In America's most Progressive City blacks are leaving in record numbers. Mayor Newsom is quoted as saying: "San Francisco's strength is the fact that we don't just tolerate our diversity, we celebrate it," Newsom says. "One of the real gifts of living in this city is living together and advancing together across every conceivable difference. There's magic to that." Yet in San Francisco The actual number of blacks has dwindled to about 47,000 out of a population of roughly 744,000. ... According to Census estimates, the number of blacks here shrank from 13.4% of the population in 1970 to just 6.5% in 2005 — the biggest percentage decline in any major American city.

Other cities are losing blacks to the suburbs — Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, San Diego, Washington and Oakland among them — but none has seen anything like what's happening here. ... "The flight is certainly more intense in San Francisco than elsewhere," says Hans Johnson, a demographer with the Public Policy Institute of California here. In general African-Americans across the USA are "suburbanizing" at a rate slightly higher than whites, he says. "As their incomes go up, they move out."

In some ways it seems that blacks are fleeing what some had hoped would attract them in the first place: Many blacks here shun buying affordable housing because those homes have "equity restrictions" to keep them affordable, which means they can't be resold at market rates.

"They see homeownership as a chance to gain assets that will grow. So they'll go outside the city," says Ed Donaldson, counseling director for the San Francisco Housing Development Corp.

Questions for debate:

Is it simply housing costs that have blacks fleeing San Francisco?

As people grow wealthier are they more likely to shun programs like equity restrictions?

If the only people left are rich white folks has San Francisco failed as a diverse, progressive experiment/example?

How can San Francisco get blacks, especially the growing affluent middle class blacks, to stay?

Is it simply housing costs that have blacks fleeing San Francisco?

On ownership
In general, people who wish to purchase housing do so outside of San Francisco: real estate costs are among the highest in the nation in the city. The housing bubble (that is, cheap loans) have encouraged people to purchase property. Since most folks can only afford¹ property outside of San Francisco, this will naturally create an incentive to "flee" (a terrible word, BTW). It is a simple fact that blacks are a minority of minorities in the Bay Area and that more blacks live in San Francisco than the average for the region. Thus, you will see a reduction in concentration of blacks in San Francisco as the population diffuses out into the 'burbs.

¹Note that "afford" is a misnomer since many folks have loans far in excess of what they can actually afford over the long term.

On renting
In the flip side, San Francisco has rent control: specifically, a property owner cannot raise rent more than 2% per year (unless there's been major improvements done). This does encourage people to stay in their rentals. But, when people leave their rental properties, landlords are free to raise the rent to market values (unless there's a special arrangement with the city). This means only people within higher economic brackets can re-rent. It also means that rentals and/or ownership of property outside of San Francisco becomes more compelling.

As people grow wealthier are they more likely to shun programs like equity restrictions?

Shun? I suspect this question is highly biased. It could mean:

1. Do wealthier people disagree with programs like equity restrictions in general?
OR
2. Do wealthier people disagree programs like equity restrictions personally?

If (2.), then yes. If (1.), then I have no idea.

If the only people left are rich white folks has San Francisco failed as a diverse, progressive experiment/example?

Ha ha! This question is hilarious. First, it assumes that there are only blacks and whites in San Francisco. Second, it assumes that "rich white folks" are the ones replacing the "black flight". Third, it assumes that there's some sort of progress experiment going on in San Francisco. There are so many assumptions embedded in this question, it's simply unreasonable to attempt to answer it. Perhaps, BaphometsAdvocate, you could rephrase it?

How can San Francisco get blacks, especially the growing affluent middle class blacks, to stay?

I'm not sure what San Francisco can do. However, it seems to have no problem keeping affluent middle class Hispanics or affluent middle class Asians.

Hmmm, BA, I do suggest you look a bit further into the demagraphs of the city, it is just as likely it is a mixed white-asian rich person as it is a black person.

I don't know why you're splitting hairs. And I don't even understand what you're trying to say in your sentence. What is just as likely a mixed white-asian rich person as it is a black person? The people leaving? Or staying?

If you don't like the question as posed feel free to rephrase it - I don't have that hangup. And it's key here to point out that I'm not responsible for a lot of the phrasing of this post - I'm using the words of the USA Today article.

Is it simply housing costs that have blacks fleeing San Francisco?
Well one reason never suffices but that would be a good start. San Francisco is an expensive city. Apparently further in the article they indicate that LA has similar relative numbers so maybe it isn't so unique to SF.

Frankly the article left me with a lot of questions. Where are blacks moving to? What are the figures in the adjacent towns - South San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and Marin County? Are they moving out of the region, out of the state?

The article was pretty meager pickings as far as clarifying anything.

http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/mocd/demoprofile.pdf

Page 4 is pretty clear.

A lot of interesting SF data but nothing about where blacks are moving or why.

How would you get that info? Would you ask the people moving out? I don't know that any city does that. I don't know how you could reasonably expect USA Today to get that info. I mean, after all, the story is blacks are leaving SF at record rates. And the article is in USA Today, not the Wall Street Journal be thankful you got more than 3 paragraphs.

Nah, I'm not particularly thankful. It's a topic that promised more than it delivered. I mean is it really too much to ask where folks are moving or to do a comparison with adjacent towns as a control or find out roughly the median income of those who are leaving? I guess the name of the game is to hype an issue enough so you sell the paper but not bother educating people enough so they learn something about the how, why and wherefore of the topic. However I did learn something about the AIDS/HIV business in the second link. Lower than I would have anticipated given that it is SF. About 1.5% of the residents have it.

Because of this *your question:

If the only people left are rich white folks has San Francisco failed as a diverse, progressive experiment/example?

That implies that the white folks are takin' ova

Asian's comprised a 17% growth, hispanics, non-white, stayed the same, while white, non-hipanic grew by a whopping .53%

I wonder who the "other" race, unspecified, is?

My best guess is this- well, first off, it is just a guess - no better or worse than any one else's simply because no one has more info as to the "why" they are leaving-

but I would guess that the poorest population is predominantly black in SF, and they can't afford the housing.

Is it simply housing costs that have blacks fleeing San Francisco?

I think that accounts for most of it, but I'd also suggest that Blacks are (on average, here in San Francisco) less willing to live in a small apartment with a large extended family than Asians and Hispanics are. I don't have much evidence for this, but it seems like a reasonable conjecture if you consider that many Asians and Hispanics here are from places where such high-density living is normal (i.e., China or Mexico).

Going further out on a limb, it could relate to logophage's point about rent control. Most San Franciscans rent, because they can't afford to own. Rent control makes it expensive to change apartments because landlords can only raise rents (significantly) when they have new tenants. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the "Black Flight" comes from growing families that can't afford to upgrade to a larger apartment in the city. And I wouldn't be surprised if Blacks feel greater pressure to move to a larger apartment when the family gets a new addition, compared with some recent Chinese or Mexican immigrant families.

As people grow wealthier are they more likely to shun programs like equity restrictions?

Probably, but I doubt this is a major cause of Blacks leaving the city.

If the only people left are rich white folks has San Francisco failed as a diverse, progressive experiment/example?

San Francisco hasn't been majority-white for quite a while now, and I don't see it going back. I've got my own objections to the "progressive" politics in the city, but this "bleaching of San Francisco" notion doesn't have much to do with them.

How can San Francisco get blacks, especially the growing affluent middle class blacks, to stay?

I don't know, but before endorsing any program designed to get "affluent middle class blacks" to stay, I'd need to see some evidence that affluent middle class blacks are the ones who are leaving. I suspect it's mostly poorer folks who have been priced out of the housing market.