Progressive Urbanism: Stuff White People Like?
Aaron Renn has a slightly odd piece in New Geography in which he argues that, basically, the most-cited models of progressive urbanism don’t have enough black people in them:
The standard list includes Portland, Seattle, Austin, Minneapolis, and Denver. In particular, Portland is held up as a paradigm, with its urban growth boundary, extensive transit system, excellent cycling culture, and a pro-density policy. These cities are frequently contrasted with those of the Rust Belt and South, which are found wanting, often even by locals, as “cool” urban places.
But look closely at these exemplars and a curious fact emerges. If you take away the dominant Tier One cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles you will find that the “progressive” cities aren’t red or blue, but another color entirely: white.
In fact, not one of these “progressive” cities even reaches the national average for African American percentage population in its core county. Perhaps not progressiveness but whiteness is the defining characteristic of the group.
This strikes me as largely an adventure in definitional games. Why would you take an accounting of American cities that leaves out the three largest cities? Should we really list Travis County, TX (i.e., Austin) as part of a phenomenon called “The White City” when its proportion of non-Hispanic whites—51.8%—is dramatically below the national average? Austin is a bit less black than the country as a whole, in other words, but it’s also less white. Rather than an disproportionately white city, it’s a disproportionately Hispanic and Asian city.
But to take what I think is the ray of truth here, if you take a place that’s under-invested for decades in walkable urbanism and then create a bit of walkable urbanism the tendency is for that bit to become very expensive. And since African-American households have lower incomes and substantially less wealth than white households, the tendency is for the walkable urban places to become white. But to raise this as an objection to building walkable urbanism is like saying that we shouldn’t try to have great public schools, because poor people might not be able to afford to live near them. That’s totally backwards—the inability of poor people to afford to live in good school districts highlights the need for more good educational opportunities not fewer. By the same token, if investments in walkable urbanism cause prices to shoot up and price people out of the area that shows that we need more walkable urbanism.
Meanwhile, a number of “uncool” sunbelt cities are working to change their policies. Miami Mayor Manny Diaz is pushing for bicycles, there are newish light rail systems in Houston and Dallas and Phoenix, etc. And I’m not sure why majority-black Washington DC—home of by far the biggest and most successful example of postwar urban rail investment in America—doesn’t count as an example of progressive transportation policy.
76 Responses to “Progressive Urbanism: Stuff White People Like?”
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October 23rd, 2009 at 1:52 pm
While Portland is indeed stunningly white, even its Asian population seems small on a % basis compared to Seattle or San Francisco, I don’t think that Portland’s mass transit infrastructure is a function of its wealth. Unemployment there is quite high, and outside of Nike and Intel there really isn’t a big business sector there.
Would be interesting to compare the income of Portland to a place like Nashville or Atlanta. My point being that Portland’s commitment to bikes has nothing to do with its income levels. I think there is a just a very strong tradition of progressive-minded people there.
October 23rd, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Well, blacks live in areas that have been very hostile to progressive policies, mainly because race was used as a wedge issue, so conservative economics have dominated there, in places like Tennessee, Indiana or Ohio. That effect has diminished as blacks moved from the South into cities like Chicago or New York, but it’s still there, and so it shows statistically. And Mr. Renn’s argument is slightly dishonest, too, because he says that his theory is valid except when it isn’t (”If you take away the dominant Tier One Cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles”).
October 23rd, 2009 at 1:56 pm
That’s not a ray of truth, that’s a point against. If the thing at issue here is wealth, then look at wealth. How much impact does race have on these cities when you control for wealth?
October 23rd, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Portland, Seattle, Denver, and Minneapolis are all northern and/or western cities that never had slavery. So there was not much historical black population in those cities until the WW-II era migrations north for work in the factories. But even with that historical migration, they don’t come close to having the black populations of historically southern cities like say…Atlanta, New Orleans, Birmingham, etc.
I think this is an instance where correlation does not equal causation. The north is much more progressive than the south and one would expect to see progressive modes of development (walkable cities) to a greater extent in the the north rather than the south. The fact that northern cities are whiter than southern cities has to do with history, not progressiveness. And it is the southern whites that make their cities conservative, not the black populations.
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Same with Denver. Roughly 50% non-Hispanic white. And the reason that it is slightly below the national average in terms of African-American population is that the sheer number of Latino residents drives down the percentages for the rest.
