NewGeography.com blogs

This recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle discusses how politicians in the city are trying to stem the flight of blacks from the city - who now only make up 6.5 percent of the city's population (it was 13.4 percent in 1970).

There are two problems with this article. One is it fails to contextualize the pattern of black migration in America. As this report from William Frey of the Brookings Institute points out, black population growth is shifting to the South and to newer communities in the West with a lower cost of living. If you look at a map of California in Frey's report, you'll see 25 percent population growth of blacks in some suburban communities.

Secondly, the article doesn't link this occurrence to current economic trends in San Francisco. The city is increasingly becoming a haven for the very wealthy which is pushing out the middle and lower earners - and blacks in the city are more likely to fall into this income bracket.

Finally, albeit a small reason, Section 8 vouchers are moving some working class blacks to the suburbs.

If you read the Chronicle article, it sounds like the City is being very antagonistic towards the black community. Perhaps it is in an inadvertent economic way. I think that perhaps the bigger culprit is that the city is not hospitable to the middle class and families any longer. And secondly, college-educated and affluent blacks are choosing to live in cities like Atlanta where there is a higher concentration of black professionals and business and cultural centers.

With 36 Chicago Public School children murdered in the last 12 months, the Chicago Sun-Times reports that getting shot has become the number one fear of children in the city's violent neighborhoods.

The fear seems most pervasive among fifth to eighth graders.

The Financial Times recently made note of the biggest drop in commodity prices in 28 years. This, of course, is a fall from record highs and some analysts are continuing bullish forecasts. The Reuters/Jeffries CRB index has continued its decline the past few days:

It's a trend to keep an eye on.

Yesterday, an article appeared in the SF Chronicle by C.W. Nevius about an Internet salesman who lives in a tent in Golden Gate Park because housing costs are too high. He works by day at a cafe and pitches his tent at night getting up before dawn when the police do raids to evict illegal campers.

With much of the new development in SF geared towards the flush Web 2.0 crowd, there are fewer and fewer places for the lower middle-class to live. The resident hotels in SF are not pleasant places to live or even visit (I went voter canvassing in a few three years ago).

What is the housing solution for the Tom Sepas of the world? If we ever start seeing 21st Century Hoovervilles, they could be populated by people like him.

A very sobering tale that shatters the popular vision of the everyman Internet worker as some high-flying urban hepcat.

Mayor Daley said this week that the economy in Chicago is the worst that he's seen since becoming mayor.

You'd never guess this judging by the article about "demographic inversion" published in the New Republic by Alan Ehrenhalt . The author prints a lot of anecdotal evidence about on-going gentrification he witnesses in his hometown but unfortunately offers precious few statistics about job growth.

The vacancy rate for industrial real estate in the Chicago area recently climbed to its highest level in 14 years. The governor also called violence in the city "out of control."