They have more Asians because they are closer to Asia.

 

They are also linked to the Pacific Rim trading system since they are so close.  Thats a reason the Japanese have that IT concentration in Portland. 

 

It's easy to become hip and trendy when you're working with a mostly blank state and fewer of the issues associated with the urban underclass (white, black, Hispanic, whatever)

 

Then there is the counterexample of Chicago, hip, trendy, and with big ghettos. Regionally, there is Louisville, which has the problems associated with an urban underclass, yet city living remains desirable and the urban housing market remains strong in certain neighborhoods.

 

I'm not sure what Renns point was, really. Maybe that places like Portland are not relevant models for the urban Midwest due to the peculiar demographics of those places.

First, thanks for the recommendation.  I see Chicago as in a different league since it's so big.  Dayton's about a 1 or 2 degree of separation city while Chicago is at least 6.

 

And I think you're right about Renn's point.

For a smaller place that had a similar "hip/growth" buzz, for Ohio, there is Columbus.

According to Benjamin's website, 10 of Ohio's 88 counties classify as whitopias.  Part of Benjamin's problem when grappling with demographic homogeneity is the fact that 75% of the American populus is white and 65% are non-Hispanic whites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity

 

  I think you are reading into it too far. Portland and Seattle have fewer blacks because they are farther from Africa. They have more Asians because they are closer to Asia. These show regional migration patterns rather than intracity migration patterns.

 

 

 

They're not just further from Africa, but also the South.

 

I think you are reading into it too far. Portland and Seattle have fewer blacks because they are farther from Africa. They have more Asians because they are closer to Asia. These show regional migration patterns rather than intracity migration patterns.

 

 

 

They're not just further from Africa, but also the South.

So now that the problem has been pinpointed (the black underclass), what do y'all think should be done?

 

...

 

   I think you are reading into it too far. Portland and Seattle have fewer blacks because they are farther from Africa. They have more Asians because they are closer to Asia. These show regional migration patterns rather than intracity migration patterns.

 

But how does Portland have so many white people when it's so far from Europe?

 

I think you are reading into it too far. Portland and Seattle have fewer blacks because they are farther from Africa. They have more Asians because they are closer to Asia. These show regional migration patterns rather than intracity migration patterns.

 

But how does Portland have so many white people when it's so far from Europe?

^ I was waiting for that fallacy to emerge.  I wonder if there is an explanation other than Oregon was settled by Europeans and never had a large in-migration of low wage workers.

Hmmm, someone should write a book about white people who like moving to places that are mostly white....wait a minute....

 

[by the way, in case it wasn't clear, my question about Portland was not serious.  And I hope the post about proximity to Africa wasn't either.]

^---"And I hope the post about proximity to Africa wasn't either."

 

Oh gee. Do I have to spell it out for you?

 

 

^Eighth&State- you're right, proximity to Africa is  not irrelevant, but a lot has happened in the 200 years since the US banned the importation of slaves in the early 19th century.  And a vast majority of slaves and their descendants lived in rural areas until the early 20th century.

 

I would suggest a much more useful predictor of which cities have large African American populations would be how many low skilled manufacturing jobs were created between 1900 and 1965.  Really no different from an explanation of why I presume there aren't a whole lot of Polish-Americans in the Pacific NW either.

Found this at Carmichaels Bookstore in Lousiville (Publishers Weekly 2009 Bookstore of the Year) and have been reading it while in  here for the holiday weekend.

 

Interesting chapter on Carnegie Hill in NYC as an urban Whitopia.  Sounds like Oakwood.  Forsyth County sounded familiar...recall this from that "History of the New South" class I took at UofK. Sure enough it was the same place I remember..the lynching and driving blacks from the county.  That was then this is now...

