Cities Changing as Blacks Depart

Atlanta Post
Wednesday, May 18, 2011

advertisements

Kendall Taylor grew up on this city’s tough South Side and is a pastor at Lodebar Church and Ministries in his old neighborhood. But he lives 35 miles away, in Plainfield, Ill. ”I didn’t want my children to grow up in the same environment I did,” says Taylor, 38, who bought a house in Plainfield with his wife Karen, 38, in 2007.

They have one son, Jeremiah, who is 15. Taylor’s mom, sisters, nieces and nephews still live in Chicago. The youngsters, he says, “all want to come and live with me” in the quiet, but fast-growing suburb of about 40,000. Taylor’s decision to live outside Chicago makes him part of a shift tracked by the 2010 Census that surprised many demographers and urban planners.

He is among hundreds of thousands of blacks who moved away from cities with long histories as centers of African-American life, including Chicago, Oakland, Washington, New Orleans and Detroit.

At the other end of the spectrum, in Maine, is the Lewiston-Auburn area, which saw a 476% increase in its black population from 2000 to 2010. Most of the newcomers are refugees from Somalia, says Phil Nadeau, deputy city administrator in Lewiston.

Source: Atlanta Post

More News