Posted on 05/07/2017 6:49:59 PM PDT by Bodleian_Girl
Yikes. You pretty much described southern Cook County (where unfortunately I am from) to a tee. In the 80s, these suburbs were Reagan country. Today, they are filled with brain dead Obamabots.
I’ve been doing an in-depth study of Alabama and its population/racial dynamics (it makes for a good example and study because of its large Black population). Three of its four largest cities have experienced dramatic racial demographic shifts (Birmingham, Mobile, Montgomery). Birmingham hit a peak of 341,000 in 1960 (with roughly 206,000 Whites and 135,000 Blacks). From its founding in the 1870s (post-Civil War) until 1960, it experienced a spectacular population increase.
The city always had a substantial minority Black population from its founding. The first warning sign of danger occurred in 1930 when it suffered its first (White) population decline (albeit modest, just 2,000 people), albeit the Black population jumped 10,000 at the same time. In 1970, it registered its first overall population drop (at the time, the city had a White Republican Mayor from 1967-1975), and dropped from 341k to 301,000, and both Whites and Blacks left (32k Whites and 9k Blacks). At some point in the 1970s, White flight increased en masse and Blacks began returning again (succeeding the White Republican Mayor in 1975 was a liberal White Dem cuck who served a single term before passing off the city to the Black Dem (and generally corrupt/incompetent leadership) beginning in 1979).
Although the city had declined by a relatively modest 16,500 by 1980 (from 301k to 284k), the real story was told by the racial shift. The White population declined by a huge 50,000 (from 174k to 124k) while the Black population increased by 32,000 (from 126k to 158k), officially becoming a Black majority.
The numbers since have been telling, as B’ham has dropped down to a paltry 212,000 as of 2010 (down 18k from 1980-90 to 266k; down 23k from 1990-2000 to 243k and almost 31k drop just from 2000-10, the worst drop since the 1960s). I estimate it might be around 190,000 today (since estimates from the census are incredibly unreliable when it comes to cities, as I’ve noticed they overinflate the figures - most egregiously they did so with Detroit in the 2000s, at one point making it look like they were still growing instead of rapidly bleeding).
The Black population of B’ham continued to increase, reaching a zenith in 2000 of 178,000. Curiously, however, now Blacks are beginning to follow Whites with moving out to the suburbs (and elsewhere) en masse, losing an unprecedented 22,000 residents (all of the gains of Black population since the 1970s has been wiped out, with the 2010 figure the same as the Black population around 1979).
As for the White population, Birmingham has fewer White residents than its main suburb of Hoover. When the population declined to 124k Whites in 1980, that was the same number in the city back around 1923. It shed another 29,000 Whites between 1980 and 1990 down to just 95,000 (the equivalent of their 1915 population). From 1990 to 2000 it declined by over 38,000 down to just 57,000 Whites (down to their 1906 equivalent) and finally down 12,000 more between 2000-2010 to 45,000, the circa 1904 population when the city covered just a small area).
What I’ve tended to observe is this, be it with some cities, but also some suburbs that have demographically changed. A given city/town will reach a zenith of White population, often when it has maxed out as a population whole (a la Birmingham hitting 340k in 1960). Now, with the towns that have a larger-than-average % of Whites, you might then start to see a small migration in of non-Whites, increasing the population from a fraction to maybe 5-10% or so. What happens from there can follow slowly or rapidly, but it ends up with the same trajectory: once the Black population reaches 30% or higher, you then start to see White stagnation or outmigration (usually in proportion to the population as a whole, meaning if the place has 5 to 10k residents, it’ll stay that number overall, just with the shift occurring racially. I.e. Blacks buying White homes and replacing the same numbers).
You then reach a critical mass where the Black population gets to above 40-45% and Whites then leave en masse, so the locale in 10 years can flip from 40% Black to 60% Black. Within 20 years, give or take 10 years or so, the flooding out of Whites continues until they could drop as low as 10% or less (in Birmingham, it’s only about 20% White as of 2010). At the time this is going on, the Black population continues to increase. However, in some locales, a wall can be hit, and with the city or town now being completely dominated with Black Dem rule and the usual dysfunction that comes with that, Blacks themselves will vote with their feet and the town/city will begin to completely collapse across the board.
The most egregious example of this self-destruction in Alabama likely belongs to the Mobile suburb of Prichard. Incorporated in 1925, Prichard was a fast-growing town that eventually became a city. Now, it had (like Birmingham) a decent-sized Black minority, and managed to grow across the board, hitting a zenith of just under 50,000 residents in 1960. As with many of the urban places at the time, residents wanted to move further out, so Prichard suffered a decline down from 47k to 42k in 1970. However, this resulted in the city flipping to majority Black (despite the fact both Whites and Blacks, like in B’ham, had moved out). Prichard was prominent, along with Tuskegee, of electing Black mayors in the early ‘70s, and wanting to show off that it could manage its own affairs.
