"When Angela Freeman moved to Pennsauken in the mid-1980s, she was among a wave of black teachers hired to reflect the township's changing racial demographics. ... Freeman felt welcome enough, but she noticed that any discussion of race was conducted in code, with teachers and administrators avoiding words like black and white. ... The issue is how to stanch the outflow of the town's white residents while creating a welcoming environment for everyone. ... The strategy, as refined over the years: Market the town's diversity as an asset. ... In those 20 years 1980-2000], there has been a doubling of minority residents, drawn by the same relatively low property taxes and proximity to Philadelphia that had attracted families for decades. ... 'People were asking why, I a black man, wanted more white people living here. It wasn't an easy sell,' said [Harold] Adams, a real estate assessor. 'We were coming at it from a practical standpoint.' ... 'When a town gets below 50 percent white, it makes it very difficult for the town to maintain services,' Adams said", James Osborne at the Philadelphia Inquirer, 26 February 2010, link:
See my 5 January 2009 post:
http://skepticaltexascpa.blogspot.com/2009/01/wait-listed-by-jail.html. Should Pennsauken offer whites minority set-asides?
6 comments:
I've lived all over the US, in 19 states and 12 major cities, and I do not live in minority neighborhoods anymore: too many headaches, too much crime, too little attention paid to common courtesy, and low expectations all around. I made sure, a long time ago, that I would have strong enough skills to live away from minority cultural dysfunction and the many variations on the lumpen proletariat. By the time I was 21, I had ceased to believe in the charm of diversity; it was a code word for trash in the streets, the smell of urine, a gaggle of menacing thugs wandering around looking for a mug, and a bunch of hipsters pretending they were in urban utopia. Blech.
Better to live in the country, simply, and with limited means, or make some cash and stay away from the poor and minority neighborhoods if in the city.
BTW, minority neighborhoods are not created equal, they can be ranked; the Japanese are on top all the way down to, well, that's a toss up between the Haitians and the Indians (pow-wow, not Vishnu).
Isn't it natural for people to live around people like them?
It some ways it seems unsustainable to force set percentages of races or people.
Ubu:
I grew up about .4 of a mile from July 1964's Bedford-Stuyvesant riots. I grew up as a minority group member in America. At least in my neighborhood. You're not telling me anything I didn't see as a child.
IA
Bed-Stuy? Yikes, that's some 'hood. I lived on Pearl St, under the Manhattan Bridge, in the Heights, and had no earthly reason to be in Bed-Stuy. And during the riots (or should I call it a pogrom?) I imagine it was damn scary.
That reminds me, I forgot to mention the best minority neighborhood to live in: Jewish neighborhoods, especially Israeli or recent arrivals from Eastern Europe. In LA we used to pretty much settle wherever we saw the Jews walking to the temple; I figured they'd already done the reconnaissance for me.
Ubu:
Follow the links in my 5 January 2009 post: http://skepticaltexascpa.blogspot.com/2009/01/wait-listed-by-jail.html to 1958's George Goldfarb incident. I walked past JHS 210 every day on the way to grammar school.
Do you favor the Fairfax district in LA?
IA
Mmmm, Canter's. Great neighborhood, as is the Hancock park area just south. I worked in Culver City, also an area I favor (less so with the closure of the Jazz Bakery).
We were last in Encino/Tarzana, some great Glatt Kosher Israeli places up there (and a much nicer apt for the money). Falafel Express on Reseda and then a night at Charlie O's to hear the best rhythm section in LA: John Heard and Roy McCurdy. Sigh, I miss LA; a great city terribly run and sliding fast.
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