Where are the black people?

[brizee]

Talk about maybe the right message coming from the absolute wrong source.



http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opi...ople/20322377/

[Towne Cluber]

Actually, this "right message wrong source" sentiment is a big part of the problem.

[Dan Wesson]

A tale of two cities...

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us..."

[MAcc]

Outside of WSU students, I can never find this supposed deluge of Detroit proper white residents Nolan is seized with. Did he walk around HopCap and ask who actually lived in Detroit? I'd guess 99% there on opening night live in Oakland County and Grosse Pointe. Instead of thanking them for spending their gas, money, and time supporting something in a broken city, he writes a chicken shit race baiting story. I'm sure his journalism professors would be proud at the hack he's become.

[Bobl]

I have seldom liked what Nolan writes, or the way he writes it, but I think his article made a valid point.
We will see what develops in this changing town. The journey has begun.

[Gistok]

Outside of WSU students, I can never find this supposed deluge of Detroit proper white residents Nolan is seized with. Did he walk around HopCap and ask who actually lived in Detroit? I'd guess 99% there on opening night live in Oakland County and Grosse Pointe. Instead of thanking them for spending their gas, money, and time supporting something in a broken city, he writes a chicken shit race baiting story. I'm sure his journalism professors would be proud at the hack he's become.

Stop shooting the messenger, and listen to the message.... unless you've never been to a Red Wing game, Opera, Symphony, DIA... or other event.... he is spot on with his assessment.

[Dan Wesson]

The interpretations of the mixed message in an ambiguous article by Nolan is beginning to show.

[Danny]

Where are the black people? [[ in Detroit)

1. Most of them had moved to the suburbs just northwest of 8 Mile Rd.

2. Most of them [[ who are poor and pacified under welfare checks, WIC and food stamps) are living their blighted ghetto hoods run down homes now being turned into shacks, drug houses and squatter's inn.

Detroit is still 82.2% black, 11.0% white and 6.9% hispanic.

There are over 490,000 blacks, 110,000 whites and over 50,000 hispanics. However Detroit is running "white power!" rather than soul power from the Coleman Young Era. Whites folks taking care of Detroit's bills, during and after municipal bankruptcy. Mike Duggan is first white mayor in 40 years and he's doing a great job like other mayors in all U.S. cities, taking care of business. And Dan Gilbert is buying up every last building in Downtown [[ now Gilberttown) Detroit and turning it into his private Disneyland filled with pop-up stores and magic light parades. If Coleman Young was alive and still Mayor of Detroit, he cuss Gilbert and other white folks out. Preventing them all from every returning to Detroit.

So get used to quick regional change folks. Detroit is getting diversity. White folks run the show and they want their city back. Detroit is getting whitter and black folks are moving out. Black folks had their time in Detroit, let's someone else have a turn [[ like Hispanics, Asians and Arabs, too.)

[Lowell]

Really lame bottom-feeding article - a desperate cry out for attention. Downtown is now a major regional tourist attraction. He might as well in be in Plaza St. Marco in Venice asking, 'Where are all the Italians?'. Or go whine at a JLA hockey game for the past several decades. As if HE suddenly cares?

[Willi]

Facts exist - they were not there

Create whatever you want in your minds.
It won't change the fact
they did not show up
en masse "to represent".

That will never be Nolan's fault.

[Scottathew]

White folks run the show and they want their city back.

I don't speak for all people who are white, but I certainly don't feel like Detroit is mine. I don't feel like white people run the show. I want Detroit to come back, and I don't care what color the people are that benefit from it, take part in the comeback, etc...

Duggan is an extremely competent mayor who happens to be white. Kevin Orr is a very competent financial and legal guy, and he happens to be black.

I hope that we'll look back one day and say, "Wow, Detroit sure had the right guys in the right place, at the right time when the comeback started!"

Color will stop mattering when we stop caring. Let's focus on fixing poverty and crime of any color. Let's focus on educating the kids of all colors and upbringings. That's when things get better.

[maverick1]

I'm a Black guy who spends time downtown and in midtown. I'm not a fan of Nolan Finley but I get his point. What he doesn't get is that the Black folks like me who would be in downtown and midtown are almost nonexistent in the city or metro-area. They are in Chicago, NYC, L.A., and D.C. Who does he think are the 250,000 people who left the city between 2000-2010? The Black people that left in that period are the ones would be at HopCat and Punch Bowl. This is more about class than race but someone like Nolan Finley wouldn't understand that.

[Scottathew]

This is more about class than race

Excellent point.

When someone gets\makes enough money to move out of Detroit, what do they do? Do they buy Red Wings season tickets? Or do they pack up?

It's going to be a slow transformation, but I hope over the decades to come Detroit neighborhoods become desirable again.

[Danny]

It's going to be a slow transformation, but I hope over the decades to come Detroit neighborhoods become desirable again.