In a matter of 3 decades, Prichard went from a booming city of 50,000 to a declining slum in the 20k range. In 2010, it declined to its lowest point since around 1951, just under 23k. The White population declined from over 25,000 in 1960 to just 2,803, nearly 90% drop. The Black population zenithed in 1980 with just over 29,000. It has lost 1/3rd of its Black population down to 19,000 (with 1 out of 5 moving out just between 2000-10).
Prichard is one of the most dysfunctional cities in the nation. The main strip is almost devoid of businesses and large swaths of the town with abandoned properties (either ruined homes, burned homes or just empty fields, with some having the woods and overgrowth reclaiming the land). I just “visited” it via Google Maps recently, and it looks a lot like the worst areas of Detroit. But you can go to many other places to see this where the demographics are similar. East Saint Louis comes to mind (once one of the largest cities in Illinois, now having lost 2/3rds of its population and on course to 3/4ths). Booming cities that all consumed themselves, all because one group of people carried their bad habits instilled in them in the post-New Deal/post-Great Society era to its natural end (only to move on to other places to do exactly the same thing and complain “racism !” when the new place falls apart and the productive class decides not to stick around and watch the same dog and pony show again).
May not tell the whole story but look at the Bonita Carter shooting in 1979 giving rise to the Richard Arrington mayoral victory in the same year.
This is good stuff. Dayton was much the same way, hitting about 330,000 in the 1970s (don’t know the racial mix, but I’m sure it was a white majority), then especially after some factories closed, whites moved out. Dayton itself now is probably majority black, but the total pop is about 250,000.
Thanks. I intend to do this research for every state, it’s just very time consuming, though. Wikipedia doesn’t go into detail for each census (and I’ve been the one updating the figures for AL places off my own research directly from the Census records).
Dayton’s peak was actually just 262,000 in 1960 and has since lost almost 50% to around 140,000 as of 2010, but if its decline from 2000 has continued (again, hard to tell from dodgy inflated census estimates), it will have lost the remaining 10,000 to officially a 50% drop. It was either majority or plurality White in 2010 (it may still be plurality White, unlike Birmingham), I haven’t calculated the exact non-Hispanic White (it may be around 49% White to 43% Black in 2010).
Note that when I count the White population, I only count the non-Hispanic White, because that can falsely skew numbers and analytical research (and would give the impression some heavily Hispanic locales are White).
Of course, if Dayton/Montgomery County were in Alabama with its 71% Non-Hispanic White population, it would’ve gone for Trump by (at least) 20% instead of less than the 1,893 votes he carried it by.
An interesting political nugget with respect to Mobile and Montgomery, Alabama, both now have Black majorities, but still have White Republican Mayors (in the most recent election in Montgomery, the election was between the White Republican incumbent, Todd Strange, I believe a relative of the new Senator, and the former Democrat-turned-Republican Black ex-Congressman Artur Davis).
With the surge of the Hispanic population, it is introducing a new dynamic into Alabama politics. Technically, as of 2010, there is just one small town in the state that has a plurality Hispanic population, but if the influx and birthrates continue, that’s going to change to at least a half-dozen or more officially as of 2020 (and in a few places, too, some of those formerly White-turned-Black suburbs have pushed the White population down to 3rd or 4th place behind Hispanic and “Other Race” or “Two or More Races” categories.
Homewood IL, next door to Hazel Crest where my mom grew up and Grandma lived till she died, is one of the last White holdouts down there, (and was called one of the most “livable” suburbs in the Chi area). But even there the Black population has shot up to 38% in the most recent data I can find.
Update to this story.
Seems they are allowing comments of which I didn’t see with the original AJC article.
Comments are often the best part of the story.
My 350 number is “the greater Dayton area” which includes Trotwood (heavily black), West Carrollton (ditto), white burbs of Oakwood, Kettering, Centerville, Bellbrook, Beavercreek and mixed Fairfield.
I am probably forgetting a. Ouple.
I'm Not saying you should not include us in the list though. I've seen liberal Soccer Mom Democrats at Zoning Commission hearings screeching for bike trails and green space.
I was wondering about that figure. ;-)
Yes, unfortunately the Libertarians have a nasty habit of taking the margin of the vote needed for a Republican win.
Oh, yeah. A lot of these newspapers don’t want comments to be made about their beloved prevert Dimmycrats.
And this is all hearsay-—I never actually looked at the Dayton #s, just what people told me, but it sounds about right based on what I look at when I see the city, the kinds of things it can support, etc.
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