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Brigid Bergin: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Welcome back, everybody. I'm Brigid Bergin, WNYC and Gothamist reporter. According to the National Archives, in the last century, approximately 6 million Black people moved from the American South to Northern, Midwestern, and Western States, and what is now known as the Great Migration. They were seeking economic and social opportunities, as well as an escape from racially motivated violence, discrimination, and the legacy of slavery in the South.

Black people began new lives in great cities like New York, but migration patterns have changed over the past decade. Currently, New York City is experiencing an exodus of Black people, especially Black families with children, as nearly 200,000 residents have departed in the past 20 years. This is especially noticeable in schools as the number of Black children and teenagers has declined by 19% and many of these families are moving to the South, signaling a reverse of the Great Migration although less in scale.

With us now is Troy Closson, New York Times Metro desk reporter covering education, who recently co-wrote the article, Why Black Families Are Leaving New York, and What It Means for the City. Troy, welcome to WNYC.

Troy Closson: Thanks so much, Brigid. It's great to be here.

Brigid Bergin: Listeners, we especially want to hear from some of our Black listeners, are you considering moving and leaving New York City? What are your reasons? Have your friends or neighbors left the city? Have you noticed a change in your neighborhood over the last ten years, and what are those changes? Some of you who have called in the past have already moved. What circumstances led you to that decision? Where did you go, and how do you like it now? What do you miss about New York? Call us at 212-433-WNYC, that's 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. Troy, let's start with the question you pose in the headline of this article, why are Black families leaving New York City?

Troy Closson: That's a great question. I think the reasons for any particular family who leaves can be pretty widely different, but so many of the families who we talked to focused on the idea that raising kids here and also just living here has become so expensive and such a challenge. People who were in one and two-bedroom apartments with two or three kids in the city who moved to some parts of the South have now become homeowners with backyards and space to park and just much, much more room in general and I think that's a huge draw for a lot of people.

I think a lot of folks have also just been excited by the potential to work in some of the nation's fastest-growing cities and fastest-growing Black cities in particular. Homeownership here has been really tough for a lot of Black residents, and moving to the South has allowed a lot of families to begin building the kind of generational wealth that could help their children decades and generations later. One mom who my colleague Nicole, who reported this with me, talked to was just so glad that she could find swim classes for her kids. I think there's so many different types of considerations, but for a lot of families, it did go back to economics.

Brigid Bergin: New York City has lost Black population, but you note the population of the city overall has increased, what other groups are moving into the city?

Troy Closson: There's been a pretty large and surprising increase in the number of Asian and Hispanic residents over the past decade, and that has shown up in a lot of these neighborhoods. There's parts of Queens, in Southeast Queens in particular, neighborhoods like Jamaica and St. Albans that decades ago had a really rich Black history and just a Black presence have lost Black residents over the years, and new communities are coming in. In other areas like Bed-Stuy, it's been less of Latino and Asian residents, but just more white residents moving in so, really, it's been a big increase in those two groups.

Brigid Bergin: You started to talk about some of the economic struggles that people you talk to who left the city were experiencing. Can you talk a little bit more about what ultimately led to their decision to move?

Troy Closson: I think for the families we talked to, they all left in the past three or four years during the pandemic. I think that for them being in a home confined during remote learning when they themselves were working from home, I think it exacerbated a lot of the challenges that some families were just already facing. A lot of these families too had for a while, been thinking about making the move.

They've had families in parts of the South that'd be North Carolina or Texas or Georgia, and I think the idea was percolating for a while. For a lot of the ones, who we spoke to, who've left since 2020, it was the pressures of the pandemic. Then also just the economic challenges in the city that continued to get tougher with raising rents and raising costs here that pushed them out at the particular moment that they left.

Brigid Bergin: You're listening to the Brian Lehrer show. I'm Brigid Bergin in for Brian today. We're talking with Troy Closson, a metro reporter for The New York Times about the exodus of Black families from New York City. I want to go to some of our callers. Let's go to Jen in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Jen, thanks for calling.

Jen: Hi, good morning everyone. I am a New Yorker from Brooklyn, New York in East Flatbush. I moved down to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 2016 as a law student attending Southern University Law Center. I do have property in Brooklyn still, but I don't really see myself returning back to New York anytime soon due to the rising cost and just various other factors. As I was telling the screener, I do have a 16-year-old that would like to return to attend John Jay once she graduates, but I just don't see that being feasible because of the rising cost. It's much cheaper. Everything is slow-paced in Louisiana, and I like it. I don't foresee us returning, well, at least not myself.

