The News is spending their blizzard day locked inside their offices crunching the census numbers, and they've come to some conclusions: Manhattan is losing its diversity, and new white residents in Harlem feel that blacks don't like them. Overall, Manhattan's population has increased by five percent since 2000, and they credit that to the white population rising by an estimated 11 percent to around 928,000 in the past decade, while the number of blacks dropped by six percent, to less than 250,000, and the Hispanic populations dropped four percent, to just under 400,000.
They particularly focus on the changing face of Harlem, where whites increased from two percent of the neighborhood's population to 9.8 percent since 2000. During the same period, the black population shrank from 61.2 percent to 54.4 percent. They recount the woes of 21-year-old anecdotal evidence #1, white actress Kaitlin Heath. Heath, who moved to Harlem last year, laments how she has been reminded time and again that she is a newcomer to the neighborhood; people even "say snide stuff and white jokes when I pass by on the street." Of course, she also gives quotes like, "It's incredible. I love thinking about all the stuff that has happened here," about her $2,350 a month, three-bedroom apartment on 119th St. and St. Nicholas Ave. We can't imagine why longtime residents might not be so charmed by her.
Meanwhile, on the economic front:
Although New York City has fared better than the country as a whole, recording smaller increases in poverty and smaller declines in household income, more subtle indicators, like the rise in the number of New Yorkers living in homes without kitchens, underscore the struggles confronting many.
The Census Bureau’s 2009 American Community Survey also found that from 2007 to 2009, the income of single people in the city shrank the most among New Yorkers; the poverty rate edged up among people 15 to 64 years old; both parents were in the work force more often; home values dipped; the share of renters increased compared with owners; more renters were paying over 35 percent of their income on housing; and a smaller share said they owned two vehicles.
The proportion of very rich and very poor New Yorkers rose slightly, and the gap between them remained higher in New York than in any other state, and, in Manhattan, higher than in any other county in the country.
The gap between rich and poor in Manhattan is the higher than anywhere else in the country.
Wow - makes me proud to be a New Yorker (well, to at least work there.)
Bloomberg's true legacy - the destruction of the middle and working classes, bringing back feudalism.
Until people get mad at this, really, really mad at this, and do to Bloomberg what the irate crowd did to Charles and Camilla on a regular basis, this shit is going to continue.
Then, there's the middle class. They also can't afford to live in New York. Those white folks moving in are of the more affluent variety who can afford the obscene rents.
ReplyDeleteThe good news is, the middle class will soon be poor under the Obama/Bloomberg/GOP economic policies, so I guess in way Bloomberg is making some parts of NY diverse.
ReplyDeleteTo quote my husband, "There is no up side to the snow". We have seen nary a city plow anywhere in northeast Queens. We will leave New York State for Florida as soon as we can. Stop the insanity!! Whatever city services we of the middle class are entitled to, we have to fight for, especially for our voices to be heard in education. This does not happen to the Long Island middle class; we are serfs in Bloomberg's fiefdom. He is a corporate thug!!
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