The influence of "white flight" on non-American cities?

[10023]

Originally Posted by JManc

The US was essentially still a developing country back then...despite our economic and industrial might. Think China today. We were building bridges, dams and skyscrapers all over but still had larges swathes of the country living in total poverty and inaccessible by paved roads. Or at least the kind we take for granted today. We also benefited by not having a war fought on our soil so we didn't have to focus on rebuilding cities and infrastructure but suburbs. Japan, Europe and Russia all had to rebuild. Just think if there was no WWII, they could have followed the same path to suburbia.

Most of Europe didn’t have a minority population to create white flight.

Lots and lots of people moved out of London, but that was partly due to cost and partly due to substandard housing after WW2. Lots of Afro-Caribbean and South Asian immigrants moved in around the same time, but I’m not sure which led to the other.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Of course, many different elements went into white flight in the U.S., but particularly after the urban riots started in the 1960s it shifted from white people simply moving to the suburbs because they had access to new suburbs that black families did not, to actual racial panic.

I'm not sure I agree with your characterization of white flight. Urban cores had already lost the white middle class by the late 60's. Detroit's fate had been sealed before the riots. There was probably some degree of post-riot "racial panic" for those that had remained, but the riots were more a reaction to, rather than cause of, white abandonment.

Originally Posted by eschaton

While I realize that in recent years there has been a huge influx of immigrants to many European nations, which in some cases make up over 20% of the population, my understanding is in basically every European city these groups are mixed between some elements of the core city and poorer, often dense surburbs. The historic city centers generally remain what would be termed "gentrified" within the U.S., and there are still rich urban neighborhoods. So the situation is not analogous.

Indeed the situation isn't analagous, but I think you're painting too rosy a picture for Western Europe. In Germany, public housing, in one generation, has gone from basically all native German, to almost entirely immigrant. The projects are sometimes called "Affenkäfigie", which means monkey cages (I think the implication is clear). There are urban neighborhoods with very few non-immigrant white folks.

I know less about other countries, but I would wager Belgium and France, if anything, have even more extreme changes. Brussels, in particular, has areas that appear to be almost entirely devoid of white Belgians. In Paris, communities like St. Denis appear to be almost entirely African or Middle Eastern. Yeah, the cores are beautiful and gentrified, but the native middle classes have largely left the working class urban neighborhoods.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by 10023

Most of Europe didn’t have a minority population to create white flight.

Lots and lots of people moved out of London, but that was partly due to cost and partly due to substandard housing after WW2. Lots of Afro-Caribbean and South Asian immigrants moved in around the same time, but I’m not sure which led to the other.

Our minority population was denied the opportunity to partake in the 'flight' as well due to discriminatory policies and practices. Instead, they were forced to stay behind in the cities in substandard tenements while whites attained their single largest investments and access to wealth; their homes.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

There is certainly racism, income inequality (Whites make twice as much as Mixed/Black), but there is no sense of racial divisions like we have in the US. Everybody is part of the mainstream culture. Social barriers are a big thing though. No one we'll pay attention if two people of the same class, but from different colour to have a relationship. That's the most common thing in the world. People marrying outside their social class is more uncommon though.

This sounds like the same old social equity "racial democracy" bullshit that Cuba has hilariously touted since Castro took over. Promoting this in contrast to awful segregation histories in the US was a popular political tool in Brazil from the populism of Vargas and fascism of the integral movement until present day, really. It makes white Brazilians feel good about themselves.

The fact that Brazil has such a high percentage of mixed-race population owes directly to the fact that nearly 6 million African slaves were taken to Brazil. I'm not trying to say that is the only reason, but it is a major contributing factor.

The fallacy of Brazil's "racial democracy" is exemplified by the fact that, as you state, "Whites make twice as much as Mixed/Black". This has its roots in societal racial division.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I'm not sure I agree with your characterization of white flight. Urban cores had already lost the white middle class by the late 60's. Detroit's fate had been sealed before the riots. There was probably some degree of post-riot "racial panic" for those that had remained, but the riots were more a reaction to, rather than cause of, white abandonment.

I feel like the period from 1945 through to the early 1960s was not the same dynamic as the later "peak white flight" era. Essentially the white middle class was not "fleeing" the city due to black people. It was fleeing because the cities were dirty and overcrowded, and new, cheap suburban housing suddenly opened up. Black families were kept out of these areas due to housing discrimination all the way up through the 1980s in some areas, meaning when they moved north they had nowhere to move but to the cities. And the most affordable city neighborhoods to move to were the ones which were being "fled" by the white middle classes.

