Where the white people go

Steve Sailer’s recent blog post about the increasing whiteness of elite cities demonstrates the disconnect between the HBD-blogosphere and what’s happening in the real world.

In my comment section, people keep making comments about how people will wise up and move the hell out of New York City. But in the real world, the opposite is happening. We are seeing the emergence of elite cities for rich white people, and there’s no reason to think that this trend won’t continue for another few decades.

Comments

[Camlost]

Yes, a bunch of childless Swipples are moving back to the core city in areas where NAM's are priced out. However, this will do little to change overall demographic trends.

[bob sykes]

This is the Latin American pattern.

[An Unmarried Man]

Classism trumps racism in our modern society.

Race is a very powerful proxy for class (in fact, you HBDers even had to expand racial typing to include NAM's in order to allow for this hiccup in the equation).

Big cities, offering unparalleled opportunity for "high" culture and consumerism will always draw the upper social crust (ie, whites, or to default to yet one more convenient acronym, SWPL's).

[mannthomas]

It's the reverse of the white flight. City cores are becoming re-populated (with SWPLs) and many of the inner-city poor are moving to the outer fringe suburbs where housing is cheaper. It's very SWPL to dismiss suburbia and to romanticize the city -- suburbs are so bland, faceless, 'cookie cutter', and automobile-centric, whereas cities have character, better walkability, blah blah blah. A handful of people are waking up to the reality of the crappiness of suburbia and demand for city living has been skyrocketing. Yet, developers have been still building their Levitowns on steroids because they are more profitable and a safer bet. Plus the oil industry and the US auto industry own politicians the politicians, so the oil and auto industry are able to keep Americans slaves to the automobile in the cartopias. Many proles and middle class people believe it's their God given right to live in car-dependent suburbia, and to suggest the implementation of walkable, public-tranportationable, bikiable, etc will often lead to vehement yelling of socialism.

I find it silly that many suburbanites pay thousands of dollars to take vacations to walkable cities such as Venice, Amsterdam, New York, Disneyland etc to enjoy the ambiance and social fabric these great built environments provide, only to go home to their miserable suburban hell. Why visit such urban areas on a occasion and pay big bucks to do it, when you can live it? The only reason why well-connected urban areas are so expensive to live is because they are so scarce. If developers were to build more mixed-use, walkable, bikable, developments, the cost of such urban areas would become cheaper.

[dearieme]

"..there’s no reason to think that this trend won’t continue for another few decades": except for the imminent decline in the numbers of "rich white people" as one sovereign state after another defaults.

[josh]

Bye bye middle class.

[Lugo]

Miserable suburban hell? You mean the kind where people aren't living on top of each other like rats in a sewer?

"Ambiance and social fabric" (hey, you left out "vibrant" and "diverse") translates into dirty, smelly, crowded, noisy, expensive, and dangerous. You are welcome to live in your miserable urban hell, I'll take the suburbs every time. I don't have to see, hear, or smell my neighbors, and that's just the way I like it.

[OneSTDV]

OT, but you'll like it:

http://onestdv.blogspot.com/2010/06/fat-people-and-class.html

[Turambar]

"I find it silly that many suburbanites pay thousands of dollars to take vacations to walkable cities such as Venice, Amsterdam, New York, Disneyland etc to enjoy the ambiance and social fabric these great built environments provide, only to go home to their miserable suburban hell."

I find it silly that people overpay to rent tiny shoe boxes in a large city and live at the tyranny of a tenant board and then pay thousands for get-away weekends to the Hamptons just so they can wake up without blaring horns or rumbling trunks.

[The White Detroiter]

"I find it silly that many suburbanites pay thousands of dollars to take vacations to walkable cities such as Venice, Amsterdam, New York, Disneyland etc to enjoy the ambiance and social fabric these great built environments provide, only to go home to their miserable suburban hell. Why visit such urban areas on a occasion and pay big bucks to do it, when you can live it? The only reason why well-connected urban areas are so expensive to live is because they are so scarce. If developers were to build more mixed-use, walkable, bikable, developments, the cost of such urban areas would become cheaper."

Cities are interesting to visit for a short time but most people would get sick of living in them quickly.

1.Noisy neighbors are easier to tolerate in spread-out suburbs than in cramped apartment buildings where you have people living above and below you.

2.Everyday tasks are much more of a hastle in cities. Try grocery shopping for a family without a car or moving furniture or a baby stroller up a long apartment staircase instead of into a ranch home.

3.Dealing with beggars and smelly street people is tolerable when you're on vacation but it really is unpleasant if you have to deal with it everyday in a big city. You can avoid this altogether by living in the suburbs.

