stuck in the cities which the wealthier white people have abandoned and let the schools decay resulting in poorer education and less opportunities to advance.

Black families almost never develop the kind of generational wealth that would allow future generations to make it out of the poverty.
Click to expand...
Wealth is not needed to live in the country. In fact it tends to be cheaper.
 
NiftyNiblick said:
Some are but not nearly enough.
It's taking too long.

The combined non-white minorities are just about equaling whites in overall numbers now,
and the wealth gap between the tiny uber-rich majority, which is still pretty white,
and everybody else continue to get wider.

This isn't the kind of problem that capitalism fixes by itself.
This requires government inclusion in the economy.
If some ignorant red neck isn't calling you a communist,
you're not being socially responsible in your politics.
Click to expand...
Wealth is not needed to live in the countryside. In fact it tends to be cheaper.
 
anonymoose said:
Wealth is not needed to live in the country. In fact it tends to be cheaper.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I was laughing too hard. So, if you live in the country how far do you think it is to the grocery store? Let's say it's 10 miles. There's no bus service in most countrysides. So you need a car. Cars cost money. Not everyone can afford a car. Just because you got your GED and a good payin' job at the hardware store doesn't mean everyone has that much money.

I can tell you don't actually live in the country and you never have. Why do I know that? Because I grew up in the rural midwest and we can tell you city folks from a mile away. You are the ones bashing through the timber randomly blasting your shotguns during hunting season (or hunting deer with a handgun) and you are the folks waiting for the bus at the end of the section line road.

We laugh at you.
 
NiftyNiblick said:
But then you're living in the countryside.
Many are happy to do it. I'd be miserable.
It's a totally different way of living.
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I realize that. But I was wondering why African descendants overwhelmingly choose not to live in the countryside where it’s safer.
I would but I’m not an African descendant. That’s why I’m trying to get their perspective.
 
Kafka said:
Sorry, I was laughing too hard. So, if you live in the country how far do you think it is to the grocery store? Let's say it's 10 miles.
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You can live in a small town.

There's no bus service in most countrysides. So you need a car. Cars cost money. Not everyone can afford a car. Just because you got your GED and a good payin' job at the hardware store doesn't mean everyone has that much money.
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When I say country I include small towns. Poor White hillbillies live in them.
You can walk or bike to work in a hardware store.

I can tell you don't actually live in the country and you never have. Why do I know that? Because I grew up in the rural midwest and we can tell you city folks from a mile away. You are the ones bashing through the timber randomly blasting your shotguns during hunting season (or hunting deer with a handgun) and you are the folks waiting for the bus at the end of the section line road.
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You’re right. I live in anchorage 9 months of the year.
Where did I say I lived in the countryside?
 
anonymoose said:
When I say country I include small towns. Poor White hillbillies live in them.
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Something to think about is: how comfortable would YOU be if you were asked to live in the middle of a society where there was almost no one like you and historically the very people surrounding you actually didn't ever like you.

Your solution sounds good in a simplistic manner, but I think the question is a LOT more complex.

I went to school in a small liberal arts college in a tiny rural town in bumfuck Illinois. It was a great place. It was also only a few hours south of Chicago so we got a lot of folks from Chicago coming down to school there. Nice mix. But the black students expressed a certain level of feeling like the "outsider" there. You can always tell them to "get over it" but it isn't that simple.

Telling people to just live in the country where it's safe is great but it's not that simple.

anonymoose said:
You can walk or bike to work in a hardware store.
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I currently live in a small ag town here on the West coast. We are lucky in that we have a free bus service here. But if that wasn't there "walking or bicycling" really isn't a great option to do your shopping. I try to do a lot of my shopping using my bicycle but there's a pretty hard limit and I wouldn't be able to do the kind of shopping that one normally does buying a week's worth of groceries. And then some of the other goods are only available in the store 10 miles down the road.

Living in rural America is a pretty good deal. Not gonna lie (even though I spent most of my adult life trying to run away from the kind of place I grew up in, but as an old man I actually kinda like it). But it isn't for everyone and it isn't always a workable solution.

 
Black people originally lived in cities (outside of the south where many lived in more rural areas) because of racist zoning laws (like they literally weren’t allowed to live in many suburbs) and redlining.

But today most black people don’t live in cities. In fact many black peoples have been priced out of cities. And cities have become safer over the past several decades while the suburbs have become more dangerous as the rich moved back into urban areas and poorer people were forced out.
 
Kafka said:
Wasn't that clear? Poor people living in urban areas seldom have cars that would allow them not only MOVE to the countryside but LIVE in the countryside where stores are a long way away and there's no bus service.
Click to expand...
They have easy access to a convenience store to pick up some Colt 45 or MD 20/20.
 
cawacko said:
But today most black people don’t live in cities. In fact many black peoples have been priced out of cities. And cities have become safer over the past several decades while the suburbs have become more dangerous as the rich moved back into urban areas and poorer people were forced out.
Click to expand...

Gentrification is real. I'll freely admit to loving "gentrified" neighborhoods (one of my favorite stores that sells synthesizers in the nearby megacity is in an actively gentrified area that I love going to)...but I also know that my "comfort and happiness" means a lot of people of meager means were forced out and are having a harder time because of my need for everything to look like what I want.
 
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