Comments on: Decatur 2010 Census Map! (Courtesy of the NY Times)

By: karass

karass — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 15:22:53 +0000

Agree but even if you subtracted out those new downtown residents, 226 and 225 are still the largest census tracts. Given their size and that 227 will soon have two elementary schools, plus the ECLC plus the middle school, it seems appropriate that 226 will soon have two elementary schools. It seems inappropriate than 225 has none. Of note, 227 has the fastest growing black population and 227 has the fastest declining. My guess is that, in 10 years, the sociodemographic composition of Decatur will be pretty even across Decatur except, maybe, in subsidized housing but even that may be changing with the renovations. There’s positive and negative to this change. In terms of segregated schools, there will be little risk of that. In terms of the achievement gap, we may have solved that by moving it out of Decatur.

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 14:56:56 +0000

And I think the Artisan and 335 W Ponce probably account for the 175ish new residents in tract 225.

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 13:19:21 +0000

The northeast tract is the one that includes downtown, which added somewhere around 500 units in the past decade. Since many (most?) of these units have just one or two occupants, I’d venture they probably account for almost all of the roughly 700 new residents in the 226 tract.

By: karass

karass — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 05:29:18 +0000

Since I never think in terms of census tracts, I never realized how much the original elementary schools reflected the four basic census tracts of the City of Decatur:
225: Westchester
226: Glennwood and Clairemont (almost 225)
227: Oakhurst, Fifth Avenue, and College Heights (almost 228)
228: Winnona Park

And the high school is as close to the intersection of all 4 census tracts as you can get without sitting right on the tracks. Since I think a lot of the elementary schools were built pre-white flight from the southwest side of Decatur, you can see the geographic logic. Unfortunately, white flight meant that the geographic distribution of schools resulted in functional segregation.

Now what we have is, in order of population size, not census tract number:

226, 5,795 persons, fastest growing: Glennwood, Clairemont
225, 5,361 persons, third fastest growing: No elementary, DHS
227, 4,433 persons, second fastest growing: Oakhurst, College Heights, Fifth Avenue, RMS
228, 3,648 persons, declining: Winnona Park

This does not reflect school age populations. Nonetheless, I did not realize that 226 had the largest and fastest growing population of the City of Decatur.

By: jj

jj — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 02:30:25 +0000

I read the Sowell essay and it is interesting reading, however, he does not make a good case nor present any proof of his assertions, just some random accusations and anecdotes. He repeatedly claims environmental zealots drove up housing prices, causing blacks to leave San Francisco, but never actually explains how environmentalists did that. He also blames minimum wage laws and unions for higher housing prices with no real explanation as to what the connection between these are.

Who knew? I actually thought higher home prices were caused by a gianormous housing bubble fueled by wild speculation in the stock market and lax lending practices. San Francisco, being a highly desirable limited area bound on three sides by water, probably had something to do with sky-rocketing real estate prices too.