4.Lots of people like living in homes tucked far away from main roads and businesses. In many neighborhoods the homes furthest from main roads (and therefore the ones most dependent on cars) sell for the highest prices.

5.You don't really need developers to radically change the way neighborhoods for you to walk in them. I live in a mostly black suburb of Detroit and I go on long walks around the area all the time. I'm not brave enough (or dumb enough?) to do this in the actual City of Detroit though.

FWIW, I prefer stay-cations and going to the beach over expensive out-of-town trips to big cities.

[Melykin]

Lots of SWPLS won't live in a city because they want a bit of land for their kids and/or dogs to play on. This blog seems to be dominated by people who like cities.

[mannthomas]

Cities with great public transport, walkability, and bikability don't have to be loud chaotic places (Portland OR, many parts of San Francisco, Amsterdam, many parts of Manhattan, etc. have many quiet streets.) Also, there are many suburbs that are quite loud with noise from the traffic along the freeway-like thoroughfares and people blaring their music from their cars. There are cities with medium population densities that have a wide variety of housing from single family homes to mega condos that are well-served by public transportation and are walkable and bikable. The problem with the the development in the US is that it heavily skews toward accommodating the automobile at the expense of other forms of transportation leaving many to become slaves to their car.

[Wade Nichols]

The White Detroiter (and anyone else!):

You might find this story in WSJ interesting, I saw it this weekend:

"Black Flight Hits Detroit"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704292004575230532248715858.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_RIGHTInDepthCarousel_1

[mannthomas]

Moreover, dense urban areas are not synonymous with crime and unsavory characters. Many large European and Canadian cities have very low crime rates and very few beggars. Much of Manhattan is really safe and relatively free of unsavory characters.

"1.Noisy neighbors are easier to tolerate in spread-out suburbs than in cramped apartment buildings where you have people living above and below you."

I suppose that's true, but you just have to choose your housing carefully regardless of the type of area you live in. Also consider that single family homes that are poorly insulated from sound can be just as noisy or noisier on the inside than an apartment that has superb noise insulation.

"2.Everyday tasks are much more of a hastle in cities. Try grocery shopping for a family without a car or moving furniture or a baby stroller up a long apartment staircase instead of into a ranch home."

Many buildings have elevators, and most cities have a car share program. Also, many high density cities have high quantities of grocery stores within a small area within walking distance. Plus the baby doesn't need a stroller really, they can be carried around on a sling. If you insist having a stroller, the baby will need for only a couple of years anyhow.

The US is just too overly automobile dependent, and when the oil prices increase past a certain threshold, and as more people become poor as a result of this horrible economy, many people's level of mobility will become severely limited and their quality of life will be needlessly downgraded. The citizenry of the US are just too shortsighted and too brainwashed to do anything. All in the name of "freedom" are we stuck at the point of no return with this stupid poorly planned urban landscape. Meanwhile, the developers, politicians, and corporations are and will make off with mad money as the masses suffer because of their grand delusions of the bucolic life in the 'burbs.

[Buckaroo]

It looks like US cities are about to go for the Paris model. The core of the city is attractive, reasonably safe and clean, cultured, and, ahem, demographically correct. And you don't have to be a SWPL to prefer it to the ringing suburbs populated but the vibrant usual suspects. This means something slightly different in Paris than in, say, San Francisco but the end effect on comparative desirability is the same.

There may be a crucial difference, though. Paris seems to be generally connected to these suburbs by a single major road and a train line (if you ever get on the RER at CDG airport you'll understand the score immediately). So if worst comes to worst, all you need to do is stop the trains and get a couple of tanks on that road. This may be a harder trick to pull off in generally well paved USA. So being an island (Manhattan) or a peninsula (SF) may turn out to have certain advantages.

[Turambar]

"Moreover, dense urban areas are not synonymous with crime and unsavory characters. Many large European and Canadian cities have very low crime rates and very few beggars."

Most European cities are filled with unsavory characters- eurotrash.

[Park Slope Pubby]

Growing up in a city in a safe white neighborhood isvery pleasant for a child. You have more independence, earlier, than you do in the suburbs. You can go down the street and play with your friends. You can go to the playground and play handball. Etc.

I did it all the time, whereas my cousins in the suburbs had to be driven everywhere by their parents till they were 16. Sixteen! I was independent when I was 10, w/ certain very definite rules for my own safety. My suburban cousins always envied me.

I was lucky enough to grow up in a safe white neighborhood in NYC (and there are a lot of them), and to raise my children in another safe white neighborhood in NYC. It's a good life.

