Black Flight #
The Economist says black is the new white. At least as far as fleeing poorer urban neighborhoods in California is concerned.
Since 1990 the city’s black population has dropped by a quarter, from 488,000 to 364,000, even as the overall number of residents rose. The exodus is most noticeable in areas where blacks were once concentrated, such as Compton and Crenshaw. The population of the 35th congressional district, over which the old-fashioned race warrior Maxine Waters holds sway, is now less than one-third black. “It’s becoming hard to find black neighbourhoods,” says Dowell Myers, a demographer at the University of Southern California.
There is also the important point that this movement, like most movement affected by real estate prices, has stalled with the recent mortgage crisis.