D.C. Capital Losing Majority Black Status

Taylor Media Services

 

   In 1957, Washington, D.C. became the first major American city to achieve majority Black status. However, demographers are now projecting that if current trends continue, the nation’s capital could lose its majority African American status within the next ten years. Skyrocketing housing prices and the flight of middle class Blacks to the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs have forced a dramatic decline in the number of Blacks willing and able to live in the city. 
    The director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech University Robert Lang says gentrification is also forcing out many low income Blacks. Some once predominantly low-income communities are becoming increasing dotted with condominiums selling for a minimum of $300,000. Lang projects the city will become less and less African American and “more affluent as a whole.” 
    The city’s Black population reached a peak of 71 percent in 1970. According to the Census Bureau, that percentage has now declined to 57 percent. Whites are now 38 percent of the city’s population and both the Asian and Hispanic populations are rising as the Black population declines.
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