'White flight' in Gwinnett?

Mary James, an empty-nester from Snellville, craves the in-town bustle. Michelle Forren is tired of planning life around rush hour in Duluth. And Louise Stewart is fed up with the Spanish-language business signs, backyard chickens and overcrowded homes in her Norcross-area neighborhood.

Though their reasons vary, all three women plan to join an emerging demographic: whites leaving Gwinnett County.

In what might surprise metro Atlantans who remember the nearly lily-white county of old, Gwinnett's non-Hispanic white population declined for the first time last year, according to the latest estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. The drop of about 1,500 whites came even as Gwinnett, the state's perennial growth leader, added more than 27,000 residents.

One year doesn't make a trend. And some observers question the census estimates. But the figures offer more evidence that the number of whites is at the very least leveling off in Gwinnett, adding a new dimension to a lightning-fast demographic shift that has transformed a once-uniform suburb into what one Washington think tank called a "mini-Ellis Island."

One other indicator: White student enrollment in Gwinnett schools has declined in each of the past five years.

In some ways, Gwinnett is behaving like Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb and Fulton counties, whose non-Hispanic white populations have been dropping. But those counties aren't growing nearly as fast as Gwinnett.

Because thousands of whites still move to Gwinnett each year, the stagnating total suggests that many must be leaving, too, said Douglas C. Bachtel, a demographer at the University of Georgia. That matters because most of Gwinnett's longtime residents happen to be white. And communities can struggle when their most deeply rooted residents leave, Bachtel said. "These are the foot soldiers for your community associations — the chambers, the PTAs for the various self-help groups," he said.

James is one of those leaving, now that her three sons have graduated from high school. She and her husband want to leave Snellville for a place where they can stroll to shops, restaurants and museums. They put an offer on a house in the Oakhurst section of Decatur last week. "I'm ready for a new stage," James said. "I'm ready to break out and experience life without kids."

But residents such as Stewart say they're departing not because they've changed but because the community around them has. "I used to be able to have pleasant chats with neighbors, and now few speak English," said Stewart, who lives with her four dogs in the Rockborough North subdivision off Beaver Ruin Road. "It's a lonely feeling."

Stewart, who teaches English for speakers of other languages at Gwinnett Technical College, waved to a former student as she walked down the street she's called home for 25 years. "Are you still taking English classes?" Stewart shouted. The woman smiled and shook her head no. Stewart continued walking past yards sprouting satellite dishes and cactus plants. "Oh well," she said.

The number of Hispanics in Gwinnett is now more than 12 times what it was in 1990, according to the latest census estimates. The Asian population has increased more than sixfold. And the black population has grown sevenfold. Until recently, the white population was growing, too, just not as fast. The county is now 57 percent white, down from 90 percent in 1990.

Louise Radloff, a member of the Gwinnett County school board for more than 30 years, said the additions have enriched her district between Norcross and Lilburn. It's the subtractions that hurt. Many schools in the area are now less than 10 percent white.

"It's called white flight," Radloff said. "There is a perception that with the diversity, there is low-income and there is crime. We need to learn to cope with these issues and decide that all men are created equal."

Bart Lewis, chief of the research division at the Atlanta Regional Commission, said any "white flight" from Gwinnett is limited. It's a far cry, he said, from what happened a generation ago in parts of Atlanta and DeKalb County, where neighborhoods changed practically overnight as white families moved to outlying areas such as Gwinnett.

In fact, Lewis finds it hard to believe that the number of whites isn't still rising in Gwinnett. Accurate racial breakdowns are difficult to estimate, particularly at the county level, he said.

Lewis sees the shift in Gwinnett as driven more by economics than race, anyway. Lower-income families scouring metro Atlanta for an affordable house or apartment are landing in the aging neighborhoods of western Gwinnett. Most of them happen to be minorities, Lewis said.

"What I think you're really seeing is an evacuation of more-affluent households of one race replaced by less-affluent people of another race," he said.

Kay Kim, a real-estate agent whose 450 home sales were mostly in western Gwinnett last year, said many white sellers have complained to her about culture clash. Roughly 80 percent of her sellers last year were white, and 50 percent of the buyers were Latino, she said. Many of the departing families settled farther out in Gwinnett or in Hall, Forsyth and Jackson counties, Kim said.

The turnover has been largely concentrated in more-affordable neighborhoods around Duluth, Lilburn, Lawrenceville and Norcross, she said. Subdivisions where homes are priced above $200,000 tend to be more stable, Kim said.

William Frey, a demographer at the University of Michigan's Population Studies Center, said people leaving Gwinnett is nothing new. With no natural boundaries, metro Atlanta makes it easy for people to pull up the stakes and move farther out.

That tends to accelerate as an area gets more crowded, no matter the race of the newcomers, he said.

Gwinnett also is likely drawing a smaller share of the newcomers who traditionally settle on the edge of a given city. Those whites are driving the rapid growth in the exurbs of Forsyth, Henry and Cherokee counties, Frey said.

Folks such as Forren, the Duluth resident, prefer to live near wide-open spaces. Gridlock in Smyrna led Forren to Gwinnett 20 years ago. Now she and her husband are getting that cramped feeling again. They encounter so much traffic Friday evenings that it's hard to make it to a movie theater on time.

They've already staked out their second escape — to a patch of land in Cherokee County. Forren, 43, said she'll miss shopping at the new Korean market near her house and dining at her favorite Thai and Vietnamese restaurants. "I really like the different cultures," she said. "For me, it's just traffic."