Brigid Bergin: You become a driver and adopted all the sort of non-city ways of living?

Jen: Yes.

Brigid Bergin: Jen, thanks so much for calling and sharing your story. Let's go to Kanani in Harlem.

Kanani: Hi, good morning. Thank you all so much, and thank you so much for framing. A lot of times when we talk about Black issues, it's historical, so thank you for framing about the great migration and using the term exodus which Bob Marley also did in one of his most famous songs. I do Black issues are issues the intersection of our issues. Sometimes there are solutions, there is for the Blacks, as I like to joke but also seriously say. I'm also a diversity consultant, so I'm a government contractor in the state of Georgia. I don't want to live in Georgia. I want to stay living in New York because I do not know how to drive because I'm spoiled by being a native New Yorker.

There's confederate flags, there's tax on curriculum, just Florida in the news but trust me because I'm a government contractor, those same attacks are also happening in Georgia. For voting rights, for curriculum, all of these other civil liberties are under attack when you move "down south," so the notion of sustainability, where is Black life sustainable? Is this pin a tail on the donkey, is this just like we just throw darts? Why is it that the federal government cannot align? There was even an article in The New York Times the same day this article came out, thank you so much for writing it, about how Black people are disproportionately targeted by the IRS for auditing.

Brigid Bergin: Kanani, I just wanted to clarify one thing. Are you from Harlem and you are living in Georgia now, is that correct?

Kanani: No. What I'm saying is Harlem is unsustainable. There's a lot of developers. The last time we talked about Kristen Richardson who's fighting against these developers. There's a lot of these new shiny buildings that shoot up in nine months like my building, $4500 a month in rent. People are paying thousands of dollars. The elevator is out every month, but we're still supposed to pay all this money so where are the protections so that instead of Black people pitching a modern wagon and going wherever, out west, down south, to Canada.

There's also a huge migration to Portugal because there's research internationally that Portugal is now the new hot place for African Americans to go and not be targeted also Colombia. There's this whole expatriate communities that are cropping up in support systems on Facebook and social media to welcome Black people away from America and to these other places. My federal tax dollars paid for the EEOC, 91% of cases that are filed for racial discrimination are not in any way shape or form done anything about. I pay taxes to New York City, what is being done with HPD to hold these landlords and these buildings accountable? Yet I'm supposed to just buy a plane ticket or rent [unintelligible 00:10:17] and move my life. That to me is a larger question than if it's the south, or should I move, or should I stay? The push-pull factor should be, I should be able to stay where I am, not be pushed perpetually out. That's the Black issue.

Brigid Bergin: Kanani, thank you so much. Our lines are completely packed. Troy, I want to get a couple more questions to you so that we can also hear from some more callers. A large focus of your articles on Black children you referenced the New York City census briefing which showed that the population of Black children and teens has decreased by 19% in the last decade. What's causing the drop in population of Black children in particular?

Troy Closson: One big consideration here is the birth rates for Black women are low. While some other racial and ethnic groups have actually seen larger declines in more recent years in birth rates, it's also dropped for Black women, but it's part of this bigger issue really of traditional public schools in New York just facing really deep enrollment issues right now. They've lost more than 100,000 students in the past five years, and with that comes a loss in overall funding, that this year has led to cuts in teaching staffs and programs, but the share of Black students in particular has dropped.

My focus has been education, I'm an education reporter, and part of the concern here is that predominantly Black schools in the future could see deeper challenges just as the system loses students and many of the funding dollars that follow kids. That's a really big concern right now.

Brigid Bergin: Troy, I am not exaggerating that we have so many callers with stories about how they have made this move. Let's go to Anew in Waldorf, Maryland. Anew welcome to--

Anew: Hello.

Brigid Bergin: Thanks so much for calling. You made the move.

Anew: You're welcome. I made the move. I lived in New York for 40 years, 30 of those years, 30 plus, were in Bed-Stuy. I found that I had to have a car because of my business. When I first moved, I used to be able to park in front of my house or a few doors away. By the time I left, I had to park three blocks away. Just driving around, driving around trying to find parking was always a problem. I'm sorry, I just ran up some stairs. I'm out of breath. The whole alternate side of the street parking was a quality of life problem for me. Sometimes not being able to sleep through the night and then you're afraid to fall asleep because you might miss moving your car in time, and get a $65 ticket.

