Exodus

A recent report released by the Wall Street Journal indicates that blacks are disappearing from many of America’s largest cities.
San Francisco, Washington D. C. and several cities in California are seeing a decrease in the number of black people living there, according to the report.
The report also indicates an increase of white people returning to the cities, a reversal on the 1990’s when the cities experienced a “white flight,” leaving neighborhoods in the hands of blacks and Hispanics.
Data shows that Washington, D. C. gained 24,000 whites and lost 21,000 blacks between 2000 and 2006 and that the black population has declined from a high of 72 percent in the 1970s to less than 60 percent last year. Statistics show that blacks are leaving New York, Atlanta, Houston, Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles.
Reasons suggested for the change include rising real estate prices and the growing number of middle-class black families who have been moving to the suburbs in greater numbers. The report also indicated that Hispanic immigrants are also increasingly heading to the suburbs.
The report also said that the reduction is so significant for cities such as San Francisco that the city’s Mayor Gavin Newsome has created a special task force to help keep black people in the city. The report stated that in San Francisco, African-American deaths now outnumber births.