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C Ch ha ap pt te er r 1 13 3 Deconstructing the Black Populations of New York City and Miami-Dade County THOMAS D. BOSWELL AND IRA M. SHESKIN The Black populations of the United States as a whole, New York City (NYC) and Miami-Dade County (Miami) are particularly interesting groups to compare and contrast with one another because of intriguing similarities and differences. In some ways, New York City and Miami may be seen as harbingers for the changes likely to occur over the next decades in the composition of the Black population across the United States. This chapter focuses on the Black populations of New York City and Miami. Although the population sizes, settlement patterns, and immigration histories of New York City and Miami differ significantly, both cities are large urban agglomerations. New York City’s population is an order of magnitude larger than Miami’s, 8.2 million vs. 2.4 million in 2006 (Table 13.1), and it developed in the preautomobile era. Miami developed in the post-automobile era. New York City’s population density is far higher than Miami’s, which developed a much more dispersed, suburban population. New York City is a much older1 Northeastern city, with a long and storied immigration history, while Miami is a relatively new Southern city, whose reputation as a major magnet for immigration traces only to the late 1950s and early 1960s, when large numbers of Cubans fled communism. Both cities have been vitally affected by immigration. About 51 percent of Miami’s population is foreign-born, the highest percentage for any city in the world with a population of more than one million. About 37 percent of NYC’s population is foreign-born, which also is among the world’s highest percentages (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2006). Both cities have large Black populations, with NYC’s being much larger.2 Table 13.2 shows that about 30 percent of both cities’ Black populations are foreign-born, compared to only 7 percent of the United States’ Black population as a whole. Because immigration has played such a significant role in the recent histories of these two cities, it is not valid to refer to the Black populations as relatively homogeneous. Thus, we deconstruct (disaggregate) the Black population into its West Indian and Sub-Saharan African-born components to discern how these immigrants alter the demographics of the Black population (Shaw-Taylor and Tuchs 2007). We briefly review changes occurring in the Black populations of both cities, followed by a discussion of the residential distributions of all Blacks and the degree to which foreign-born Blacks are segregated from other populations and from each other (West Indians, Haitians, Jamaicans, and Sub-Saharan African-born Blacks). Then we analyze the socioeconomic status (SES) of Blacks in both New York City and Miami, comparing various Black groups to Hispanics and Non-Hispanic Whites (NHWs). In this chapter, “Blacks” refers to all persons who identify themselves as of black color in the United States. “West Indians” refers to Non-Hispanic (non-Cuban, non-Dominican, and non-Puerto Rican) immigrants and their progeny from the Caribbean Basin. “Sub-Saharan Africans” refers to Africans born south of Western Sahara, Algeria, Libya, and Egypt. Note as well that the term “Hispanic” is used rather than “Latino” because “Hispanic” is used almost exclusively in Miami to refer to this group. 186 Thomas D. Boswell and Ira M. Sheskin Table 13.1. Racial and Hispanic Composition New York City, Miami, and the United States: 2000 and 2006. Year Total Population Blacks * Hispanics ** NonHispanic Whites *** Blacks * Hispanics ** NonHispanic Whites *** New York City 2000 8,008,278 2,274,049 2,160,554 2,801,267 28.4% 27.0% 35.0% 2006 8,214,426 2,152,001 2,267,827 2,854,519 26.2% 27.6% 34.8% Miami 2000 2,253,362 487,015 1,291,737 465,772 21.6% 57.3% 20.7% 2006 2,402,208 485,164 1,471,709 432,130 20.2% 61.3% 18.0% United States 2000 281,421,906 36,419,434 35,305,818 194,552,774 12.9% 12.5% 69.1% 2006 299,398,485 39,151,870 44,252,278 198,176,991 13.1% 14.8% 66.2% * Blacks alone or in combination with other races. ** Hispanics may be of any race. In 2000, there were 223,285 Black Hispanics in New York City, 38,842...

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