Census: Number of black children living in 25 biggest US cities drops by half-million
Last year’s census found that the number of black, non-Hispanic children living in New York City had fallen by 22.4 percent in 10 years. In raw numbers, that meant 127,058 fewer black kids living in the city of Jay Z and Spike Lee, even as the number of black adults grew slightly.
The same pattern has repeated from coast to coast. Los Angeles saw a 31.8 percent decline in its population of black children, far surpassing the 6.9 percent drop in black adults. The number of black children in Atlanta fell by 27 percent. It was down 31 percent in Chicago and 37.6 percent in Detroit. Oakland, Calif. saw a drop of 42.3 percent, an exodus that fell only 6 percentage points below the decline in flood-ravaged New Orleans.
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Demographics experts said a combination of factors appeared to be at work. Americans in general are having fewer children than they once did, due mostly to increased use of birth control. That has been true, too, among black mothers. Teen pregnancy rates among blacks have also plummeted.
But the more significant trend, experts said, may be a migration by young black parents to the suburbs.
Saint Louis had the same phenomenon occur. One of the issues the article doesn’t cover and will become more clear as the rest of the Census data is released is that much of hte housing being moved out of is falling down and there is a cheap supply of obsolescent housing in the inner ring suburbs. As middle class families have gotten smaller we also expect better housing with more bedrooms and bathrooms. Much of the housing from pre-and post-war inner ring suburbs is small and doesn’t have what modern middle class families expect. This has created a glut of cheap housing in a lot of suburbs allowing many working class and working poor black families to move out to inner ring suburbs.
One interesting impact will be on education and it can be seen in many inner ring suburban districts already. Instead of being able to focus improvements in big school districts, the new reality means that multiple districts have to be addressed making the process that much harder.
The other area is public safety where the challenge of addressing crime is far harder when the problem crosses multiple jurisdictions.