(I.e., Denver has about 600,000 people — 60,000 AA, 200,000 Hispanic, 20,000 Asian, 310,000 white, and 10,000 other (mostly American Indian). If you reduce the number of Latinos to a figure in line with the national average (13%), Denver would be a city with roughly 480,000 people, 12.5% of whom — exactly the national average — would be black.)
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Yeah, I’m with Ambergris. If you’re not going to include NYC, Chicago, and Los Angeles as “progressive cities,” you’re really putting your thumb on the scales.
And as people have pointed out, San Francisco isn’t on his list either. It’s really just 5 cities versus all other cities.
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:05 pm
You can prove anything if you cherry-pick. Phoenix, an anti-transit, uncool, sprawling mess is 5.8% black. Boston, still one of the coolest places in the world, is 25% black.
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Where are Chicago, Detroit, LA, and NYC?
Demonstrating my regional bias, I would prefer saying that the north is progressive and the south is not progressive. But other than that I agree with #4 Kent. Perhaps the tax base e.g. property taxes is an contributor: poor whites vs poor non-whites.
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Ta-nehisi Coates’ take on that piece.
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I think #2 has a point. Nobody’s going to listen to crap about “welfare queens” when the welfare queen looks like their cousin. Playing one race against the other is how Southern plutocrats win their class war, and it just doesn’t play the same in Portland.
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Well we all know that blacks prefer a hot climate, that racial thing right?
Indeed if it were not for employment opportunities I doubt you’d ever see a dark face north of Dixie.
Except for the gay ones of course but that’s a horse of another color.
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Thank you for linking the piece.
I would like to stress that I don’t disagree with bike lanes, transit, etc. I’m a fan of many of Portland’s policies, am a huge fan of public transit, and have championed densification of Midwest cities.
Where I think it breaks down is that too few places have properly tailored the solution and the sales plan to the particular needs of their communities, hence significant failures in many places to make progress.
I go into this in more detail on my own blog:
http://www.urbanophile.com/2009/10/20/the-white-city/
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Noted racist Steve Salier brought this same article up a few days ago and all of these same points were raised. Clearly the writer of the New Geography piece had a point he wanted to prove and cherry picked data in order to “prove” it. Urbanism is racist.
I wonder what we would discover about the racial composition of the nations top suburban communities if we made a similar study, especially if we took care to toss out any suburban communities with a large number of blacks counted all non blacks as white when it pleased us to do so.
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Didn’t we just deal with this crap?
… you have produced a useless sample, you idiot.
… except where it’s brown or yellow.
But hey, at least I know I don’t need to waste any time at New Geography.
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:23 pm
White progressives doth protest too much.
Cities all across the country are playing hot potato with their native-born African American born populations, trying to pawn them off on other cities. Matt’s New York City’s native-born black population has been declining since 1979. His adopted Washington D.C. is one of the few cities in the country where not only immigrants are pushing out American blacks, but the number of white people rose by almost 20% just over 2000 to 2007. Chicago has been tearing down housing projects and handing out Section 8 rental subsidy messages with the word that they’ll go a lot farther in Champagne-Urbana or Madison than in Chicago. Heck, Memphis has revitalized its downtown by dispatching blacks to the suburbs with Section 8 vouchers, as that Atlantic article noted. And, of course, Portland has had such an influx of whites that blacks are getting gentrified by whites off of Martin Luther King Drive.
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:29 pm
So that is why Sailer was so obsessed with Portland!
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:31 pm
By the way, I love this blog. It’s great to get a link from you – even if you didn’t like the piece. I’m confident there’s plenty I’ve written you would agree with though, so hopefully next time.
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:31 pm
“If you’re not going to include NYC, Chicago, and Los Angeles as ‘progressive cities,’ you’re really putting your thumb on the scales.”
Right, and the decisions to disingenuously count Hispanics as whites, and include Austin, amount to pushing down on the scales with both hands.
To the limited extent that a correlation actually exists, I would point primarily at the legacy of suburban white flight and right-wing racial backlash politics in many urban areas with large minority populations. This is certainly the case in Indianapolis and Cincinnati, with which I have some personal experience.
It’s also not exactly a groundbreaking observation to note that progressive politics have been more successful in relatively homogeneous places (Scandinavia, etc.) But, of course, this hinges on the ability of progressive politics to win support from less progressive voters who are only willing to support programs that benefit their own kind.
