Detroit is getting whiter.

**Corn.Bot** · September-30-10, 04:58 PM

Humans are so weird. 60 years ago, a predominantly white city's residents were bemoaning the "coloreds" moving into houses on their streets. Whites were concerned about changing property values, clashing culture differences... there goes the neighborhood. Time to move out.

FF to the new milleninum. People in a predominantly black city are watching their neighborhoods being infiltrated by... whites. African-American residents find themselves concerned about clashing culture differences. Worries about their property values, however, run along the fear line of being squeezed out by gentrification. There goes the neighborhood.

**Det_ard** · October-01-10, 08:42 PM

Clicked through the 62 photos of the Woodbridge Pub Octoberfest posted at http://detroit.metromix.com/events/p...208082/content

In all those photos, including several crowd photos with dozens of people in each, I counted a total of three black adults, everyone else was pasty white, predominantly hipsterific. There was a photo with five or six black kids painting pumpkins. No white kids because we all know 99% of whites who move to Detroit hit the eject button as soon as a baby bump starts to show. Check out the photos, it looks like Hipster Night in Livonia.

There may be more whites moving to Detroit but the city isn't getting any more integrated.

**JenniferL** · October-02-10, 01:26 AM

I would have guessed that any uptick in Detroit's white population would have taken place about ten years ago. Homes in the 'burbs were going for astronomical prices, so a lot of white artsy folks and urban pioneers started moving into places like Corktown and Woodbridge and downtown itself. This was around the time I found this forum. There were a lot of white posters back then who were buying homes in Detroit and fixing them up, or moving into the newer condos and lofts. But I don't see so much of that now-- not here at Detroit Yes and not in real life, either. Everyone seems to be moving out of state because there are no jobs in Michigan. If there are more white people moving into Detroit these days, it would be interesting to hear where they're coming from and what made them decide to move to the city when so many are leaving.

Paddington · October-02-10, 09:44 AM

Keep in mind, most Arabs list themselves as white on census forms. Many Mexican Mestizos also list themselves as "white" under race. I see a lot of both Arabs and Mexicans in the western border of Detroit with Dearborn, which seems to be one of the more population stable parts of town with relatively fewer abandoned lots.

**mwilbert** · October-02-10, 09:55 AM

.

Many Mexican Mestizos also list themselves as "white" under race

But typically they also list themselves as Hispanic. Both Hispanic and non-Hispanic white percentages rose according to the ACS.

Paddington · October-02-10, 12:28 PM

Originally Posted by JenniferL

I would have guessed that any uptick in Detroit's white population would have taken place about ten years ago. Homes in the 'burbs were going for astronomical prices, so a lot of white artsy folks and urban pioneers started moving into places like Corktown and Woodbridge and downtown itself. This was around the time I found this forum. There were a lot of white posters back then who were buying homes in Detroit and fixing them up, or moving into the newer condos and lofts. But I don't see so much of that now-- not here at Detroit Yes and not in real life, either. Everyone seems to be moving out of state because there are no jobs in Michigan. If there are more white people moving into Detroit these days, it would be interesting to hear where they're coming from and what made them decide to move to the city when so many are leaving.

What do you mean by "astronomical"? Even before the real estate market cratered, Detroit/suburbs were never known for expensive real estate.

**casscorridor** · October-02-10, 01:53 PM

Originally Posted by Det_ard

Clicked through the 62 photos of the Woodbridge Pub Octoberfest posted at http://detroit.metromix.com/events/p...208082/content

In all those photos, including several crowd photos with dozens of people in each, I counted a total of three black adults, everyone else was pasty white, predominantly hipsterific. There was a photo with five or six black kids painting pumpkins. No white kids because we all know 99% of whites who move to Detroit hit the eject button as soon as a baby bump starts to show. Check out the photos, it looks like Hipster Night in Livonia.

There may be more whites moving to Detroit but the city isn't getting any more integrated.