Originally Posted by Crawford

Indeed the situation isn't analogous, but I think you're painting too rosy a picture for Western Europe. In Germany, public housing, in one generation, has gone from basically all native German, to almost entirely immigrant. The projects are sometimes called "Affenkäfigie", which means monkey cages (I think the implication is clear). There are urban neighborhoods with very few non-immigrant white folks.

I know less about other countries, but I would wager Belgium and France, if anything, have even more extreme changes. Brussels, in particular, has areas that appear to be almost entirely devoid of white Belgians. In Paris, communities like St. Denis appear to be almost entirely African or Middle Eastern. Yeah, the cores are beautiful and gentrified, but the native middle classes have largely left the working class urban neighborhoods.

Again, I wasn't saying ethnic enclaves don't exist - they clearly do, even in the urban cores. But ethnic enclaves are completely normal for cities, having existed throughout history. I was saying there isn't a single notable example of a city in Europe which has been totally abandoned by the dominant culture (not using native-born here because in the case of France and Germany, a lot of the "non-whites" are actually native born (using quotes because within a U.S. context a lot of MENA people are considered white as long as they don't wear hijabs or something, which obviously isn't the case in Europe)).

London is more multicultural and immigrant-heavy than virtually every city in continental Europe. Only Mannheim in Germany and Lausanne in Switzerland narrowly edge it out. In Lausanne it's mostly EU-born foreign nationals from Portugal, France, Italy, and Spain. Mannheim has a lot of Turks, but otherwise it's also mostly EU migrants. So there's really no "Detroit" of the EU, or even a Cleveland.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I'm not sure I agree with your characterization of white flight. Urban cores had already lost the white middle class by the late 60's. Detroit's fate had been sealed before the riots. There was probably some degree of post-riot "racial panic" for those that had remained, but the riots were more a reaction to, rather than cause of, white abandonment.


Indeed the situation isn't analagous, but I think you're painting too rosy a picture for Western Europe. In Germany, public housing, in one generation, has gone from basically all native German, to almost entirely immigrant. The projects are sometimes called "Affenkäfigie", which means monkey cages (I think the implication is clear). There are urban neighborhoods with very few non-immigrant white folks.

I know less about other countries, but I would wager Belgium and France, if anything, have even more extreme changes. Brussels, in particular, has areas that appear to be almost entirely devoid of white Belgians. In Paris, communities like St. Denis appear to be almost entirely African or Middle Eastern. Yeah, the cores are beautiful and gentrified, but the native middle classes have largely left the working class urban neighborhoods.

Without passing judgement on whether this or good or bad, I can confirm than in Paris, Brussels and other cities in France or Belgium there are decent-sized areas where there are very few native French or Belgians left living there.

[Acajack]

In Canada what has generally happened is that working class and lower middle class whites as they have gotten more prosperous over time have left the "inner ring" of cities for the suburbs and exurbs. These areas generally featured less charming and spacious forms of housing but they were not slums and still aren't slums today for the most part. And this migration was primarily socio-economically as opposed to racially driven.

These native-born whites were for the most part replaced in these areas by newly-arrived immigrants and in some cases (in certain Prairie cities) by aboriginal Canadians who have been migrating to cities from far-flung isolated reserves.

But the nicer affluent central core neighbourhoods in almost all Canadian cities have retained their traditional population makeup and prestige, with a trickle of newly-minted affluent people of non-white immigrant origin. So the face of these areas is very slowly changing but the apple cart is not being upset.

Canada I would say has not yet faced on a large scale the test of having a large wave of non-white but culturally integrated people of a similar socio-economic level of affluence, becoming a strong majority in very many areas. So we don't have much of an idea of how Canadians would react to what would simply be a difference in terms of appearance, skin tone, etc., but not in terms of actual differences in family values, how they raise their kids, or societal norms.

There is of course the special case of Vancouver which might merit its own distinct analysis. But none of the usual scenarios referenced above really apply to it.

It's been mentioned it's mostly a case of being priced out, but just as much as that it's also been a case of people cashing out.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Without passing judgement on whether this or good or bad, I can confirm than in Paris, Brussels and other cities in France or Belgium there are decent-sized areas where there are very few native French or Belgians left living there.

