Any of y'all live in these places? How you like it?
The Rise of Black Majority Cities:
The rise of black-majority cities
HOW DID THE NEW BLACK-MAJORITY CITIES COME ABOUT?
From 1970 to 2010, the total number of census-recognized cities grew by nearly 50 percent. But most of today’s black-majority cities—more than 800 of the 1,148 in 2010—already existed in some form in 1970. Moreover, the black share of the U.S. population rose only slightly over this period, from 11.1 percent in 1970 to 12.6 percent in 2010. Therefore, the emergence of black-majority cities reflects more than anything else a changing demographic landscape
between and
within cities. A
new great migration and
intra-metropolitan movement have reshaped urban, suburban, and rural communities, facilitating the rise of today’s black-majority cities.
An existing city’s transition to a black-majority can occur as both black and non-black populations either increase or decrease. To better understand the demographic dynamics giving rise to black-majority cities, Figure 1 below indicates where these cities fall within a typology based on the direction in which total black and non-black populations have trended. Each dot represents an individual black city. We apply this typology to all U.S. cities in which population figures exist for each decennial census from 1970 to 2010, and the median total population of those figures exceeds 2,500. However, only the black-majority cities (as of 2010) are shown in Figure 1.
- Cities in the Boomtowns quadrant gained both black and non-black population from 1970 to 2010.
- Cities in the White Flight quadrant gained black population, but experienced a decrease in non-black (largely white) population.
- Cities in the Suburbanized quadrant lost both black and non-black population.
- Cities in the Gentrified quadrant lost black population, but gained non-black population.
