Black residents are leaving many crime-ridden U.S. cities in the North in favor of suburban areas in the South, according to The Wall Street Journal.
U.S. Census Bureau estimates released on Thursday revealed that black residents are leaving cities in the North and West that have a historically high black population, including Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Oakland, according to the WSJ. The residents are reportedly fleeing to suburban and “high-growth” areas to escape rising crime and find better neighborhoods.
“I was tired of the gunshots, the sirens,” Mary Hall-Rayford, a retired teacher who moved from Detroit to neighboring Eastpointe, Michigan, in 2012, told the WSJ. (RELATED: Americans Continue To Flee Crime-Ridden Blue Cities For The Burbs And Red States, New Census Data Shows)
Khary Minor, who grew up in South Philadelphia, told the WSJ that nearly 5% of his barbershop customers left the city since the pandemic began and crime increased. He’s been looking for a place to live in suburban Darby, Pennsylvania.
“Better school district, nicer neighborhood, there’s not people out on every corner,” Minor told the WSJ.
A general view shows the taped off area marking the scene of a shooting in Harlem, New York on January 22, 2022. (Photo by ED JONES/AFP via Getty Images)
The outflows represent a reversal of the so-called “Great Migration” that started in the early 20th century, when millions of black Americans left the South to pursue “economic opportunities” and “flee racial violence,” the WSJ reported. Young, college-educated black people are leading the shift, William Frey, a Brookings Institution demographer, told the WSJ.
The percentage of black people living in metropolitan-area suburbs rose to 44% by 2020, up from 33% two decades earlier, the WSJ reported.
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