William Frey's work is very interesting but this article's focus on race gives a one-dimensional view of diversity. The most likely reasons that the suburbs are becoming more diverse is middle class minorities wanting a better environment (esp. public schools) and/or being priced out of some central cities. For places like the NYC area another choice is to just move to another part of the country that is cheaper/better if you have a middle class family; like the south, where many blacks have family ties.

In terms of whites moving to NYC, the net gain is tiny (actually a bit negative if you add up the Queens, BK, and NYC numbers in the article). My strong suspicion is that a lot of middle class whites have continued to leave NYC while the lower crime rate, amenities, etc. have led to wealthier whites moving to NYC despite the ever-increasing costs. This may represent a big _decrease_ in economic diversity and it is very hard to believe this is not the case in Manhattan.

The current mayor of New York has displayed indifference to this by saying that NYC is a premium city and people will continue to pay premium prices despite his tax increases. I don't think this approach is sustainable.

Quote:

{{{{Most of the "minority" suburbs int Nassau county have been around since the 1960's, and they were delibratly created as "minority" suburbs, by the real estate companies and authorites back in the '60s.}}}}


That is the most ridiculous thing I have read here.

If that is so, then are the Real Estate Companies of Manhattan (Corcoran, Citihabitats, BellMarc) 'Deliberately' keeping most of most of Manhattan all white. Manhattan is no more diverse than Nassau or Suffolk counties (at least below 96th Street on the east side, and below Columbia on the west side).

{{{{Some cities and close-in suburbs that lost whites throughout the 1990s gained or at least stemmed their losses. In New York City, Manhattan lost 18,000 non-Hispanic whites in the 1990s but gained 51,000 from 2000 to 2005. Queens lost 175,000 whites in the '90s but has lost less than a third of that so far this decade. Fast-gentrifying Brooklyn lost 43,000 whites in the '90s but has added more than 5,000 since 2000.}}}

I see a trend of Reverse Immigration and the largest 'Reverse White Flight' ever in the City as well as Long Island.

Surely, you have some parts of Nassau county west of the Meadowbrook Parkway like Hempstead & Roosevelt that 'May' have some Blacks & Hispanics, but the majority are very wealthy whites but more likely to be native NY'ers who left Queens & Brooklyn during the 1970's & 1980's.

{{{"Not only are young people going to Manhattan because it's an exciting place to be, but also empty nesters are going," says James Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University in New Jersey. "But prices have been bid up so high in Manhattan that it has spilled over to Jersey City, Brooklyn and Queens."}}}

Or 'Young People' meaning with Mid Six Figure incomes & Trust Funds. Surely, someone making five figures as a single person cannot afford to live anywhere on Manhattan island at todays market rents & prices. Even Queens is fast becoming 'Unaffordable' for the 'Reported' median or mean income compiled by the census department.

Most of Queens like Jackson Heights, Astoria & Woodside have become playgrounds for the wealthy like Park Slope Brooklyn & Brooklyn Heights.

If you are 20-25 and you like living in a bland, homogenious, mall like environment where everyone is a transplant from the wealthy suburbs of the midwest and New England and worships materialism & trends, then Manhattan or Brooklyn is for you.

From Curbed:
Upper East Side: Where The Better Half Parties

Thursday, June 23, 2005, by Lockhart

The Post reports today that hip downtowners are moving to the staid grounds of the Upper East Side, seeking a residential life that's, well, just more boring than life amid an endless sprawl of trendy bars and restaurants. Don't believe this is actually a trend? Take the word of Frederick Lesort, "owner of the eponymous uptown private club and a newly opened restaurant on Madison Avenue":
"Uptown may not be the trendiest crowd, but it's a much better clientele," he says. "It's more faithful. You don't have to be the hottest, trendiest restaurant. You just have to take care of people. The social aspect of it is not so crucial. But downtown, a place has to be trendy - and even if it is, within three months that's over, and it has to close."
Ah, Frederick's, that mellowest of nightlife venues, of which Citysearch notes, "Patrons are marked with a stamp of approval upon entry into the subterranean space." Adds another happy Upper East Side customer, "There is an Upper East Side element to me. I'm slightly preppy. I'm from Connecticut."

-----------------

From the NY Post

DOWN WITH UPTOWN - FED UP WITH DOWNTOWN, A NEW CROWD FALLS FOR UPPER EAST SIDE; IT'S A NEW UPTOWN WHIRL

BYLINE: MAUREEN CALLAHAN

In the same way that something tragically uncool often becomes kind of cool (like tunics, or Justin Timberlake) the staid, charmless Upper East Side is becoming the neighborhood of choice for those New Yorkers who would consider themselves avant-garde, anti-establishment and ahead of the curve: namely, downtowners.

"In my neighborhood, there are a couple of really funny Williamsburg-type kids who are up there and loving it," says Upper East Sider Will Hooks, a 27-year-old assistant art director at Entertainment Weekly who himself moved from Williamsburg two years ago. Hooks finds his new neighborhood cleaner, calmer, cheaper and less sartorially stressful.