The other thing that was really horrible for me was the noise pollution. Motorcyclists gunning their motorcycles, certain neighbors playing their music loud into the wee mornings as soon as it starts getting warm outside, things of that nature. What I miss about New York is number one, my friends, and number two, the Park Slope Food Co-op. Food is so expensive now.

Brigid Bergin: Wow.

Anew: I eat natural, I eat organic, and so what I realized, there's MOM's out here, I don't know if you've ever heard of MOM's Organic, but there's no Trader Joe's out here. Waldorf is primarily Black and there is no whole foods out here. I find that those companies don't go to Black neighborhoods. I didn't realize that in New York because New York is so multicultural, but it's become very apparent living down here.

Brigid Bergin: Anew, thank you so much for calling with your story about both what made you decide to move and what you miss. I'm going to get in one more caller before we go back to you, Troy. Let's talk to Craig in New Orleans. Craig, welcome to WNYC.

Craig: Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I called in because I moved down to New Orleans during the pandemic, and without any intention of being here as long as I have been. I'm working remotely for a company in New York, and am supposed to be moving back, but it's the cost of living that's just making it so prohibitive. Rents have gone up at least 50% to 60% since I left three years ago, so the idea of trying to find a place that's affordable, that's going to eat up my salary. It just makes it so hard to come back to New York.

As a lot of other people have mentioned who call before, there are lots of things that I miss about New York. The cultural aspects, the convenience to food, the presumption that most of us take with the rights that we have in New York as a Black person, there's still always qualifiers to that, but when you think about education, or politics, I run into so many Trump people down here that it gets frustrating, but it's a reality check. These are the things that I miss about being in New York, but it's the cost of living. It just makes it so hard to say, yes, it's easy to come back. I'm in a bit of a spot trying to find a place to live, to come back from my job that is essentially going to eat up my entire salary.

Brigid Bergin: Craig, thank you so much for calling. I'm sure a lot of themes that we are hearing in this conversation. Troy, let's talk a little bit about some of the long and short term consequences of when these Black families leave New York. You talked about you focusing on schools. What is the impact of having so few Black children in schools, particularly for the kids who remain?

Troy Closson: That's a great question, and I think it's one that the system is still wrestling with. There's some areas of the city like we talked about in parts of Southeast Queens. Whereas Black students have left more South Asian and Latino students have begun to enroll in them, but there's schools in parts of Brooklyn where hundreds of Black kids have left over even just the past five, six years, and really other students haven't come in in large numbers. If in the future the system begins thinking more deeply about school closures, or mergers as students become more spread out, the worry from a lot of the Black parent leaders that I talk to is that their neighborhoods could be affected disproportionately just by nature of where kids aren't there anymore.

It's one of those things that could really reshape the system, not necessarily next year or by 2025, but just if we're thinking 2030 and long term, that's definitely going to be a big thing that has to be on the mind.

Brigid Bergin: In your article you also mentioned Mayor Eric Adam's goal to make the city more affordable in an effort to end this hemorrhaging of Black and brown families. Affordability is obviously a theme that we are hearing this morning. What is his administration doing to keep Black families in New York and how effective are those efforts so far?

Troy Closson: The Mayor has focused really heavily in his housing agenda on boosting what he calls affordable home ownership, and specifically as a means to try to bridge the racial wealth gap and disparities there. That's looked like increasing some of the programs that the city has to make home ownership, both more accessible and simpler for families, but also more affordable. They've also, for the education side, made changes at schools that some education experts see as being appeals to middle class families across the board to keep their students in the system.

Whether that's adding seats to Gifted & Talented program and trying to make more room for Black and Latino kids, or changing admissions requirements at high schools in the city. Not all of those changes by any means are favored by all Black New Yorkers across the board, but on the school's ends, those are some of the things that they've tried. Now I think it still remains to be seen how much it makes an effect. I think for a lot of the families that we talk to, affordability was the driver, but part of it is just the challenge of being in New York.

One of the callers mentioned just parking and having a parking space now, and for one of the moms my colleague talked to, that was a huge thing for her. She just was tired of having to move her car all the time and really appreciated having a garage now. Those are the type of things that are fundamental to New York that the mayoral administration might not be able to change.