One could also point out that Minneapolis, Seattle, and Austin all have gigantic public universities.
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:38 pm
As I mentioned in the last thread where Steve Sailer started going hog-wild on this piece like its some sort of smoking gun, the authors not only pretended every city that didn’t fit their definition in America simply didn’t exist, they also pretended that the rest of the world didn’t exist either.
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Can’t we all agree that this story has been thoroughly debunked by now, and stop giving it so much attention? I’m actually a little confused as to why progressives seem to be so intent on lengthening its shelf life.
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Via the chart above, Minneapolis is 82% of national average. Maybe I’m missing something, but I’m not convinced that that 18% constitute a significant difference (”why honey, I’m only seeing 4/5ths as many African Americans as I expected) and yet this city is the 4th most homogeneously white place in this cherry picked list?
I’d grant Portland and Seattle at 50%. But two cities makes a pretty thin case.
A Minneapolis friend of mine, originally hailing from New York cited diversity as a reason for moving here. It’s hardly an all white city.
October 23rd, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Why use the county statistics anyway? Minneapolis for example is about 18% black; the portions of Hennepin County that drive down the percentage are also poster-children for sprawl and non-urbanist planning.
October 23rd, 2009 at 3:02 pm
The author seems to have had a hard time explaining that the problem with embracing “progressive” urban walkability is that it will lead to gentrification of the very communities that it was likely to trying to help, which subsequently causes the people that lived there to no longer be able to afford their homes.
This has in fact been seen time and time again in cities trying to update their public transit infrastructure. He seems to be advocating that sometimes these policies should be fine tuned to prevent this to allow for sustained and diverse growth by preventing the diverse populations from being priced out by development. He then gives examples of cities that are doing just that: Houston, Dallas, Atlanta.
October 23rd, 2009 at 3:03 pm
I would also point out that St. Louis is a much much blacker city than KC but is a decently progressive one. It’s no Portland by a long shot, but definitely better and blacker than the cities on the traditional side of the chart.
October 23rd, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Minneapolis is weird. It used to be very, very diverse throughout the city, with blacks and whites living side by side — so much so that the Star Tribune declared an end to segregation in the 80s. (!)
That all changed when a mayor come in and set up “neighborhood” schools. That sounds great, until parents thought black = poor, and moved their kids to whiter areas. School district policy often re-spurs neighborhood segregation.
The point: education, land use, and transportation are one thing that we treat separately by several different agencies. This allows everyone to pass the buck for responsibility and has horrible outcomes for creating ghettoized areas, hurting the larger regions productivity. Urbanism is definitely NOT stuff white people like when viewed this way — it’s preventing a prisoner’s dilemma-like situation, where individuals jump ship to schools and neighborhoods that are whiter, pushing blacks to undesirable areas and hurting the region’s overall welfare.
October 23rd, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Ambergris said:
Well, blacks live in areas that have been very hostile to progressive policies, mainly because race was used as a wedge issue, so conservative economics have dominated there, in places like Tennessee, Indiana or Ohio.
It is certainly the case of Atlanta, the fact that MARTA (Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Auth) only covers Fulton and DeKalb counties, is because the (at least then) white majority Cobb and Gwinett counties refused to fund it, because “concerns” about “crime”, i.e. blacks having easy access to their bedroom communities. Even today the favorite sport for republican legislators is to cut off funding for MARTA. Well that and wrestling control of the Hartfield-Jackson Airport away from the city of Atlanta.
October 23rd, 2009 at 3:08 pm
From personal experience, I can assure you that Austin’s development has simply been build huge expensive condo buildings in areas already dense with little residential capacity and buying undervalued east side property from minorities and renovating to a restrictive price level for the original occupants. The actual infrastructure investment has been small, but the size of the city allows for walkability without too much of it.
Houston has actually done a great job with this issue. It built a light rail line through a low value inner area of the city, which led to gentrification and removal of almost all the original inhabitants. In response, it has started to work on many projects that aim to provide more necessary services to neighborhoods as a whole by working with community leaders and not developers to find neighborhood specific solutions to public service problems. They have been quite sucessful so far.