"In Williamsburg, I had to wear my corduroy pants or my tight jeans, and I was very emo-ish - even though I didn't listen to emo," he says, laughing. "I had mohawks. I had a mullet - and I'm black! That totally worked there, but it wouldn't work uptown."

Though freed from the strictures of the scenester dress code when he fled uptown, Hooks (who lives in a pocket of what is technically Spanish Harlem and home to a growing yuppie scene) asserts that even today, "you could not peg me as an Upper East Sider - especially with the downtown mentality that I have."

Citing boredom, overcrowding, poorly dressed tourists, cost of living, filth and the dilution of the scenester strain by, ironically, uptown kids, an increasing number of downtown habitues are opting for the novelty of Upper East Side living.

"We just sold an apartment on East 86th street to an East Village couple who had lived downtown forever," says Mary Jo Taubner of Douglas Elliman, who claims she's seen a definite spike in downtown-touptown migration over the past year. (Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of Miller Samuels Real Estate Appraisers, says he too has noticed a similar pattern emerging.)

Still, swaying lifelong scenesters to the Upper East Side is, Taubner says, "a harder sell. I have to reassure them that they aren't moving to an entirely different town."

What convinced the couple from the East Village, Taubner says, was that the Upper East Side triplex has a sister building in Gramercy Park with the same layout and architecture.

"That was what finally swayed them," she says. "They saw they could live similarly to the way they had downtown."

For every anxious East Villager who worries he'll be consigned to a ring of hell that consists only of Banana Republics, sports bars and D'Agostinos, there are those drawn to the Cinemascope beauty and aspirational quality of the Upper East Side.

That old-school idea extends culturally, with popular nightspots like Session 73 (one of the city's best jazz clubs) and gourmet shops like Agata & Valentina.

The stretch of First Avenue between 79th and 86th streets is studded with quirky boutiques that are more often found downtown (note the Tibetan shop). Even the beloved downtown Israeli eatery Rectangles - which closed its East Village location last year - has just reopened on the Upper East Side, where it bustles nightly.

"I've lived in New York City for 24 years, the bulk of it downtown, and I just moved uptown yesterday," says Frederick Lesort, owner of the eponymous uptown private club and a newly opened restaurant on Madison Avenue.

"I love the luxury of living next to Central Park," he rhapsodizes. "I love the style, the elegance, the architecture. People uptown make more of an effort to get dressed up; uptown is a bit more civilized on the weekends. I would never go out downtown from Thursday night through the weekend - someone described it as Six Flags Great Adventure."

Lesort - who also moved to be closer to his two establishments - also believes it's easier to cultivate and keep a clientele uptown, because people care less about the ephemeral heat of a place than how they're treated and the quality of service.

"Uptown may not be the trendiest crowd, but it's a much better clientele," he says. "It's more faithful. You don't have to be the hottest, trendiest restaurant. You just have to take care of people. The social aspect of it is not so crucial. But downtown, a place has to be trendy - and even if it is, within three months that's over, and it has to close."

But for some transplants, the Upper East Side's crucial flaw is precisely the lack of any discernible nightlife. Ex-Williamsburg resident Hooks says he does everything uptown - but socialize.

"I don't want to see guys in khakis getting loud over sports," he says. Instead, he cabs down to the Lower East Side to hang out at stalwarts like Max Fish or Pianos or The Hat - although he's nevertheless likely to run into his domestic-beer-drinking, khaki-wearing Upper East Side brethren down there on Friday and Saturday nights.

"It's like Disneyland - it looks like the kids from the bar on 86th Street just came down and took it over," he says.

"A friend of mine who was visiting was so disappointed. He was like, 'There used to be so many cool dive bars down here.' But you know - and take this with a grain of salt - all the cool kids moved to Williamsburg."

"If you want to grab a drink with a friend, you either wind up at a really expensive hotel bar or some sports bar on Second Avenue with no ambience," laments 33-year-old Kate Igel, who moved, reluctantly, to the Upper East Side after getting priced out of the West Village.

She did not opt for Williamsburg, she says, because "I'm not hipster-y enough. There is an Upper East Side element to me. I'm slightly preppy. I'm from Connecticut."

Igel says the bulk of her friends live downtown, and she always commutes to see them, not the other way around - and she doesn't blame them.

But on her visit to the West Village Tuesday night, Igel says she was shocked by the amount of garbage - "I forgot about the overflowing trash cans" - and still can't get over the inflated real estate.

"Sporadically, I'd go look at other places downtown, but I'd get so depressed. I saw this one place on Cornelia Street that was a dump. I have a beautiful, rent-stabilized onebedroom on 70th and Lex that I can afford on a teacher's salary.

"I live near the park, which I really missed. I have all the conveniences of life here."