And I don't think this was the case 40 years ago. So there have been pretty dramatic changes in the working class urban neighborhoods of Western Europe.

And, yeah, it isn't necessarily good or bad, and there isn't the widespread disinvestment as in a Detroit, but clearly there are pretty extensive urban geographies where "native" folks don't want to live.

[10023]

To put it more bluntly, I’ve had more than a few Frenchmen (and Frenchwomen) tell me that Paris isn’t really France anymore. Many Brits feel the same about London (though other British cities have very high non-white British populations as well). But at least France has some really appealing second tier cities like Lyon and Bordeaux.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I was saying there isn't a single notable example of a city in Europe which has been totally abandoned by the dominant culture (not using native-born here because in the case of France and Germany, a lot of the "non-whites" are actually native born (using quotes because within a U.S. context a lot of MENA people are considered white as long as they don't wear hijabs or something, which obviously isn't the case in Europe)).

Detroit wasn't really "abandoned by the dominant culture". Rather, the "dominant culture" relocated a few miles north, and created a new "Detroit", more or less. This was the case in most U.S. metros.

There are no places in Western Europe that have Detroit-style abandonment/disinvestment, obviously, but there are monocultural areas have been similarly vacated by the "dominant culture".

There are no "native" French whites in St. Denis. It's as nonwhite as 7 Mile Rd. in Detroit. The circumstances and outcomes are very different, but there's clearly a somewhat analogous outmigration.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Detroit wasn't really "abandoned by the dominant culture". Rather, the "dominant culture" relocated a few miles north, and created a new "Detroit", more or less. This was the case in most U.S. metros.

There are no places in Western Europe that have Detroit-style abandonment/disinvestment, obviously, but there are monocultural areas have been similarly vacated by the "dominant culture".

Maybe the situation is more analogous to U.S. communities which became majority-Hispanic rather than majority-black? I mean, if you look at white-flight areas which became Hispanic, they tend to still have high population densities and little in the way of abandoned buildings or vacant lots, even if they can be a bit run down in places.

Originally Posted by Crawford

There are no "native" French whites in St. Denis. It's as nonwhite as 7 Mile Rd. in Detroit. The circumstances and outcomes are very different, but there's clearly a somewhat analogous outmigration.

It would be very hard to prove that less than 10% of the population of any French neighborhood wasn't "white" considering France does not track racial demographics.

Regardless, just because the white population moved out of an area and was replaced by a nonwhite population, it doesn't mean it was due to white flight as was classically understood in the U.S. For example, in the late 19th and early 20th century, the U.S. had the development of both urban Chinatowns and large urban concentrations of black people in the North (pre-Great Migration). This did not occur because a few Chinese and black people moved into the areas, and white people moved out. Instead it happened because these populations, which were formerly dispersed more widely in rural areas and small towns, were chased out by white mobs, and retreated into the cities for safety. Obviously someone had to have been moving out of the area in question for these groups to be moving in, but it was the Chinese and Black people doing the fleeing, not the white population, which just moved on to different neighborhoods.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Regardless, just because the white population moved out of an area and was replaced by a nonwhite population, it doesn't mean it was due to white flight as was classically understood in the U.S. For example, in the late 19th and early 20th century, the U.S. had the development of both urban Chinatowns and large urban concentrations of black people in the North (pre-Great Migration). This did not occur because a few Chinese and black people moved into the areas, and white people moved out. Instead it happened because these populations, which were formerly dispersed more widely in rural areas and small towns, were chased out by white mobs, and retreated into the cities for safety. Obviously someone had to have been moving out of the area in question for these groups to be moving in, but it was the Chinese and Black people doing the fleeing, not the white population, which just moved on to different neighborhoods.

I'm not getting the difference here. When Harlem became a black community 100 years ago, the whites generally left. When some sprawlburb of Atlanta or DC becomes a black community today, the whites leave.

Blacks migrated to Northern cities to escape white mobs in the rural south? I don't think this is generally true. There was horrible oppression, of course, but but the movement north was due to a number of economic and social factors.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I'm not getting the difference here. When Harlem became a black community 100 years ago, the whites generally left. When some sprawlburb of Atlanta or DC becomes a black community today, the whites leave.

The term "white flight" was developed to describe a particular period in U.S. history, and happened for a particular set of historical reasons. Just because the white percentage in an area declines does not mean the population is moving away. For example, it could be differences in birth rates, or newer higher-density development which nonwhites move into. And even if the population does move away, it doesn't mean that it was fleeing, or if it was fleeing, it had anything to do with racial animus.