Brigid Bergin: We have lots more callers. I want to go to Janice in Charlotte, North Carolina. Thanks so much for listening and calling in this morning.

Janice: Hi, good morning. First I just wanted to say thank you for writing this article, and also thank you to The New York Times for the IRS article because that's something that my husband and I also dealt with a lot. We were constantly being audited, until we left New York, so I really appreciate you just telling the Black stories, I do. Our story is a little different because we were city dwellers living in Brooklyn, and then we first moved to Westchester County before moving to the South. The reason we initially left Brooklyn is because we were pregnant and couldn't find a good option for education. We lived in a fun culturally diverse neighborhood near Bam. A lot of fun when you're single, but in terms of the school options from talking to the kids in the neighborhood, it was really rough.

A lot of our peers were doing Charter Schools or lotteries and some who could afford private did that. We didn't have that option. We don't have generational wealth, we were more to income household, but we just couldn't swing that. We thought it would be a better option to move to the suburbs. We moved to the suburbs and our child went through the first four years of elementary school and, unfortunately, although, the suburban schools are supposed to be "better," I think there are a lot of trade-offs there.

For us, it was the self-esteem of our child because the school had about 400 students in the elementary level, but I don't know, my daughter's grade had three Black girls, including herself and I think two biracial Black boys. There just was not a lot of diversity and just come into the realization that as beautiful as Westchester was for us, in terms of the visual in the house, it didn't have much else to offer for Black families in terms of like a rich experience to raise our child.

In doing the research what was appealing to us for Charlotte is that it's a plurality and nothing could last forever. I find that it's like hot potato from my childhood in New York City to now I'm constantly moving, trying to find the best situation for a Black family to live, but for now, Charlotte, I think it's about a third Black. They're Black leaders, they're white leaders, they're Indian leaders, and my daughter's school is very diverse with the staff and the students, and she's really hit her stride come into her own and loving herself again and focused on school and just a healthy perspective more than she had when we were in New York.

Brigid Bergin: Janice, thank you so much for your call and for that story. Troy, I wonder if in the conversations you had with families that both had left or were thinking about leaving. If that inquiry that Janice was describing about constantly searching for the right community to raise her children to be with her family if that's something that you heard echoed.

Troy Closson: Yes, definitely. I think that for the families was such a big factor and so many of the ones I talked to echoed a lot of the same exact points in that they just weren't sure how to navigate a school system that already high school admissions and applying to high schools in New York is often compared to the college admissions and process and just how complex and complicated it can be for families. On top of that, Black students here historically have had educational outcomes that are far behind their peers.

I think that was a factor that so many families who had kids who even just were in pre-K and kindergarten now, were thinking about a decade down the road and just where can I plant roots to build a family here that isn't just going to be in somewhere that's more affordable for me, but that they can also get an education and just have a life that I feel can set them up for the future.

Brigid Bergin: I want to go to one more caller. Let's go to Monica in Brooklyn. Monica, it sounds like you're thinking about it.

Monica: Not really thinking about it.

Brigid Bergin: You're not thinking about it. Oh, I misread my note here. I apologize. Tell us how you feel about how your neighborhood has changed.

Monica: Yes, I'm just saying good morning, and thank you for allowing me. Now, from my point, I believe that the exodus of Black people who are leaving New York is not voluntary. I believe that most of them are forced to leave and that is what I believe because I lived in Bushwick from the past seven years. I really saw gentrification run as a 400-meter race. Persons are moving because the buildings are purchased by persons who offer so much to the existing homeowners, and when these buildings are purchased and renovated, rent becomes so exuberant that we can't afford to pay.

The income is already below average, and so when you can't afford to pay you have no choice but to leave. I think that this is one of the reasons why people are really moving and [unintelligible 00:25:09] exodus of persons from New York to other places because of rent and the increase in what it takes on that.

Brigid Bergin: Monica, thank you so much for that call. Again, that idea of affordability, we keep coming back to it. Troy, thank you so much for joining me. We're going to have to leave it there for this morning.

Troy Closson: Thank you.

Brigid Bergin: Troy Closson is a New York Times Metro desk reporter covering education, and he just wrote this story about the recent Blacks exodus from New York. Thanks again for joining us.

Troy: Thanks, Brigid.

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