From the NY Times:For nearly a century, Harlem has been synonymous with black urban America. Given its magnetic and growing appeal to younger black professionals and its historic residential enclaves and cultural institutions, the neighborhood’s reputation as the capital of black America seems unlikely to change soon.
But the neighborhood is in the midst of a profound and accelerating shift. In greater Harlem, which runs river to river, and from East 96th Street and West 106th Street to West 155th Street, blacks are no longer a majority of the population — a shift that actually occurred a decade ago, but was largely overlooked.
By 2008, their share had declined to 4 in 10 residents. Since 2000, central Harlem’s population has grown more than in any other decade since the 1940s, to 126,000 from 109,000, but its black population — about 77,000 in central Harlem and about twice that in greater Harlem — is smaller than at any time since the 1920s.
In 2008, 22 percent of the white households in Harlem had moved to their present homes within the previous year. By comparison, only 7 percent of the black households had.
15 comments:
How is it that Harlem is going upper middle class and white, and [name your community in Queens] is turning lower class and immigrant?
One ghetto buildings rennovated and cleaned up, the othter clean solid buildings becoming a ghetto.
Who can tell us?
Our electeds?
Queens Civic Congress?
Boro Hall?
Queens newspapers?
Anyone?
In Manhattan or Brooklyn, a bodega becomes a Zabars, in Queens a Zabars becomes a bodega.
Why are there so many brown people all around me? I'm scared!!!
you guys sound like such losers
the old queens you grew up is gone
deal with it or move
It's being dealt with. Thanks for your input.
Holy Crap.....i predicted this in 2000 ..on tenant.net
Harlem was just to valuable to let it go downhill anymore
I am kicking myself for not putting my money where my mouth is and buy property.
I still wonder why Trump never bought up the place on the cheap.
"you guys sound like such losers
the old queens you grew up is gone
deal with it or move"
Lol go back to posting on astorians.com about a new and trendy ethnic place to eat.
Why are there so many brown people all around me? I'm scared!!!
HACK ATTACK HACK ATTACK HACK ATTACK HACK ATTACK HACK ATTACKHACK ATTACK HACK ATTACK HAHACK ATTACK CK ATTACK HACK ATTHACK ATTACK ACKHACK ATTACK
Let us pay homage to the brave caucasian souls who first migrated to Harlem and took the beatings for us that paved the way for more of us to expand into Harlem.
A big FU to Sharpton when he wouldn't allow orthodox jews open a business and claims 'Harlem will not lose it's identity to leeches'.
C'mon everyone:
FU SHARPTON!
This was by design. Harlem is a part of Manhattan, a logical area to expand the real-estate boom into an areas where historically RE values were cheap especially under Mayor Koch era where where city owned abandoned Brownstones were auctioned for 10 cent on the dollar. All you had to do was fix it up and live in it for several years and get lightly mugged by neighborhood crack gang.
So where did all the resident go? Many whom had rent stab apartments were elderly and died. Those apartments were fixed up and went free market, rented to Indians, Whites and Chinese.
THe younger residents were pushed out by high rents and spread out further uptown and to the Queens, Bronx and Brooklyn. If Harlem was black America then what remains is rich blacks who came back and those in the numerious projects. It's the same as what happened to Spanish Harlem - Pueto Ricans long left for everywhere else replaced in part by Dominicans and Mexicans. The nicer RE was snapped up by rich Blacks, many whites and everyone else!!
Isn't this a bad thing? Isn't this racist?
Another great neighborhood ruined by outsiders.
There was once an Italian Harlem and a Jewish Harlem. Both moved on, as is "Black Harlem" (sounds redundant, I know)
Nothing lasts forever.
Harlem was also designed to be an upper class White neighborhood and only became Black as a result of the Panic of 1907.
While I miss some of the old ethnic enclaves like Irish Woodside, Little Italy, and so forth, perhaps this is a sign of progress too as formerly unwelcome African Americans are allowed a greater choice of places in which to live.
Let's hope that we can retain affordability in this city, however, this is a challenge for middle-class and working class people of all races.
Let's hope that we can retain affordability in this city, however, this is a challenge for middle-class and working class people of all races.
The challenge will be to build a middle class population in NYC. Today's youngsters will have a difficult time to buy RE in NYC. Rents are very high and saving to buy has become impossible. There has been an unusally higher proportion of middle class workers whom have been layoffed or jobs geared for the middleclass disappeard. We are not all investment bankers but the remaining so-called jobs at minimum wage retail and part time work jobs. The rest of the city lives like the illegals on welfare, section 8 housing, food stamps and the cash underground economy. Face it there are only 2 classes who can reside in NYC - the rich who can afford to pay up to keep the underclass at bay and the poor on the largess of the dwindling remaining middleclass whom are fast bleeding to death.
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