October 23rd, 2009 at 3:12 pm
The other thing that makes Southern cities uncool is that they’re literally not cool. They’re hot. Hot enough that nobody wants to be in any un-air-conditioned space for more than 5 minutes, if that, for most of the year. Walking during the day in a Southern summer (or mid to late spring, or early fall) is an ordeal, not a pastime, and biking is even worse because of the higher level of exertion. Cars are air conditioned, subways are underground, but riding buses means waiting at bus stops.
You could argue that all that applies in reverse for Northern winters, but it’s much more socially accepted to bundle up in the winter than to strip down in the summer, and the exertion of walking or biking works in your favor in the cold, while it works against you in heat. Ditto the presence of other people in the same confined space with you.
For historical reasons there are more blacks in the South where all the hot weather is.
P.S. The weather theory also explains the exceptions noted by Bloix @7.
October 23rd, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Y’know, Nashville is actually a pretty progressive city (in a decidedly non-progressive state). It ain’t Portland, but why exclude it from the survey?
October 23rd, 2009 at 3:46 pm
DUDE, We KNOW already. Didn’t you see that 200+ long comment thread? Did you really want to start that again?
October 23rd, 2009 at 4:09 pm
The City of Cincinnati voted for Obama 80-20 over McCain, and is plurality black. The list isn’t “progressive” cities, it’s “cool” cities. And they’re not “white”, they’re “not black”.
So, the author isn’t saying progressive cities are white (which is ridiculous!), he’s saying he doesn’t like black people uncooling-up his cities.
October 23rd, 2009 at 4:10 pm
This fixation by some on race (and relative white racial homogeneity) as the clinching determinative factor in the progressiveness of a city fails to take into account the all sorts of factors that go into the character of a city or a place.
A couple of you have rightly mentioned the contingencies of history & migration, but it also might give some perspective if we broaden the discussion out to a region rather than just focusing on individual cities. Regions can develop a certain culture and general political disposition, the Upper Midwest is arguably the most progressive part of the country (particularly if you factor in economic progressivism and dovish foreign policy views) and this left-progressive disposition can even transcend the urban/rural divide in states like Wisconsin and Minnesota. A certain set of civic and community values evolved in that part of the country. While it’s true that the region as a whole was mostly settled by German and Scandinavian immigrants and is pretty ‘white’, if you move a little further south in the Midwest and west over to the Rocky Mountains, you have an equally heavy majority ‘white’ Germanic population, but the politics starts to get much more conservative and reactionary… so just here we’re talking ‘white’ on ‘white’ political/cultural regional differences that certainly don’t jive with Steve Sailer’s pontifications.
There’s so many complex elements that go into the political and cultural evolution and make-up of an area, this canned race discussion is simplistic and reductionist, it leaves out a lot of stuff.
October 23rd, 2009 at 4:19 pm
A very walkable urban neighborhood can be turned unwalkable in a few years by a rise in street crime.
For example, one of the largest walkable blue-collar neighborhoods in America was the West Side of Chicago in 1966. My late father-in-law, a classical musician and union leader (he led the lengthy strike at the Chicago Lyric Opera), and mother-in-law, a special ed teacher, had lived in the Austin district of the West Side for years. It was a paradise for modest-income families with lots of children since there was excellent public transportation, zero street crime, and lots of other kids playing on the sidewalks of this densely populated neighborhood after school. When my wife was six, her mother let her and her eight year old sister walk to school by themselves, it was that safe.
My wife revisited her old street last August. Her old house was still standing, unlike many of the others on the street, which were now vacant lots.
October 23rd, 2009 at 4:29 pm
So, the question is:
How do we get back to what the West Side of Chicago had in 1966: densely populated, walkable urban neighborhoods where average income families could raise two or three kids without chauffeuring them everywhere for their safety?
At present, there are a few very nice walkable cities for the very rich. The New York Times reported in 2007 on the recent baby boom in Manhattan:
Growing up like Matthew Yglesias did is a nice way to live, but, at present, it’s kind of expensive.
October 23rd, 2009 at 4:32 pm
From the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/24/national/24childless.html?ex=1269320400&en=cbfa254535a51a5f&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
October 23rd, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Dammit, Sailer. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Champaign is not attracting masses of blacks from Chicago who are moving out because of the destruction of public housing. And Madison sure as hell isn’t. Just looking at a map will show you that this claim is totally silly. I know you just make shit up to support whatever the racist claim du jour is, but this is sloppy even for you.
And note the spelling of “Champaign.”