For example, consider some of the dying small towns of the Coal Region of PA. Basically the jobs in these areas dried up generations ago, with the population disproportionately elderly and shrinking (the children have long since moved on). In some of these towns, there has been a big influx in recent years of Latinos, who are moving there because there is a lot of dirt-cheap vacant housing and they aren't that far of a commute away from family in the New York area. The white population declined, and the Latino population boomed, but the latter didn't cause the former. Hence it's hard for me to see calling it "white flight" in the classic sense.

Originally Posted by Crawford

Blacks migrated to Northern cities to escape white mobs in the rural south? I don't think this is generally true. There was horrible oppression, of course, but but the movement north was due to a number of economic and social factors.

No, in the rural north.

Immediately after the Civil War, there was a modest migration of blacks to the north. They mostly moved to rural areas and small towns, which made sense, considering at that time most black people were from rural areas as well. The first few decades after the civil war, these small black communities were tolerated, but as white supremacy became more prominent in the North (known as the "nadir of race relations" by historians), these communities became less and less tolerant of the few blacks in their midst. They were chased out by armed mobs, or in some cases by the passage of "sundown" laws, which made it illegal for any black people to be in town after the sun went down.

This book is a very good primer, if you have the time.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by eschaton

No, in the rural north.

Blacks in Northern cities were overwhelmingly from the South. There were barely any blacks in the rural North.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by 10023

To put it more bluntly, I’ve had more than a few Frenchmen (and Frenchwomen) tell me that Paris isn’t really France anymore. Many Brits feel the same about London (though other British cities have very high non-white British populations as well). But at least France has some really appealing second tier cities like Lyon and Bordeaux.

Not sure what that has to do with being "appealling" or not...

Anyway, I'd like to point out that many - maybe even most - lower tier cities in France also have very high and growing immigrant populations.

For example close to half of the schoolkids in Blois which is a small city in the heart of the Loire valley, have immigrant parents - generally non-European.

Roubaix in the north near the Belgian border is also not a big city but is clearly moving in on becoming 50% Muslim at some point not too far away - though not quite there yet.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by eschaton

It would be very hard to prove that less than 10% of the population of any French neighborhood wasn't "white" considering France does not track racial demographics.
.

It's not really hard to figure things out, though.

There are ways of measuring populations without depending upon the official census numbers.

It's very obvious that some parts of the Paris region and of other French metros have very, very few residents who are of European origin.

I am not being alarmist - just realistic.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Blacks in Northern cities were overwhelmingly from the South. There were barely any blacks in the rural North.

I depends upon what you mean by barely any. They did exist, albeit in small numbers compared to the later Great Migration, which swamped them out. But there were black people in the north within a few decades after the Civil War - particularly in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Illinois, Kansas, Indiana, and New Jersey. Again, you should read Sundown Towns if you want some education about this little-known period in U.S. history. It was eye-opening for me, because I knew from college these dynamics happened with the Chinese in America, but not with northern blacks roughly concurrently.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Anyway, I'd like to point out that many - maybe even most - lower tier cities in France also have very high and growing immigrant populations.

Germany is very different. Cities are quite diverse, but small towns/villages are almost entirely "German". Maybe it's because non-European presence in Germany is a newer thing than in France.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Not sure what that has to do with being "appealling" or not...

Anyway, I'd like to point out that many - maybe even most - lower tier cities in France also have very high and growing immigrant populations.

For example close to half of the schoolkids in Blois which is a small city in the heart of the Loire valley, have immigrant parents - generally non-European.

Roubaix in the north near the Belgian border is also not a big city but is clearly moving in on becoming 50% Muslim at some point not too far away - though not quite there yet.

The most appealing places will tend to attract (or retain) the French. The less appealing places tend to become immigrant-heavy, because their lack of appeal makes them cheap.

France has numerous prosperous secondary cities, whereas the North of England is pretty economically depressed. Of course the north of France, closest to Belgium, might be similar. It’s not Paris and it doesn’t have the South’s weather.

That’s kind of a version of white flight, on a regional scale, in the same way that Americans are moving out of the Rust Belt (bit of course, in America, they’re not being replaced by immigrants to the same extent).

[JManc]

If the French are worried that much about Paris/ France not being "French" anymore, then they need to make more French people. They are France after all. At least Americans are doing their thing here.