 

The book lists "Extereme Whitopian Counties: At least 90% white, with total pop growth over 10% since 2000 and 75% of that growth coming from non-hispanic whites (assume he's using census estimates)

 

For the Dayton/Ciny area:

 

Boone County, KY

Grant County, KY

Warren County, OH

 

"Witopian Counties" : at least 85% non-hispanic white, with total pop growth  of at least 7%  after 2000 and at least two/thirds coming from non-hispanic whites...for Cin-Day:

 

Clermont County, OH

Clinton County, OH

Pendleton County , KY

 

 

 

 

 

What's the title?

"Searching for Whitopia"  Subtite: "An Impropable Journey to the Heart of White America"

 

...though its not that simple.

 

 

"Searching for Whitopia" Subtite: "An Impropable Journey to the Heart of White America"

 

...though its not that simple.

 

 

Oh, ok, I thought you might be referencing something different.  Not that simple? Why the mystery?

A good chapter is chapter 6, the Geography of Homogeneity.  This is where he discusses structural racism. 

 

A good quote, and relevant to Urban Ohio is (as part of a call to have a conversation about racial inequalities than about feelings):

 

"So instead of asking  Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? let us resolve to ask Why did Latinos and blacks, with comparable incomes and credit histories to whites, recieve a disporportionate share of predatory sub-prime loans leading to the home foreclosure crisis?"

 

 

Its not that simple since he talks about issues of class as well as race.  And the issues of illegal or mass immigration from non-white places like Mexico.  The book seems to be as much about the wealthy or upper middle classes cocooning themselves away from the rest of the population as it does about racial/ethnic issues. 

 

 

Why did Latinos and blacks, with comparable incomes and credit histories to whites, recieve a disporportionate share of predatory sub-prime loans leading to the home foreclosure crisis?"

 

I don't know but it was probably a policy promoted by liberal idiots.

^

Actually I have an anecdote about that.  When I took my partners ashes to California I stayed with his sister and brother in law.  They have a little house but they did some nice improvements in it, including new windows and a hardwood floor.  We got to talking about this housing stuff, and the sister told me that on two occasions they had people seriously pushing these subprime mortgages. Gloria (the sister) told me that she couldnt figure out how these would work, too good to be true, but they just would lean on the hard sell...they would not leave, and she had to throw one of these morgage salesman out of the house...threatned to call the cops,  If I recall right...

 

Gloria and her husband are latinos, and they are working class latinos (he is foreman at an auto deal er repair shop and she works in a hospital and does housecleaning on the side), so I figure they were being targeted as unsophisticated marks for one of these bad mortgage deals.  So figure that was going on all over the place. 

 

 

I think you're both right.

 

Read the chapter "Credit Revolution" in the book "Comeback Cities."

 

Once the liberal politicians expanded CRA to not only combat redlining but to actually target higher-risk minority people, the big banks jumped on board because they had every incentive to get the basically risk free business. Then the hedge funds got into and well....

 

When the house of cards collapsed, the government (ie taxpayers) had to take the fall.

^This topic is discussed in another thread or two.  I know it's a convenient target and it's become conventional wisdom in some circles, but there's pretty much zero evidence that the CRA had much to do with the foreclosure crisis or its disproportionate impact on black and latino homeowners.  And there's plenty of scholarship suggesting that it didn't.  GSE affordability targets are partly to blame.  And unregulated mortgage banks + mortgage brokers + unsavvy borrowers (disproportionately poor and minority for a host of reasons) + wall street + the wager by institutional investors that housing prices would not decline in every region at the same time = very much to blame.  Ahhh the poor CRA.

 

Rich Benjamin's probably right that questions about differing access to prime loans don't get the attention they deserve in everyday reporting, but there's been tons of research devoted to these types of questions in the past few decades- this is not an issue that's flown under the radar of the industry or policy community.

The CRA updates in 1995 specifically:

 

•  Allowed CRA governed institutions to hold only 2.5% of their capital to back investments as opposed to 10% for non-CRA institutions.

•  Provided CRA institutions extraordinary leverage, allowing them to borrow at lower rates than banks.

•  Performance standards were clarified, establishing specific metrics to be measured against, including “percentage of subprime securities held”.

