Black Flight

Apparently, it's not just whitey leaving the city for the suburbs. Blacks are also leaving. According to the WSJ.....

Decades of white flight transformed America's cities. That era is drawing to a close.

In Washington, a historically black church is trying to attract white members to survive. Atlanta's next mayoral race is expected to feature the first competitive white candidate since the 1980s. San Francisco has lost so many African-Americans that Mayor Gavin Newsom created an "African-American Out-Migration Task Force and Advisory Committee" to help retain black residents.

"The city is experiencing growth, yet we're losing African-American families disproportionately," Mr. Newsom says. When that happens, "we lose part of our soul."

Mayor Newsom, listen to the clue phone. It's not the soul you need to be worried about..... it's the tax base.

This article ties in nicely with some comments I've received from a reader on an older post.

If you read this blog enough you'll hear a constant refrain; police, fire, roads. Money spent on anything else is a waste of precious government resources. Yet city leaders like Mayor Newsom just keep doing what they're doing. Waving by to good taxpaying people as they leave.

Let's go through this once again. Cities are no different than businesses in the private sector. People will compare the costs/benefits and respond accordingly; by moving. It doesn't matter if you are white, black, purple or plaid, every household will work through that equation when picking a home.

The lovely Mrs. Gekko and I live in a township with no city tax. That saves our household over $2,000 a year as compared to living within the city of Cincinnati. Our garbage still gets picked up, we have better schools, our street actually gets plowed in the winter, we don't have to worry about crime and yet we save money.

Seems like a pretty good deal to me.

This also works at the state level. Ask California, where they are experiencing a net migration drain as people leave the state. Last week, I read a great piece (if someone knows where to find it, please forward) on the CA budget. Since Ahnauld has taken over the governorship, the state budget has increased by 40 BILLION dollars. Yet, not one taxpayer could tell you exactly what they got for that extra 40 BILLION dollars.

This author's point was this; if people can't tell you where that money was spent to benefit them, they assume you can do without it.

I assume that the city of Cincinnati can do without the 2.1% city income tax. Why? because I live in an area that doesn't have it and yet I still get the basic city services I want.

When city leaders recognize this and actually budget accordingly, people will move back.