Yes, Detroit will diverse once again. It not will be white power/black power movements all around its hoods.

[Shai_Hulud]

I'm a Black guy who spends time downtown and in midtown. I'm not a fan of Nolan Finley but I get his point. What he doesn't get is that the Black folks like me who would be in downtown and midtown are almost nonexistent in the city or metro-area. They are in Chicago, NYC, L.A., and D.C. Who does he think are the 250,000 people who left the city between 2000-2010? The Black people that left in that period are the ones would be at HopCat and Punch Bowl. This is more about class than race but someone like Nolan Finley wouldn't understand that.

Yes, much of the middle class black population that would have had time, money, and desire for these establishments has fled the region.

The remaining young blacks who are in the suburbs, are probably first or second generation suburbanites who have clear memories of the city and don't feel like "going into the city" is new and exciting, as opposed to comparable whites who may not have crossed eight mile in a decade.

[preserve]

Heh, I bet there weren't any folks in my age group in that line up at HopCat. And I live in the City and I don't live in a hovel or drug house and my neighborhood isn't a ghetto. Way too many
generalizations.

[noise]

Stop shooting the messenger, and listen to the message.... unless you've never been to a Red Wing game, Opera, Symphony, DIA... or other event.... he is spot on with his assessment.

Well then maybe you can help me. What exactly was his message? What's his assessment?

[aj3647]

So are these institutions built solely to cater to only those people who live in Detroit? Or is the purpose of major cultural/entertainment/dining options in major downtown urban centers to serve as a draw for the larger regional area in which it is located? Yes, Detroit is 85% black, but once you go up to the county level, Wayne County is only 50% black. And the tri-county Metro Detroit area as whole is only 23% black. Extend it out even further to those who live in Macomb, Washtenaw, Windsor, etc and it goes even lower. I think it's beyond stupid to expect these places to have clientele that reflect the demographics of just the city and not Metro Detroit as a whole when they are designed to draw people from the whole metro area and not just people who live within walking distance.

Stop shooting the messenger, and listen to the message.... unless you've never been to a Red Wing game, Opera, Symphony, DIA... or other event.... he is spot on with his assessment.

DIA is free to citizens of Detroit so what's the solution then? And there's too many white people at hockey games? Come on already.

[Willi]

Time to bring in the mandatory mixing and integration via bussing, mass transit.

[Spartan]

Interesting article by Aaron Foley, who tried to discuss this with the original author, and was shut down. Why ask the question if you don't want the answer?

http://www.metrotimes.com/Blogs/arch...h-nolan-finley

[Bham1982]

Part of the issue is the appeal of the other. African Americans, especially those from Detroit, are probably less enamored with some of the things that tend to attract white folks from the suburbs, and vice versa.

Many people go downtown because an urban setting is strange and exotic when your worldview is Macomb Twp. If you grew up in Detroit, and remember taking the bus downtown with mom, it's probably not some big deal to be going to a restaurant that isn't Applebees. It probably isn't as "cool" to hang out in some bombed-out neighborhood; it looks like grandma's old neighborhood, or where your old church used to be before it moved to NW Detroit or Southfield, rahter than some fetishized urban safari-type thing.

[Dan Wesson]

Somehow I get the impression that Finley wasn't talking about Places of Entertainment or Social gathering and things. He was talking about employment and mentoring offered by the new Detroit entrepreneurs down and mid town.

[jt1]

Talk about maybe the right message coming from the absolute wrong source.



http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opi...ople/20322377/

Nolan asks that because he scurries to the other side of the road or a new restaurant if he sees black people.

[masterblaster]

I'm a Black guy who spends time downtown and in midtown. I'm not a fan of Nolan Finley but I get his point. What he doesn't get is that the Black folks like me who would be in downtown and midtown are almost nonexistent in the city or metro-area. They are in Chicago, NYC, L.A., and D.C. Who does he think are the 250,000 people who left the city between 2000-2010? The Black people that left in that period are the ones would be at HopCat and Punch Bowl. This is more about class than race but someone like Nolan Finley wouldn't understand that.

I was in Punchbowl Social on Sunday night, and between 1/3 to 1/2 of the patrons were black. I went to HopCat last Monday, and I saw a few black couples and as well as blacks mixed with white/asian friends.

AJ3467 is right in that the target audience of these establishments are the 20-40 year old demographic in the metro area, of which blacks are very much a minority.

There are certain establishments downtown and midtown that cater to the black population. For instance, the Starters in the Studio One development on Woodward opened a couple of years ago has a 99% black clientele. In addition, the PV Lounge/Detroit Seafood restaurant in Harmonie Park has a majority black clientele. Sweetwater Tavern has a predominantly black customer base, as well some clubs downtown, like Club Bleu, the White House, and the Paris Bar.

[MAcc]

Outside of MAYBE ten restaurants/bars, isn't literally every single other restaurant and bar in Detroit [[100+) catering to a majority black clientele?