My point is simply that there is no segregation in NYC. Maybe self-segregation and white flight when it comes to the public school system but not segregation. And if black kids are going to public school in Chelsea (the new gay West Village) then they are eating lunch and spending pocket money in that neighborhood. Segregation means (to me) never seeing a black or hispanic face on the street. This has never been true in the 40 years I’ve been living on and off in NYC.
Perhaps northeastern cities never experienced the phenomenon of "parallel downtowns," one for black and one for white, but Harlem arose for some reason.
While I've never lived there, I've travelled there for business frequently enough to have made a few observations. Midtown can be something of a rarified atmosphere depending upon just where you are at the time. You're never more than a cab ride away from a highly segregated area, though.
Chicago is similar, albeit not so upclose and personal, there's a distinct line below which the world changes for the worse, a lot like some southern cities. Manhattan is better described as an island of interaction surrounded by segregation that would bring in the Feds anywhere else.
Segregation laws were instituted to thwart crusaders and freedom riders.
Most hard working blacks had no desire to live where they weren't wanted.
Desegregation has now become a tool to stop any self determination in this area.
Even when I was in school in the 1960s we had freedom of choice schools yet most blacks still preferred their own till forced busing in 1970
Now public schools are 99% black in my now 80% black hometown of Jackson MS
these are just realities and the notion that we must constantly fight human nature just because is destructive and serves no greater purpose except the ruination of public schools