[concerned netizen]

'Steve Sailer’s recent blog post about the increasing whiteness of elite cities demonstrates the disconnect between the HBD-blogosphere and what’s happening in the real world. "

I agree. The HBD blogosphere has degenerated into a heavily anti-Semitic sewer.

[John]

The can take my car from my cold, dead hands.

It is well known that socialist liberals hate the car. They hate, hate, hate it! When Fredric Jackson Turner pointed out that America's wide open spaces was a large contributor to its tradition of freedom, he was on to something. I want to plant a tree where I want, cut down a tree where I want, let my kids play outside when they want (and not have to make a point to go to the park), and go to the grocery store and buy 3 weeks of groceries so I don't have to back every day, and on the way, pick up some Chinese food. Try doing that on a subway.

[Daniel]

"Steve Sailer’s recent blog post about the increasing whiteness of elite cities demonstrates the disconnect between the HBD-blogosphere and what’s happening in the real world."

Can you elaborate on this disconnect. It is unclear what you mean.

Are you implying that Sailer et. al. ought to just get over the coloring of America and not point out the clustering of the white elite as a hypocritical defense to the very phenomenon that they themselves have brought about?

[chris]

I don't have any issue with the idea of the suburbs, but their implementation in America leaves a lot to be desired. I was recently in Helsinki, Finland, and I rented a bike for a day. On my way back from an island that I visited, I got lost in the suburbs, but it was actually pretty cool, because it was one of the few suburbs I have ever been in where riding a bike wasn't a hellish experience. The suburbs of Helsinki and many other northern European cities have wide bike paths running parallel to major roads, many of which go underneath freeways and major roads so that you don't have to risk riding through a cloverleaf interchange. It was a very relaxing experience, and even easier than riding in Portland, where I live, which is bike-friendly by American standards. If American suburbs didn't suck to bike in as much as they do, I wouldn't hate them as much as I do.

[The Undiscovered Jew]

"We are seeing the emergence of elite cities for rich white people,"

It's not only white elites who are able to insulate themselves from NAMs.

Even the white middle class doesn't care as much about immigration as race realists believe they should.

Despite America's 2 decade old wave of Hispanic immigration, the Southwest continues to attract droves of white middle class families from whiter states in the Northeast.

Economic factors appear to determine which states white Americans prefer to migrate to, not legal and illegal Hispanic immigration.

If demographics were so important then whites shouldn't be flocking to Texas because Texas has very similar demographics to California.

[ironrailsironweights.wordpress.com]

"Yes, a bunch of childless Swipples are moving back to the core city in areas where NAM's are priced out."

Not all core-city SWPL's are childless. What happens is that if they have children, they'll stay while the children are infants and toddlers but move out once the children reach school age - an example is the Disappearing White Children of Manhattan Syndrome.

Peter

[Trumwill]

Walkability is overrated. Why is a ten minute walk inherently better than a ten minute drive? It can be better if you have to worry about parking and all that, but the suburbs where I have been have never failed to have ample parking space.

Right now I live in a really small town. There isn't anywhere you can't walk within half an hour. But you know what we do? Drive. Bad for the environment, but still more convenient. That's what most people do around here. It's the preferred mode of transport. Not something we were trapped or tricked into.

[Jaymthegenius]

"Big cities, offering unparalleled opportunity for 'high' culture and consumerism will always draw the upper social crust (ie, whites, or to default to yet one more convenient acronym, SWPL's). "

You do not actually have to live in a city to enjoy its benefits. You have made reference to some of America's greatest aspects. We have symphonies, opera, and museums. The Ivy League and America's boarding schools are other famous examples of the culture here. People overseas oftentimes make fun of Americans and America (our popular "culture", which involves poor execution, vulgarity, and puerility, are largely to blame), and rightfully so for many reasons. Yet, they continue sending their children to Milton, Choate, Farmington, etc. Alternatively, if they were to wait until college to send them to one of our famous most selective colleges.

"I find it silly that many suburbanites pay thousands of dollars to take vacations to walkable cities such as Venice, Amsterdam, New York, Disneyland etc to enjoy the ambiance and social fabric these great built environments provide, only to go home to their miserable suburban hell."

The suburbs are safer and have less conflict than the city. I dislike the suburbs that are predominantly cookie cutter houses with post-war architecture. Marblehead, MA is an outstanding town with many houses dating from the 17th century, and roads so narrow that you can barely get a car to fit on the street. There are even some yacht clubs, some yacht clubs there even have tennis.

As for Europe, they have a rich and deep history over there.

The architecture of places such as the Victoria and Albert museum, Oxford University, Neuschwanstein Castle, etc.- is something to behold. Many interiors were even decorated using the Rococo style, which can be seen to this day.

