Blacks leaving Chicago...

So yesterday it started and now I'm sure we'll hear more stories about Blacks moving out of my city. It started with Greg Hinz at Crain's Chicago Business then the Chicago News Coop discusses this more.

The decline among blacks may be explained in part by migration to the suburbs, the demolition of thousands of high-rise public housing units and a broader population shift to the South.

“Chicago was probably among the pre-eminent destinations of the Great Migration, and this marks the end of an era in some ways,” said William H. Frey, a demographer and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

According to Mr. Frey’s analysis of the new census data, blacks still make up roughly a third of Chicago’s population (with whites representing around another third, and fast-growing segments of Hispanics and Asians a little more than a third), but that is smaller than in the past.

Then another article from the Sun-Times about a couple who actually moved from the city to the south burbs:

Diane Gonnigan loves her University Park home. 

She and hubby Keith moved there from Chicago’s Roseland neighborhood in January 2007 to be closer to family. Her brother already lived in Olympia Fields, she said.

...

Gonnigan, whose mother lived with her at the time, said the choice allowed her family to build a house with a main level that was entirely wheelchair assessable, a large kitchen, a laundry room and a garage.

“There’s a lot more land,” she said. “In Chicago, it was just too inconvenient to expand.” 

...

A contract writer at an insurance company, Gonnigan said she likes that the community is quieter than the one she left.

“It’s peaceful; less violent,” she said.

Blacks in Chicago aren't just moving to the south burbs either:

The Southern U.S. region — primarily metropolitan areas such as Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Miami and Charlotte, N.C. — accounted for roughly 75 percent of the population gains among blacks since 2000, up from 65 percent in the 1990s, according to the latest census estimates. The gains came primarily at the expense of Northern metro areas such as New York and Chicago. 

In all, about 57 percent of U.S. blacks live in the South, a jump from the 53 percent share in the 1970s, according to an analysis of census data by William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. 

“African Americans are acting as other Americans would — searching for better economic opportunity in the Sun Belt,” said Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Suns, a detailed history of the Great Migration. “But there is also a special connection.”

My brother lives in the Dallas area and I've been to school in Atlanta. Knowing that Atlanta is such a destination for people looking for new places to live keeps me away from Atlanta at least to live. I don't want to be a lemming move where everyone else seems to want to move. I also know that my brother can have Texas. :P

All the same these articles answered a few questions. Where are Blacks going and why are they leaving Chicago? Relatively easy Chicago tore down housing projects and now the project crowd has to stay somewhere. Some stay in the city and others move to the burbs.

The couple mentions above wanted more property and a big house. Just like most Americans, I'm certain Black want the best education for their children so they vote with their feet on that issue. Especially if they want to be certain their young people will go to a good school. Also the couple above mentioned the issue of crime.

Well how can we stave off this trend? If there is any way?