>>the complaint is that many lefties--lifestyle or not--would never be caught
>>dead mentioning that they would flee from living in the cultural tundra of
>>the south bronx. that is a recognizably racist desire and urban flight has
>>been a frequent focus of left critique
>
>You're kidding, right? OK, put me on record as saying that I would
>flee from the tundra, cultural and otherwise, of the South
>Bronx--not because there are black people there, but because it is
>full of drugs and violence. What's racist about not wanting to live
>in such a place? Hell, my (black) first girlfriend moved out of NE
>DC, actually a pretty decent neighborhood, to the white VA burbs,
>because she didn't want her now 10 yr old son exposed to what you
>find in the DC neighborhood schools. I, and anyone who had a
>choice, would be happy to live in a neighborhood where there are
>people of any color like my 1st GF, a smart, civilized, lower middle
>class professional (a physical therapist). No one who has a choice
>wants to live theSouth Bronx or Cabrini Green.
During the 90s boom in NYC, rising rents drove both yuppies and hipsters (both categories mostly white) into many neighborhoods dominated by mostly poor, mostly nonwhite people in the outer boroughs and upper Manhattan. The sharp decline in the crime rate had something to do with it too - ten years ago, you risked your life by walking down the street in lots of poor neighborhoods (regardless of your skin color, though the darker ones often had little choice about being there). No longer. So it's just not true that "lifestyle lefties" would flee from a place like the South Bronx. In fact, by gentrifying neighborhoods, it's the poor people who are more likely to flee these days.
Doug