Okay, you sort of have a point. But really these are just half truths. First off, Woodbridge is a diverse and integrated neighborhood, I'd say as integrated as they come in Metro Detroit besides maybe Hamtramck or Midtown. However, this was a pretty white event, for some reason not that many blacks came out from the hood. This has more to do with lack of integration of social circles and the fact that Oktoberfest is preceived as a "white" event. Also, the planners didn't book any hip hop or music with black musicians, so that is their bad. If they had, I'm sure we woulda seen more black people come out.

Secondly, although it is a common phenomenon for young families with kids to flee the city for the "safe" burbs, Woodbridge is one of those neighborhoods within the city where families move in to avoid the ghettoness of typical Detroit hoods, had has been for a long time. There are a large number of families here, white and black alike, probably just as many as a typical burb. I always see young kids outside playing, and most of the time there are white kids playing with black kids. This shows this is a diverse and integrated neighborhood that is condusive to raising kids. If you have kids and raise them here they will be sure to have friends that don't all look the same, and that is healthy, something you can't find in most burbs.

Finally, while Woodbridge has a well-earned reputation for hipsters, there are far more different types of people here than hipsters. You'll see jocks, preps, hippies, yuppies, professors, families and just good ol fashioned workin folk, among many others.

So yeah, Woodbridge is a hip, up-and-coming neighborhood that many people want to live in. Got a problem? Come spend some more time here, buy a house or apartment, and see for yourself.

**Hermod** · October-02-10, 02:30 PM

Originally Posted by casscorridor

This has more to do with lack of integration of social circles and the fact that Oktoberfest is preceived as a "white" event. Also, the planners didn't book any hip hop or music with black musicians, so that is their bad. If they had, I'm sure we woulda seen more black people come out.

Ummm, maybe because Oktoberfest is for "ooompah music"? I wouldn't book any "hip hop" for a Gilbert and Sullivan festival either.

**Russix** · October-02-10, 02:58 PM

Originally Posted by Det_ard

Clicked through the 62 photos of the Woodbridge Pub Octoberfest posted at http://detroit.metromix.com/events/p...208082/content

In all those photos, including several crowd photos with dozens of people in each, I counted a total of three black adults, everyone else was pasty white, predominantly hipsterific. There was a photo with five or six black kids painting pumpkins. No white kids because we all know 99% of whites who move to Detroit hit the eject button as soon as a baby bump starts to show. Check out the photos, it looks like Hipster Night in Livonia.

There may be more whites moving to Detroit but the city isn't getting any more integrated.

Using the photos that one guy/girl went around taking mostly of their friends at a bar/concert as a grading scale for racial integration is really bad metrics. Assuming or generalizing anything about anyone or group besides yourself is a symptom of bigotry.

DetroitPole · October-02-10, 06:55 PM

Originally Posted by Det_ard

Clicked through the 62 photos of the Woodbridge Pub Octoberfest posted at http://detroit.metromix.com/events/p...208082/content

In all those photos, including several crowd photos with dozens of people in each, I counted a total of three black adults, everyone else was pasty white, predominantly hipsterific. There was a photo with five or six black kids painting pumpkins. No white kids because we all know 99% of whites who move to Detroit hit the eject button as soon as a baby bump starts to show. Check out the photos, it looks like Hipster Night in Livonia.

There may be more whites moving to Detroit but the city isn't getting any more integrated.

Social scenes and integration are two different things. Those people all don't live at Woodbridge pub.

By Detroit's very demographic nature, Detroit is getting more integrated, because there isn't any neighborhood that is majority white[[except for Parkland and a few blocks east of Balduck Park). Wherever a white person is moving, they are moving into a neighborhood where they are in the minority. Their neighbors will be either majority black or Hispanic.

Those "hipsters" will likely go back to their homes and apartments in areas like Midtown or Woodbridge, which have large white populations, but are not majority white by any means.

Whites and blacks will likely never share the same social scenes, in large part. Whites aren't going to start getting matching skyline family reunion skyline t-shirts for the picnic, and blacks aren't going to start wearing loafers and dancing poorly. But in Detroit these people are increasingly living next door to each other, reversing the trend for the first time in decades.

bartock · October-03-10, 10:31 PM

Who really cares. In a hundred years everybody is going to be a shade of brown anyway...and the few that are too dark or too white, will be racists, or pro life, or pro choice.