•  Office of the Comptroller of the Currency allowed lenders subject to the CRA to claim community development loan credits for loans made to help finance the environmental cleanup or redevelopment of sites when it was part of an effort to revitalize a low or moderate income community.

 

The CRA point blank incented financial institutions to lend money to people who otherwise would not have been lent money.  There are mountains of eveidence directly linking the CRA to the change in lending proactices.

 

No "unregulated" mortage originator is going to be making these loans if there isn't anyone (RE:  Fannie Mae) buying these loans on the secondary market.  And since financial institutions (re: Fannie Mae) were not only incented to buy these sub-prime loans, but also punished if they didn't explicitly in the CRA, what did you expect to happen?

 

And minorities were "targeted" over whites not having anything to do with income or race; there were clauses specifically in the CRA targeting urban areas.  So lending to all the poor white people in Appalachia did not get the same credit rating bump you would get if you lent to a poor black person in the inner city.  It was part of Clinton's National Homeownership Strategy...but Clionton knew the Republican Congress wouldn't go for it, so he had the Department of Housing and Urban Affairs make the regulatory changes instead of Congress...thus Fannie and Freddie became directly involved with Subprime mortgages (and why the biggest buyers of COuntrywide's subprime mortgage securities was Fannie Mae).

^Because this veers from Whitopia quite a bit, I've continued this discussion at: http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,17481.new.html#new

Yup our current financial meltdown is the responsibility of poor brown and black urban folk....not rich white republican bankers.

 

Not only is the CRA very unlikely to have spurred tons of imprudent lending, but we have no less a source than Ben Bernanke frankly telling Community Affairs Research Conference in March of 2007 that (emphasis added):

 

    ..changes in the structure of the financial industry have resulted in many financial transactions that fell under the CRA umbrella in 1977 having become increasingly the province of nondepositories not subject to CRA, including companies owned by banks or bank holding companies. Holding companies' nonbank affiliates, for instance, can be included in the CRA assessment of the banking institution at the discretion of the bank but need not be. Most mortgages are now packaged by brokers, and nearly two in three mortgages are originated by nondepositories not covered by the CRA.

 

Not only are most mortgages issued by entities that are outside the CRA, but there's plenty of evidence on what actually did cause the dammed meltdown. For example, we have a very detailed study conducted by two authors from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business titled "The Consequences of Mortgage Credit Expansion: Evidence from the 2007 Mortgage Default Crisis." Their conclusion (emphasis added):

 

    Our central finding is that a rapid expansion in the supply of credit to zip codes with high latent demand for mortgages is a main cause of both house price appreciation from 2001 to 2005 and the subsequent sharp increase in defaults from 2005 to 2007. The expansion in credit supply was driven by a shift in the mortgage industry towards “disintermediation”, which we define as the process in which originators sell mortgages in the secondary market shortly after origination.

 

http://watchingthewatchers.org/news/1458/right-never-wrong-part-6000

I think it was in an NPR piece that I heard (it might have been a print piece) whitopia regarded "not as something new but as the way America used to be."  I thought it was odd and couldn't track down the source when I googled it later but I did find this post from the blog "Stuff Black People Don't Like"

 

#49. Whitopia

 

Who in the world could like Pre-Obama America? The boring, white-bread world that represented America when it 90 percent white (as late as 1964 the United States was less than 1 percent Hispanic - a forthcoming SBPDL) is but a distant memory, like the view of major city's skyline in the rear-view mirror as white people flee to their Whitopia's.

 

Wait, wait, wait. It is a well documented fact that the majority of Black people live in major cities (an important website that shows which states in America have the highest Black population can be found here) and thus - despite those pioneering Stuff White People Like whites who practice gentrification - have few white neighbors.

 

Strangely, white people don't want to live among Black people despite the ululating protestations of disingenuous white liberals who demand complete integration yet flee farther from Black people than their MARs counterparts.

http://stuffblackpeopledontlike.blogspot.com/2009/10/49-whitopia.html