Demographic Shift as Minorities Move to Suburbs

12/15/2010 | Comment

The Times has two interesting articles based on the latest data dump from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. The first article looks at local trends, and finds that

Metropolitan New York is being rapidly reshaped as blacks, Latinos, Asians and immigrants surge into the suburbs, while gentrification by whites is widening the income gap in neighborhoods in Manhattan and Brooklyn

Neither trend is particularly surprising if you’ve been paying attention. Inner suburbs, like Nassau County on Long Island or Fairfax County, Virginia, have been seeing large influxes of minorities – Asian and Hispanic in particular. Outer exburbs – Orange County, NY, for instance – have also been seeing large increases in minority population. This trend – and some of its implications – is explained much better in the Times’ second article, which focuses on national trends.

Locally, the Times picks up on the countervailing trend of gentrification by whites – again, no surprise to anyone who has lived in Williamsburg, Greenpoint or Bushwick (to name but three of many impacted Brooklyn neighborhoods). The accompanying maps show that the Hispanic population in Williamsburg has gone from 40% to 30% over the past decade. What it doesn’t say is how much of that shift is displacement and how much is a general increase in the non-Hispanic population while the Hispanic population remains flat or rises at a slower rate. I suspect it is some of both, but need to spend some time with the numbers behind the survey (this will also be illuminated much more clearly when the Census Bureau releases its 2010 numbers – what we are looking at right now is an annual sample survey, not a straight count of all bodies).

Duane Reade – Oh Noes!

12/12/2010 | 4 Comments

Oh great, now the Guardian (UK) is on the Duane Reade story. Must be news.

Give me a break.

It’s not news.

It’s a drugstore.

A shiny new, clean and characterless drugstore (I never thought I would use the words “shiny”, “clean” or “characterless” in describing a Duane Reade, but there you go). The second such shiny new, clean and characterless Duane Reade to open on the Northside in the past year.

In an article practically oozing with ridiculous Williamsburg stereotypes – hipsters, beards, tattoos, piercings, lifestyles “funded by middle-class parents” (in Ohio, no doubt), and rumors (rumors) of a Starbucks (a boogey man we’ve been hearing about for 15 years) – the Guardian tries to find deeper meaning in the opening of a new Duane Reade in a ugly condo on Bedford Avenue.

There isn’t any deeper meaning. It’s a drugstore. A lot of the “poor… Jewish, eastern European and Hispanic working-class immigrants” who populated the neighborhood until a decade ago are probably just fine with a new drugstore. But who knows? – the Guardian (and every other newspaper that has decided that this is “news”) didn’t interview anyone who has lived in the neighborhood for more than 7 years. The basis of the entire article is that people who have lived here for less than a decade are being forced out by the taint of corporatism. Other than acknowledging that there were groups of people who lived here before 2000 (but no artists or non-ethnic white people, apparently), there is no attempt to find out what longtime residents think about this – or even if, and more importantly, to what extent, those residents are moving/have moved out of the neighborhood.

Maybe the longtime residents aren’t shopping at Duane Reade. Maybe they don’t need growlers and frozen frat food. Maybe they like their neighborhood pharmacies but don’t sign petitions. (BTW – has anyone actually comparison shopped between DR and King’s? My scientific sampling shows that they both charge exactly the same amount ($10.99) for a bottle of contact lens solution, but that King’s has way better music).

The only sane person in the entire article is Josh Freeman, history professor at CUNY, who notes “Cities and neighbourhoods change all the time. You can’t freeze them. You don’t want to create a sort of museum”.

Amen.

So shop where you want. Just shut up about it. And remember, it’s just a drugstore.