The Parthenon, built when Greece was a great country, might also be worth visiting. Although today their religion is Orthodox Christianity (the cross in the upper left portion of their flag even alludes to Christianity, the same with other flags with crosses on them...), so unlike Japan and India, they do not even have anything religiously distinct (at least of currently practiced religions) to offer a traveler.

[Jaymthegenius]

"...just so they can wake up without blaring horns or rumbling trunks."

You left out the greatest menace of all, annoying car stereos that generate loud thumping noises:

http://www.lowertheboom.org/

[chris]

"Walkability is overrated. Why is a ten minute walk inherently better than a ten minute drive?"

How about: Fewer fat women in the city that you live in, meaning a hotter supply of women to choose from.

How about: a lower cost of living due to a lack of need to own a car.

How about: The city actually becomes a pleasant place to spend a day in, rather than simply a high speed transportation conduit.

[Jaymthegenius]

"There isn't anywhere you can't walk within half an hour. But you know what we do? Drive. Bad for the environment, but still more convenient. That's what most people do around here. It's the preferred mode of transport. Not something we were trapped or tricked into."

At least it is an improvement upon having to deal with the piles of horse mess created from horse and carriage travel. Henry Ford actually wanted a biofuel car, but since oil was cheaper unfortunately he want with that instead.

I do like, however his famous maxim: " Anyone can have a car in any color they want, so long as it is black" Today, however, we have too much choice resulting in an aesthetic chaos. The poor taste of the masses oftentimes dictates market pressures in certain areas.

[Camlost]

"If demographics were so important then whites shouldn't be flocking to Texas because Texas has very similar demographics to California."

Yes, they may have similiar demographics but those two states are worlds apart in modes of governance, attitudes toward crime, eduation etc - pretty much everything related to the public sector.

There's a reason why whites are still moving into Texas but are a net annual loss to California.

[concerned netizen]

""Yes, a bunch of childless Swipples are moving back to the core city in areas where NAM's are priced out."

Another example of HBD commenter cluelessness. Babies are very popular among SWPLs. I think you are referring to older boomers. Your group, perhaps?

Also, walkability is a very nice thing. As are cars. You can do both, you know. Just not at the same time.

[The White Detroiter]

Wade Nichols,

One thing the article on Detroit didn't go into is that the city has mostly given up on residential redevelopment projects and is currently demolishing many vacant homes so they can be replaced not with newer building but . . . green space!

Even Mitt Romney's 5,500 sq. ft. boyhood home in Detroit has been demolished.

Even before this Detroit is probably literally the greenest big city in America.

Read the following article from "detroitblog" and especially look at the pictures to get a sense of what Detroit looks like now.

http://www.detroitblog.org/?p=287

[JuanMcShame]

All those one bedroom apartments will be coffins for White people here in America and in Europe because they aren't having any children.

[Camlost]

"Babies are very popular among SWPLs. I think you are referring to older boomers. Your group, perhaps?"

Ooooh, I stand corrected!! Damn that Steve Sailer and his predictions of demographic doom.

I bet that maybe oxygen and water are also "popular" with the SWPL crowd, too!!

Any way you look at it, educated whites are reproducing below replacement level, especially SWPLs who live in crowded urban settings. I don't know ANY that have more than 1 kid, let alone 3 or 4.

[Pete Seeger]

"Where have all the honkies gone...long time passing."

[Pseudothyrum]

NYC is hilarious, so many childless women (many of them Jews, by the way) - "New York City: An Elephant’s Graveyard for Ovaries" - http://www.takimag.com/sniperstower/article/new_york_city_an_elephants_graveyard_for_ovaries/

NYC also has one of the highest immigrant and non-White populations in the USA because they do all of the manual labor in the city - the immigrants have a lot of kids, but why not the much more wealthy and leisured White groups in the city?

[Pseudothyrum]

In the future the suburbs will be retrofitted to become more like small towns with nice town centers, local shops, local agriculture, and local ranching/livestock raising; see the concept of 'Agriburbia' - http://www.agriburbia.com/ - these will be based on extended families and acquaintances.

In an oil scarce future, the last place you'd want to be is in the big cities which have very little local capacity for raising food. Also with their teeming populations of NAMs. The entire Bos-NYC-Wash corridor of the USA has been paved over and they must truck in or boat in 99% of their food just to survive, same with the water. Bad news. It'd going to be better to be in the small towns, suburbs, rural areas, and medium-sized cities which still have the surrounding rural areas to produce the things necessary for life. Hard to raise cattle or some row crops on asphalt, yeah?