That said, Iger freely admits that she'd love to move back downtown.

"I'd do it in a heartbeat," she says. "I never thought I would end up here."

---

UPPER EAST SIDE (Tale of the Tape)

Average 1br rent: $2,171

Weekend scene: Empty, with most natives in the Hamptons and chic inhabitants at the Met or in Central Park

Nightclubs: '80s-era decadence of plush, members-only club Frederick's

Famous residents: Vera Wang, Aerin Lauder (left)

Crucial difference: Shuns trendiness to the point of crushing boredom

Common satorial challenge: Tyranny of the Gap

DOWNTOWN

Average 1br rent: $2,213*

Weekend scene: Overrun with fanny-pack-wearing tourists and inebriated bridge-and-tunnelers

Nightclubs: Bottle service for tacky teen tarts and models at Butter, Marquee, Cain

Famous residents: Olsen twins, Chloe Sevigny (right)

Crucial difference: Embraces trendiness to the point of crushing boredom

Common satorial challenge: Tyranny of the white belt

*In the East Village. Rental figures from Citi Habitats
Posted by: Carla at June 26, 2005 11:31 AM

I totally called this shit. I knew once I moved to the UES, it would become hot(t).

Yorkville is the new Williamsburg, without all the pretentious and desperate trendy people of gentrified Brooklyn.

And Michael and I are living la-harge.

(Don't hate)
Posted by: Art at June 27, 2005 10:07 AM

art, i'd be living large, too, if i had your job.

also, the article sort of says that the ues is still lame. it's just that downtown has become unbearably hip.

ahhhhh, the joys of brooklyn.
Posted by: Anna at June 27, 2005 11:12 AM

Speaking of whites in urban areas, check out this article about hipsters in SoBro.

I think you are talking about the "whites only" policy of the early 50's Levittown

Here is a ten year old NYTimes article

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage ... 731F93BA15751C1A961958260

Most of the "minority" suburbs int Nassau county have been around since the 1960's, and they were delibratly created as "minority" suburbs, by the real estate companies and authorites back in the '60s.


Quote:

Thanks for posting - this stuff fascinates me. The questions that remain to be answered for me are: are we creating minority suburbs (Nassau County certainly has them), are the "benefits" of the suburbs like better schools and less crime being left behind as well, etc. There is also the issue of low life developers who lure people out to the burbs with unrealistically low cost of living expectations and shoddy product. The Poconos have this problem - large number of foreclosures among minorities coupled with enormously long commutes that have impacted family life.

Study: Diversity rises in suburbs

By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY
Suburban counties, once the bastion of white America, are becoming multiethnic tapestries, and white populations are inching up in some urban areas after big losses in the 1990s, according to new Census estimates out Friday.

"Suburbs and especially fast-growing outer suburbs are not just attracting whites anymore," says William Frey, demographer at the Brookings Institution, a think tank. "All minority groups are coming. They're a magnet for blacks as well as Hispanics and Asians."

The changes are dramatic in the South. About 74% of the growth in the U.S. black population happened there from 2000 to 2005. The region also generated about 71% of the national growth in whites, 42% of the Hispanic growth and 27% of the Asian growth.

"Things are becoming much more multicultural in areas that weren't before," says Frey, who analyzed county population estimates for July 1, 2005. "The South's growth is probably more balanced than other regions in racial and ethnic contributions."

Atlanta suburbs in counties such as Gwinnett, Clayton and Cobb had some of the largest gains among blacks, more evidence that the return black migration to the South that began in the 1990s continues.

Most suburban growth across the USA was buoyed significantly by Hispanics and Asians.

Some cities and close-in suburbs that lost whites throughout the 1990s gained or at least stemmed their losses. In New York City, Manhattan lost 18,000 non-Hispanic whites in the 1990s but gained 51,000 from 2000 to 2005. Queens lost 175,000 whites in the '90s but has lost less than a third of that so far this decade. Fast-gentrifying Brooklyn lost 43,000 whites in the '90s but has added more than 5,000 since 2000.

"Not only are young people going to Manhattan because it's an exciting place to be, but also empty nesters are going," says James Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University in New Jersey. "But prices have been bid up so high in Manhattan that it has spilled over to Jersey City, Brooklyn and Queens."

A study earlier this year by CEOs for Cities, a Chicago-based network of urban leaders, found that adults ages 25 to 34 are 30% more likely to live within 3 miles of central business districts.

"It's part of the continuing story of the comeback of cities," says Carol Coletta, president of the group. "Diversification is taking place, and that's generally good news for everyone. When poor people are isolated or racial minorities are isolated, it's not good for the economy."

Other trends:

? Almost half of the growth among whites took place in small metropolitan areas. Blacks, Hispanics and Asians gravitated more toward large metropolitan areas.

? More than a third of Asian growth took place in large metro areas in the West.

? Hispanics account for 71% of the Northeast's population gains this decade.