Sorta joking, but not really.

**English** · October-03-10, 11:58 PM

]

Originally Posted by DetroitPole

Social scenes and integration are two different things. Those people all don't live at Woodbridge pub...

Whites and blacks will likely never share the same social scenes, in large part. Whites aren't going to start getting matching skyline family reunion skyline t-shirts for the picnic, and blacks aren't going to start wearing loafers and dancing poorly. But in Detroit these people are increasingly living next door to each other, reversing the trend for the first time in decades.

This is the way that I see things, too... Especially the bolded. That doesn't seem to stop other cities from working, so I hope it doesn't hinder Detroit forever.

**BrushStart** · October-04-10, 09:27 AM

Originally Posted by bartock

Who really cares. In a hundred years everybody is going to be a shade of brown anyway...and the few that are too dark or too white, will be racists, or pro life, or pro choice.

Sorta joking, but not really.

There's no functional difference between whites and blacks. The only difference is skin pigmentation caused by exposure to UV light.

It's absurd how much 'color' affects people's thought processes. When people generalize about whites and blacks, I always wonder about the person who is 50-50. Where does he fit in? Let me help everyone out... it makes no difference how much sunlight your ancestors were exposed to! That guy, he's just some guy. Heck, what happens to the white person who gets a dark sun tan, do they start to adopt "black" culture and customs? It's total nonsense.

Distinctions made based on skin color are absolutely idiotic and show that a) you really haven't been exposed to a lot of people, and b) your depth of analysis goes no further than looking at a person's skin pigment and conjure up a bunch of goofball generalizations. Total humanity failure.

**Hermod** · October-04-10, 10:28 AM

Originally Posted by BrushStart

There's no functional difference between whites and blacks. The only difference is skin pigmentation caused by exposure to UV light.

It's absurd how much 'color' affects people's thought processes. When people generalize about whites and blacks, I always wonder about the person who is 50-50. Where does he fit in? Let me help everyone out... it makes no difference how much sunlight your ancestors were exposed to! That guy, he's just some guy. Heck, what happens to the white person who gets a dark sun tan, do they start to adopt "black" culture and customs? It's total nonsense.

Distinctions made based on skin color are absolutely idiotic and show that a) you really haven't been exposed to a lot of people, and b) your depth of analysis goes no further than looking at a person's skin pigment and conjure up a bunch of goofball generalizations. Total humanity failure.

No, skin pigmentation does not cause behavior. "Culture" causes behavior. You can certainly generalize about culture without showing prejudice [[pre-judging) any individual member who may well have risen above the defects of his or her culture.

**justanotherboy** · October-04-10, 10:30 AM

How much of this is due to the increased student housing at WSU and UDM? Are they leading the charge on this? Most of the students I know at WSU once they are done with the dorms, still live within walking distance of WSU.

Bearinabox · October-04-10, 10:58 AM

Originally Posted by Hermod

No, skin pigmentation does not cause behavior. "Culture" causes behavior. You can certainly generalize about culture without showing prejudice [[pre-judging) any individual member who may well have risen above the defects of his or her culture.

So your culture is the benchmark and everyone else's is defective?

**Detroitnerd** · October-04-10, 11:00 AM

Originally Posted by Hermod

No, skin pigmentation does not cause behavior. "Culture" causes behavior. You can certainly generalize about culture without showing prejudice [[pre-judging) any individual member who may well have risen above the defects of his or her culture.

Is that like the way white people have to surmount their cultural defects? You know, a soaring sense of entitlement, tendency to chauvinistically wag fingers at other cultures, complete lack of understanding outside a nearly homogeneous milieu of clueless boobs hypnotized by right-wing mythologies?

DetroitPole · October-04-10, 12:54 PM

Originally Posted by justanotherboy

How much of this is due to the increased student housing at WSU and UDM? Are they leading the charge on this? Most of the students I know at WSU once they are done with the dorms, still live within walking distance of WSU.

