1967 Remembered

[Onthe405]

It's also the 25th anniversary of the 1992 LA riots, following the Rodney King beating. I saw a segment on PBS a couple of days ago in which most people from the neighborhood agreed that things in the area have definitely improved both in economic development and opportunity. Murders have decreased about 80% from that year. Detroit is a much larger city than one area of LA but it's sad that 50 years later a turnaround still hasn't happened for the remaining residents.

In addition to changes like community policing and aggressive anti-gang programs implemented by LAPD, another mitigating factor has to do with the dramatic and ever-accelerating demographic changes in South Central LA [['92), Watts [['65), and neighboring Compton over the past 4 decades.

Even by the time of the '92 Rodney King violence, South Central had become 40% Latino and dropped to 60% African American. 25 years later, the estimated census hovers around 70% Latino and 30% African American.

Several variables [[too numerous to outline here) contributed to the shift including some African Americans climbing into the middle class and moving on to higher income neighbourhoods within LA. However, the largest percentage was an AA out-migration to the "Inland Empire" [[San Bernardino, Riverside, Moreno Valley, etc) and the "High Desert" [[Lancaster, Palmdale, etc).

This a very different situation than Detroit. In South Los Angeles, one demographic population was replaced with another--mostly recent immigrants. The neighbourhoods themselves are even more dense [[and getting denser) than they were 50 years ago. As 401don mentions, Detroit lost overall population, which creates a separate set of challenges.