Race Relations: Middle-class exodus also gets blame for Saginaw's troubles

[Blue_Tires]

A year into his term as Saginaw’s first black mayor, Henry G. Marsh became the first minority to move into his East Side Cathedral District neighborhood in 1966. Forty-three years later, he counts two white families on his block.

“No question in my mind, that was white flight,” said Marsh, now 88 and living in the same home he purchased from a man from England all those decades ago. “So many people have moved out that it’s damaged the heart of the city.”

White flight. It’s a term backed up by U.S. Census Bureau data that, from 1950 to 2008, show the city’s white population decreasing by 58,571 while the black community grew by 14,723.

Crime and blight riddle sections of the city, Marsh said. He said he blames Saginaw’s deterioration less on race and more on economic class.

“Both middle-class whites and blacks have left the city,” Marsh said, but middle-class whites outnumbered their black counterparts as an exodus began 60 years ago.

“As far as the city itself is concerned, it’s made things worse,” he said.

http://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw/index.ssf/2009/12/race_relations_middle-class_ex.html

[Brewman_Jax]

1. That has been shown time and again

Race-The Power of an Illusion--Where Race Lives and click on the Downward Spiral button. It will go through the process of how neighborhoods go bad. :(

[Fire1]

2. This happened all over the U.S. Then came the "Malls."