We will find this out when the 2010 census is mapped. It probably had a lot to do with it, but these are relatively small areas geographically and population-wise when you look at the city as a whole.

**Swimmaven** · October-04-10, 03:32 PM

. . . the sasquatch moved in?

**BrushStart** · October-04-10, 04:00 PM

Originally Posted by Swimmaven

. . . the sasquatch moved in?

Is he considered "white" or does he fall into the non-descript, "other" category?

**Gistok** · October-04-10, 04:21 PM

Originally Posted by DetroitPole

... snip..... Whites aren't going to start getting matching skyline family reunion skyline t-shirts for the picnic, and blacks aren't going to start wearing loafers and dancing poorly.... snip...

Aw come on DetroitPole, you of all people should know..... how many blacks can kick out a good Polka....

**President Sekou** · October-04-10, 10:09 PM

Why this surprises anyone is beyond me. It's a well known fact that any able bodied black person who can move from here does, there are probably more former black Detroiters in Chicago, Atlanta, Charlotte, and New York that there are here in Detroit. With all these black people moving out and a fringe few whites moving in is it really news that the white population increased ever so slightly?

**Detroitus** · October-04-10, 10:54 PM

When I lived briefly in D.C. in the late 90s the mix of people on my block went from africain-amercain on one end [[across from a housing project), then latinos, then bike messages [[a ethnically mixed group that include myself), then Chinese. A block or so over it was mostly gay than becoming white middle class. When they opened the Metro station and closed the housing project everyone moved over a block or two.

I have seen similar patterns in other cities, with each group making the neighborhood feel safe or respectable enough for the one behind it. So my questions is where are the gay or Chinese or other asian neighborhoods? Or all they all located in the surrounding suburbs like Ferndale or Royal Oak.

BTW, I live in S.F. where the gay community is quickly being pushed out of the Castro by breeding straight couples. Or has my gay co-worker puts it "The writings on the wall, and its in CRAYON!"

**Hermod** · October-05-10, 05:11 AM

Originally Posted by Detroitus

When I lived briefly in D.C. in the late 90s the mix of people on my block went from africain-amercain on one end [[across from a housing project), then latinos, then bike messages [[a ethnically mixed group that include myself), then Chinese. A block or so over it was mostly gay than becoming white middle class. When they opened the Metro station and closed the housing project everyone moved over a block or two.

DC Chinatown and Clarendon Little Saigon have both been migrating out to the Seven Corners area for a number of years.

**Danny** · October-05-10, 07:10 AM

Originally Posted by swingline

The reporting of the 2009 American Community Survey population numbers for Detroit was nonsense. The statistical problems with the Detroit numbers are so severe that the numbers have been rendered worthless. http://www.detnews.com/article/20100...--Census-shows Most of the problems stem from completely unreliable estimates for the total Detroit population.

The percentage of white residents in Detroit may indeed have risen from 2008 to 2009. But a 5 percentage point increase in one year is simply impossible and should have been reported as such by any news organization. If this increase were even close to accurate, that would mean that under any Detroit population estimate tens of thousands of white folks moved to Detroit in 2009. That didn't happen. A little simple math provides all the proof necessary.

Take a conservative 2008 population estimate for Detroit of 800,000. If 8% were white, that gives us 64,000 white folks. Now assume for the sake of argument that 5% of Detroiters left the city in the next year. That leaves 760,000 people. Assume that 100% of the departing folks were black. If 13% of the 2009 population where white, that would mean that 98,800 white people resided in Detroit in 2009. In other words, something like 35,000 white folks moved to Detroit in one year. Hmmm, what are the chances that that actually happened, especially during the 2009 depression economy?

If one assumes that Detroit's population is higher than 800,000, the 35,000 figure would have to be larger. The same if one assumes [[probably true) that less than 5% of Detroiters moved out in 2009, or that at least some white folks moved out in that year as well [[certainly true).

The ACS numbers are completely flawed. They should have been fixed or not even published.

I agree with your statistics.