The demographic shift is changing more than just the restaurants in the corner strip mall. Little-used softball diamonds at Lucky Shoals Park in Norcross were recently converted into soccer fields.

When pop star Marc Anthony performed at the Gwinnett Arena in September, he sang in Spanish, not English, the language he used onstage in Atlanta.

And officials who once expected to close schools around the aging neighborhoods of western Gwinnett are instead adding classrooms and English language teachers to accommodate the children of immigrants.

The changes have been slower to reach the county's elected offices, however. The County Commission and school board remain all white, for example. But that will change, too, predicts Bachtel, the University of Georgia demographer.

Gwinnett's business-friendly reputation should continue to attract immigrants and minorities, Bachtel said. "It doesn't matter who you are as long as you've come to work in Gwinnett," he said.

He pointed to Gwinnett schools as a bellwether. The number of white students has dropped by 6,366 since 2000, even as overall enrollment has swelled by 34,552 students, according to figures provided by Sloan Roach, Gwinnett schools spokeswoman. The schools became "majority minority" in January 2004.

It's a threshold that Gwinnett — and eventually the nation — is expected to cross as well. Some white families will embrace those changes. Others won't, Bachtel said. "That big number of white folks leaving," he said, "I think that's a harbinger of things to come."

Bachtel reiterated the point Monday during a video presentation to the county commissioners, telling them to prepare for the trend to accelerate.

County Commissioner Lorraine Green pointed out that some of the drop in white student enrollment could be because of the growth of private schools in the county. But she does think Gwinnett officials should make it easier for longtime residents — most of whom happen to be white — to stay.

Providing more housing for empty-nesters, seniors and young singles would add stability, Green said. And she sees those options coming to western Gwinnett, the very spot that has experienced an exodus of longtime residents. Green wants to allow high-rise condos that could anchor walkable mixed-use projects in designated areas.

"That way, people do not have to leave Gwinnett County when they reach that next stage in life," Green said. "I don't think people have left because they say 'Oh my God, I don't love Gwinnett County anymore.' "

I lived in Doraville when I first moved to Atlanta in '92. There was nothing country about it, well, unless you consider the Yucatan Peninsula "country".

"This type of conversion in a reasonable barometer of cultural shift taking place in a neighborhood"

Ya' know what else is? The race of the people on billboard advertisements.

When I'm out of town or in some strange area, I can always go by that to tell when I'm getting into a different neighborhood.

However homogonized the gvt or various other groups insist we view our cities, I'm convinced the ad agencies must actually have racial maps in their offices.

That's because, as hard as it may be for you to believe, there are Hispanic white people. There are even large populations of Hispanic Jews in South Florida.

Hispanics are of many races. Its just that the PRs and Dominicans in New York, and the Mexicans everywhere else, happen to be racially mixed, ie "nonwhite."

I lived in Doraville when I first moved to Atlanta in '92. There was nothing country about it, well, unless you consider the Yucatan Peninsula "country".

Well, the A.R.S. wrote that song in the early 70s. A lot had changed by 1992, and I can't be sure they were telling the truth even in 1974, but they probably were. :-)

I lived a little south of Atlanta in the mid-1970s, but never made it to Doraville.

Ya' know what else is? The race of the people on billboard advertisements.

Marketers are usually way ahead of the curve when it comes to sensing a changing neighborhood. What you said puts me in mind of a guy I met who told me he knew his nabe in Queens was changing when the ads for Newports with black folk were put up.

Other examples are signs in other languages, salons offering "hair straightening", and Halal meat markets. It all depends on the ethnic groups in question.

It's tiresome to keep hearing that "all men are created equal". Nothing could be further from the truth, and it is a bastardization of the Declaration of Independence from which the quote came.

the rest of the statement goes, "...,endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights...". Yes people are created equal in that they are born with the same rights, some of which are life, liberty, and the right to pursue happiness.

I'm convinced the ad agencies must actually have racial maps in their offices.

That may be true, but IMO ad agencies live in some parallel universe that has nothing to do with reality (watch any TV commercial) but reflects the way they WANT reality to be.

Therefore those billboards may be leading indicators, not lagging indicators.

You and I are both residents of the same border state, and we see this on a daily basis, everywhere we go, and we know that the resentment is growing, yet we're being told to shut up and take it, no matter how much it's costing us in dollars and quality of life.

Those of us who CAN'T leave this invaded state are leaving a huge mess for our children and grandchildren. The pandering politicians don't care as long as the numbers keep coming. We're importing poverty, disease, ignorance and dependence.

Someone please tell me WHY this is good for America??? I doubt if anyone can answer that question - our own President can't answer it. He's too busy planning Social Security for illegal aliens, planning the FTAA, blindly going ahead with his globalism plan that will destroy America.

I lived in a building in Chicago where most of my neighbors were mental cases collecting Section 8 vouchers to pay the rent. One of my neighbors constantly screamed out the window on how Lionel Richie was coming to rape him.

Being that there are now illegals near where my sister lives in South Carolina, I can't really think of anyplace for folks to flee too.

This is complete B.S. I am a so-called hispanic, and I would quickly get the hell out of any area were hispanics are the majority. It has nothing to do with race; but with behavior, culture, and economics.

Someone else remembers that song? "Ain't much but it's home."

Doraville used to be a little town known for GM and Treasure Island. It's where you would get your driver's license because they did not make you parallel park. We could hang out in Doraville and not be afraid.

Not any more.

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