October 23rd, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Dear Lorax:
Talk to my nice liberal brother-in-law who works at the U. of I., who was driven out of the Urbana school district by demographic change.
Study up on the issue using Google and you’ll see Section 8 is a big, big issue in many small cities all around Chicago as Chicago tears down its public housing projects.
October 23rd, 2009 at 5:09 pm
So, while I hear a lot of suggestions from Matt for how to create yuptopias for single yuppies like Matt, I’m not hearing many suggestions on how to create 1966-style Austins on the West Side of Chicago where modest-income families will be happy to raise children in dense urban neighborhoods.
However, there is one example that could be learned from. While the Austin district is now a bombed-out wasteland, the adjoining city of Oak Park, with its Frank Lloyd Wright district (where my father was born in 1917) was saved.
How?
Illegally.
I explain how in my review of William Julius Wilson’s book There Goes the Neighborhood: Racial, Ethnic, and Class Tensions in Four Chicago Neighborhoods and Their Meaning for America.
October 23rd, 2009 at 5:24 pm
A very walkable urban neighborhood can be turned unwalkable in a few years by a rise in fearmongering about street crime.
FTFY. In order for actual street crime to affect a neighborhood that way it would have to reach “breakdown of society” type levels. But irrational fear can do the same thing with far less effort. (Prohibition-era gangs didn’t destroy the walkability of any neighborhoods — partly because cars were so damn expensive, but also because there was no mass media to amplify the fear.)
We can’t ban fearmongering, because of the First Amendment. And there aren’t many people today willing to say “we will not walk in fear, one of another”, and mean it.
One thing that would drastically reduce street crime would be to end the War on Some Drugs — not just because many acts would be redefined as non-criminal, but because of the drastic decline in gang activity that would result from cutting off their main money supply.
October 23rd, 2009 at 5:32 pm
The lack of blacks in Oregon isn’t related to slavery or geogpraphy or anything else, it’s related to racism at the policy level — I remember my vigorously pro-cold war history teacher ca. 1960 talking about what a strange place Oregon is — seems to be liberal in many ways but used to be illegal to be a negro there. Plus it was well known among blacks in the 40’s that Portland was a far less hospitable place than other cities on the West Coast — and “liberal” Eugene and Ashland were even less hospitable.
I do have the impression (my kids are now grown, so maybe things look differently) that Portland has significantly fewer children visible than San Francisco did when we still lived in California — but then our kids were younger then.
For what it’s worth, I find the Oregon lack of diversity of negative feature, particularly since the slightly below the surface racism ties into some of the other less pleasant aspects of living here.
October 23rd, 2009 at 5:32 pm
What the hell? Boston? San Francisco? Washington? Pittsburgh? Philly? I haven’t even left the northeast yet!
October 23rd, 2009 at 5:33 pm
[...] get mentioned in one of Matt Yglesias’ recent posts, commenting on how many cities cited as models for urban planing have low African American [...]
October 23rd, 2009 at 5:45 pm
“I haven’t even left the northeast yet!”
Well, you did with SF, but that’s a quibble.
Anyway, since Aaron Renn is actually reading these comments, could he please explain what possible rationale he had to exclude New York and LA from his study?
October 23rd, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Yeah, well…shut up.
;-P
October 23rd, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Chris says:
A very walkable urban neighborhood can be turned unwalkable in a few years by a rise in fearmongering about street crime.
Thanks. That, by the way, was my in-laws’ view in 1967. They joined a liberal Catholic group committed to integration. All the homeowners swore they’d never sell out, that they’d keep the Austin neighborhood integrated. My in-laws were the last to hold out, staying until 1970, but by that point their small children had been mugged three times on their street.
So, they finally sold, losing half their life savings versus 1967, and moved to a farm that lacked running water for the first two years, and my father-in-law had to commute 63 miles each way to his job playing for the Chicago Lyric Opera. Although he was later elected to three terms as union leader of the Chicago Federation of Musicians, he never voted Democratic again.
So, let me ask again, how do we make walkable urban areas popular with middle income families with more than one child?
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Obviously, very few white liberals in 2009 are as principled (or naive) as my late in-laws were in 1967-1970. Nowadays, white liberals have a whole set of euphemisms handy for explaining why they bought where they do, why they don’t send their kids to the local public school, why they want to move to Portland, etc. etc.
And they get very angry when speaks the blunt truth about why they make the major life decisions that they do. But, that impoverishes intellectual discourse in America, since so much of the basic facts of life are unmentionable in polite society.
