Sketchy B said:
1) Remember that the way they calculate the metro area is kinda misleading -- they including all of Vancouver, WA and Clark county Washington, and ALL of Washington county including Hillsboro and Forest Grove.
2) Whats interesting to me though is that the black proportion of the Portland-Vancouver metro area is increasing even though gentrification is fucking over all the historically black neighborhoods in North and North-east Portland. Whats also crazy is that only 2.7% of Portland-Vancouver was black in 1990 but there were still stong historically black neighborhoods. Portland had aparthied going on for real.
Now the proportion of blacks in PDX/Couv is 3.6%, or about 56,000.
There are 3 times more hispanic and latinos in PDX/Couv than in 1990, and twice as many Asians. We are slowly getting less crackerish, but have a long way to go to make up for the first 125 years or so of Portland's history. I saw that last year Oregon passed Kansas on the list of 'least-honkified' states. That's right, we are now the 31st most diverse state in the nation.....
For y'all that live/lived in North and North-east during the past 15 years, what do you all think of whats going on -- all bad in that neighborhoods are being broken up and black businesses are shutting down, or is it somewhat good that neighborhoods are being integrated so there are better services and they cant consistantly shaft the majority black high schools anymore because there are more black kids in Gresham, Vancouver, etc.?
I personally cant stand seeing all the stupid white hipsters and yuppies on Alberta, Albina and Mississippi Aves. and and dont ever kick it there but I didn't grow up over there so I dont know what y'all think...
Good post.
1) Yeah they do calculate those MSAs to be pretty stretched out, Seattle's includes Tacoma (45 minute drive if your extremely lucky with traffic) and Bremerton (45 minute ferry ride), stretching all the way north to Everett. In rush hour, it would take you over 3 hours to drive from one side of the MSA to the other.
But they do that for good reason, b/c those outlying areas are still a part of the central city. People will come from Salem or Vancouver WA to go to MLB or NFL games in Portland. Hell, people come form Vancouver and Yakima to go to Mariners games. So in the context of pro sports, that 2.2 million number is relavent. Portland is way bigger than those other cities that keep coming up.
2) That point your trying to make about apartheid bears out statistically! The black Index of Dissimilarity in Portland was 63.6 in 1990, and that dropped to 55.2 in 2000. The Index of Dissimilarity is defined as the percentage of a given population that would have to move to equally distribute them across all Census Tracts in the city.
The same two numbers for Seattle were 65.6 (in 1990) and 60.2 (in 2000). Both cities are experiencing gentrificiation in their historically black neighborhoods, but the biggest reason you see more black people in Seattle is that we've got Tacoma as well as suburbs with relatively noticeable black populations. Renton, Federal Way, Burien, Seatac, Kent and Lakewood are all good examples, Portland doesn't really have that.
Neither Portland nor Seattle has ever had sizable neighborhoods that were 90-100% black like the East, South and Midwest. We're seeing neighborhoods that were 67-75% black in the 60s, 70s and 80s dropping down to 30-50% black.
Get all of the Index of Dissimilarity info here:
http://enceladus.isr.umich.edu/race/choosearea.asp