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:14 pm
I believe the article was more directed at small and medium size cities, thus the removal of the large cities from consideration. (See first sentence: Among the media, academia and within planning circles, there’s a generally standing answer to the question of what cities are the best, the most progressive and best role models for small and mid-sized cities.)
I think the article could of made itself a little bit clearer with regard to the “progressive” label.
I believe the author was using the word “progressive” as it relates to walkability (i.e. public transportation, walkable design, etc), not necessarily about political orientation.
Since an expensive locally funded public transportation is almost a requirement to have a walkable hip city, it doesn’t seem at all surprising that the cities with low African-American populations would be more likely to develop into these new urban progressive Mecca’s.
Hopefully Aaron can clarify.
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Seriously, why did Sailer’s parents give him up for adoption? And what impact did that event have on his race-obsessive views?
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:26 pm
tomemos,
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:41 pm
#39:
In order for actual street crime to affect a neighborhood that way it would have to reach “breakdown of society” type levels. But too many people can’t accept that a rape or two and a few dozen muggings is the price you have to pay for Utopia.
Fixed that for you.
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Sailer:
“But, that impoverishes intellectual discourse in America, since so much of the basic facts of life are unmentionable in polite society.”
Lay it out, Sailer. What are these basic facts of life? Give us 5. Educate us white liberals on the nature of the Non-White.
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Sailer: Study up on the issue using Google and you’ll see Section 8 is a big, big issue in many small cities all around Chicago as Chicago tears down its public housing projects.
No doubt there is migration from the City to surrounding cities. But CU is 2+ hours south and Madison 3+ hours away. Those aren’t surrounding cities, and aren’t being overrun by The Black from Chicago (and I say this as someone who has spent long periods of time in both cities).
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Rory, that is right.
If you look at all the smaller cities of the Midwest that I write most about, places like Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Louisville, what cities are they told should be their role models? Clearly, cool as they are, NYC, Chicago, and SF aren’t realistic for them to imitate in most cases. But places like Portland and Denver are constantly held up a role models. That is what I was saying. Look at the cities a place like Indianapolis is told it should be more like.
I would, in retrospect, possibly change the word progressive, since it is a term of art for left-politics. Clearly, cities like Cleveland – home of Dennis Kucinich – are as blue as they come. I was trying to refer to urban polices such as pro-densification, transit first, bike lanes, green projects and regulations, care about art and design, leading new economy and creative type industries, etc. Can think of a good alternate word to describe that bundle?
October 23rd, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s excellent post (linked above) also makes the point that Raleigh-Durham is also not included in Renn’s studies, despite (or not despite?) having a large black population.
October 23rd, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Can think of a good alternate word to describe that bundle?
How about White? After all, if a city with black people has pro-densification policies or bike lanes, that’s just an aberration with no relevance to the rest of America.
October 23rd, 2009 at 8:56 pm
And, of course, Portland has had such an influx of whites that blacks are getting gentrified by whites off of Martin Luther King Drive.
If this is true, it renders moot one of the great Chris Rock comedy routines.
October 23rd, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Wow, after reading the blogosphere, am I the only one that thinks everyone missed the whole context of the article.
His bottom line was that midwest small/medium size cites should take into account their communities (especially African American) instead of just blindly following the lead of “hip” cities like Portland which don’t have the same diversity. This is a bad thing?
Aaron,
I think “hip” might of been a better word than “progressive”, since it conveys the same sort of idea, without necessarily being so wrapped up in the politics.
I do think that you could of mentioned some cities like Charleston and New Orleans which are both fairly decent hip type of cities with large African American communities. Both have walkable downtowns, though the climate does mean that Air Conditioning is a must during the summer.
October 23rd, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Sorry… Aaron clearly explains the purpose of his article in his blog post here.
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Basically, there’s a lot of hucksterism out there: Portland has bike trails, so Gary needs bike trails so it will be like Portland.
In truth, everybody pretty much understands, deep down, why Gary isn’t Portland and that bike paths are just a symptom, not a cause of the difference. People aren’t that stupid. Hypocritical, yet. Filled with mindless rage toward anybody who publicly points out the emperor has no clothes, sure. Quite that stupid, no.
Where people are that stupid is with Dr. Richard Florida’s huckstering, where he makes a killing ($35k per speech) going around telling the civic leaders of Boise or Detroit that they need to import a lot of gays if they want to be like Silicon Valley. See, San Francisco has a lot of gays and Silicon Valley has a lot of tech start-ups and San Francisco and Silicon Valley are more or less the same place, right?
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/07/my-review-of-richard-floridas-whos-your.html
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Where people are that stupid is with Dr. Richard Florida’s huckstering
- Hello, kettle? This is pot. You’re black.
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:39 pm
Lay it out, Sailer. What are these basic facts of life? Give us 5.
Funny how he never does, isn’t it? Always with the nudge-nudge. His little groupies aren’t as good at the game, but then again, they’re not paid for their performances.
October 24th, 2009 at 3:44 am
Lay it out, Sailer. What are these basic facts of life? Give us 5.
I’ll give you 6:
1) Black people have IQs, on average, one standard deviation lower than whites. That means only 1 in 6 blacks is as smart as the average white person. This explains the academic achievement gap and the difficulty of finding qualified black candidates in proportion to the number of blacks in the workplace.
2) Latinos have slightly higher IQs than blacks, but still significantly lower than whites, on average. This explains their academic achievement gap.
3) Blacks commit crimes at 7 times the white rate.
4) Latinos commit crimes at 3.5 times the white rate.
5) Asians have average IQs slighly higher than whites.
6) Asians commit crimes at a lower rate than whites.
Those six facts, taken together, have more explanatory power than reams of sophistry by Matt or other smart liberals. They explain why Matt’s parents spent tens of thousands of dollars per year to send him to a private school in Manhattan. They explain why young white progressives like Portland better than Atlanta. They explain why schools with mostly black and Latino kids are worse than schools with mostly white and Asian kids.
The funny thing is that you already knew this. Everyone with open eyes and common sense knows it. But it’s a sign of moral sophistication to feign ignorance about it.
October 24th, 2009 at 8:41 am
[...] Matt Yglesias finds this argument “slightly odd.” For one thing, he correctly notes that number of [...]
October 24th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Sailer’s thing about how people in walkable urban neighborhoods can’t/won’t/don’t raise kids there is not true. Check out Andersonville in Chicago or Park Slope in Brooklyn, to name only two examples where you pretty much have to constantly dodgge strollers on the sidewalks.
October 24th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Because one was a major manufacturing city during the industrial era, so the migration of manufacturing jobs to the suburbs, the South, and other countries devastated one of them, but not the other?
Is that it? If not, I’d like you spell out, in quite clear, concrete terms, what we’re all supposed to understand.
October 24th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
I’ll give you 6:
And I’ll give you #7:
7. Sailer thinks these represent rankings of the innate mental inferiority/superiority of races and ethnic groups and believes this is justification for continuing regressive actions and social policies, while progressives understand that these are instead evidence that regressive actions and social policies have had negative consequences and that we need to fix these policies to fix these problems.
October 24th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
[...] UPDATE: Matthew Yglesias [...]
October 24th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
“And I’ll give you #7:”
Your #7 is false, Adam. Sailer actually advocates policies that would help those on the left half of the bell curve. He’s written as series of articles on specific steps that would help them.
Also, what “regressive policies and social actions” do you think are responsible for the yawning IQ gap and academic achievement gap between blacks and whites?
October 24th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Why are you negroes running away? I want to help you!
/steve sailer
October 24th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Assuming this:
Black people have IQs, on average, one standard deviation lower than whites.
is true, this:
That means only 1 in 6 blacks is as smart as the average white person.
doesn’t follow without making various questionable assumptions about what “as smart as” means, about whether such “smartness” can be quantified along a one-dimensional scale, about whether IQ tests effectively measure such a quantity, and about whether the tests provide an unbiased estimator. Even if all that were granted, this:
This explains the academic achievement gap and the difficulty of finding qualified black candidates in proportion to the number of blacks in the workplace.
further fails to follow without making questionable assumptions about the explanatory relationship.
October 24th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I’m a Canadian and lived in Vancouver for 8 months. It’s a “progressive” city by the article’s definition, with a growing focus on density, good bicycle routes, and an excellent bus/Sky Train system. Statistics Canada data shows that 30% of its population are immigrants from places other than Europe or the US. 42% of the people in Vancouver are visible minorities. Renn’s conclusions just don’t add up.
If Renn’s concern was about cities with more poor areas being less able than Portland to pursue progressive policies, he ought to have said so and worked his article around that rather than leaving it with the implication that he considers “black” and “poor” synonymous or that nonwhite people somehow make things like a good transit system and urban density impossible. Even if that was his point, it still doesn’t ring true to me – most of the people who use transit are lower-income, so if anything, a better transit system would make a city more affordable. (Vancouver, btw, has about the same median and average income levels as Canada overall.)
October 24th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Another article designed to guilt white people and shift blame and responsbility onto white people.
White liberals are the first to scream racism and the first to leave a neighborhood when an influx of black and/or latino people move in. I have actually lived with black and latino people to know why so many do not want to live near them. It has NOTHING to do with racism or being poor. Black and latino (to a lesser extent) cultures value ignorance, irresponsibility, violence and instability. I can’t describe all the nonsense I’ve witnessed. I had a black guy follow me down the street with a tire iron screaming “Ima gonna hook this pig!” or being told by a group of black kids that white people smell like “newborn swine ass” or how girls only in their teens already had five children by five different men. There is a reason why non-whites want to move into white neighborhoods and that is culture.
Aaron Renn, like so many of his ideology, wants to shift blame and responsibility onto white people for black and latino people’s lack of responsibility. It is black and latino people’s fault their neighborhoods fall apart and became havens of the most depraved human characteristics. It doesn’t take a dime to delay having children until you are responsible enough to care for them. It doesn’t take a dime to encourage your children to get an education. It doesn’t take a dime to teach your children manners.
To the white residents of these vanilla cities I say “Right on!” You have nothing to be ashamed of especially for being white.
October 24th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Get off my communal lawn in my hip and dense urban neighborhood you no gooders
October 24th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
“John is white. He is married with two children. He wears a blue collar when he leaves his shabby, inner-city house to go to work. Life has been a struggle for John, but now he faces his most difficult challenge. John’s neighborhood is turning black.
In a 50 percent black neighborhood, there is a 37 chance that John’s family will in some way be violently victimized. As the neighborhood relentlessly turns black, some whites will have to be among the last to leave. If John is unfortunate enough to be one of them, he will face the following statistics: When the neighborhood is 90 percent black, John and his family will have a 96 percent chance of being victimized. Soon after that victimization will become a virtual certainty, reaching 99 percent likely when the neighborhood turns 93 percent black.” – “Crime in the Hood”
October 25th, 2009 at 1:28 am
I have yet to see anyone address the question of why DC is not used as a model for rail infrastructure.
The DC Metro system is the single most successful mass transit project of the postwar era and has ridership numbers exceeding any American city but NYC. However, it has some massive flaws when seen as a model for building an urban living environment. The primary function of the Metro is to funnel workers in from the suburbs. This is what it has become extremely efficient at and where all the current money is being spent. (i.e. the silver line expansion along the Dulles corridor)
Intra-DC traffic is primarily among the poor as there is no service to the primarily rich white areas of Georgetown and NW DC. This is an artifact of 60’s and 70’s racism where the people refused a Metro line because they were afraid of providing easier access to the “wrong types”. Thus one of the most segregated cities structurally grew along the segregation and the majority rich white progressives who occupy DC do not use public transportation on a regular basis.
The question in DC is what the suburbs will do to build on the Metro infrastructure to help relieve the automobile congestion issues. Fairfax County is much larger than some so called “Major” cities like Denver and Portland, the wealthiest County in the nation (median per capita income) and is struggling how to build on the metro to withstand the future growth of itself and the exaburbs beyond it. DC is to mature an area and has no room for growth. Both canidates for governor in VA are from Northern VA and both have commited to spending alot of the money they suck out of the region on transportation. It is easily one of the most important issues in the race.
October 25th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Re: Where people are that stupid is with Dr. Richard Florida’s huckstering, where he makes a killing ($35k per speech) going around telling the civic leaders of Boise or Detroit that they need to import a lot of gays if they want to be like Silicon Valley.
“Gayborhoods” are usually a powerful gentrifying force. Often they end up becoming too pricey for most gay to live in. Case in point: Wilton Manors FL (next to Fort Lauderdale), which twenty years was well on its way to becoming a slum. Then it was discovered by gays, and has become a solidly upper middle class town. A Wilton Manors may not bring about a Silcion Valley, but it does reverse urban decay.