Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 14, 1991 TAG: 9104140139
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
At the same time, Roanoke's other three quadrants remained overwhelmingly white. Nevertheless, blacks made small but significant inroads in many neighborhoods of Southwest Roanoke in the 1980s, with the number of blacks doubling in Grandin Court and nearly quintupling in Wasena.
The figures - gleaned from the 1990 census - suggest the growth of a black middle-class that is moving out of the older, poorer and traditionally black neighborhoods near downtown and creating new, more-affluent black communities along Peters Creek, Cove and Hershberger roads near the city limits.
This migration also has political implications, as Roanoke considers whether to start electing council members by wards. Because Roanoke's black population is more dispersed than in the past, the city might be able to draw more black-majority wards than once would have been possible.
If all six council seats were elected by ward - with the mayor continuing to be elected citywide - it might be possible to have two members elected from black-majority districts. Although Roanoke has had a black mayor since 1975, there has never been more than one other black council member at a time; for part of the 1980s, no other blacks were on council.
\ City in transition
\ The census figures paint a picture of a Roanoke in transition, most dramatically for its black citizens.
The city's black population has not increased much over the past 10 years - up just 1,355 - or even the past 20. Nor has the black population in Salem and Roanoke County, always tiny to begin with, changed much, either. But where blacks live within the city has changed dramatically.
The changes are best seen over 20 years:
In 1970, 90 percent of the city's blacks lived in a relatively small section of Northwest Roanoke, generally between Lafayette Boulevard, 24th Street and downtown.
By 1980, 58 percent lived there.
By 1990, 47 percent did.
Instead, there's been a sizable migration of blacks into previously all-white neighborhoods of Upper Northwest.
Today, census figures show that 36 percent of the city's blacks live in Upper Northwest neighborhoods that were all white or mostly white two decades ago. Many of those neighborhoods are now predominantly black or about evenly divided between blacks and whites.
There's also been a big increase in the number of blacks living in what have continued to be consistently white neighborhoods in Northeast, Southeast and Southwest Roanoke.
In 1970, only 3 percent of Roanoke's black citizens - 508 in all - lived in such consistently white neighborhoods. Most of those were between Williamson Road and Interstate 581, bordering black-majority neighborhoods.
By 1980, about 10 percent of the city's black population (2,221) were living in consistently white neighborhoods, and they were scattered throughout Roanoke.
By 1990, the number of blacks living in consistently white neighborhoods was up to 3,380, about 14 percent of the black population.
The increase in blacks living in what remain predominantly white neighborhoods can be seen most dramatically in Southwest Roanoke, the city's most-affluent quarter.
In 1970, only 38 blacks lived south of the Roanoke River, from South Roanoke through Wasena, Grandin Court, Raleigh Court and west to the city limits.
A decade later, 559 blacks lived there. In 1990, the census counted 719.
Percentage-wise, the number of blacks in Southwest Roanoke remains tiny, about 2 percent or 3 percent of the neighborhoods' population at most. But the percentages mask a small but significant increase of blacks in many Southwest Roanoke neighborhoods, a movement that now finds 150 blacks living in and around Virginia Heights, 115 in the Mud Lick Road area and 106 in and around Grandin Court.
The transition of Roanoke's black population can be seen another way. In 1970, three of every four blacks lived in a black-majority neighborhood. By 1990, only about half the city's blacks live in black-majority neighborhoods.
\ Middle-class migration
\ City officials - both black and white - who track demographic trends say several factors are behind the movement of Roanoke's blacks over the past two decades.
The most obvious is the growth of a black middle class in the years following the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s. "Economic times have changed for blacks and they can now afford to buy that $65,000, $80,000 house," says Earl Reynolds, Roanoke's assistant city manager.
He believes the blacks moving into Upper Northwest tend to be longtime city residents who have sought out a nearby middle-class area they were familiar with, while those moving into Southwest Roanoke tend to be from out of town, often transferred here with big corporations.
"Southern Railroad helped a great deal, whether they knew it or not," Reynolds says. When the Southern merged with Norfolk & Western, many Southern workers from Washington - black and white - were transferred to Roanoke.
"It was a windfall for them," Reynolds says. "A simple, not spectacular house in Northern Virginia goes for $250,000, $300,000. They took the cash and came to Roanoke and said, `by God, I can buy my dream home in Roanoke for $150,000.' The people come from the North, they didn't say, take me to the black community; they said, `Here's how much money I've got and here's what kind of house I want' and Realtors took them where they could afford to buy.
"And for a small number of blacks in the local community, they have finally climbed the ladder in local companies. They could afford to buy houses wherever they wanted to."
At the same time, city planner John Marlles says, the factors that cause any neighborhood's character to evolve have been at work.
The older houses in the heart of Roanoke's black community - mostly wood houses on small lots - have deteriorated, as frame houses tend to do. That, he says, has caused many blacks, especially couples with children, to leave in search of larger, newer homes with bigger yards, which they found nearby in Upper Northwest.
The big shift in blacks moving out of inner-city neighborhoods and into once all-white sections took place in the 1970s.
It was fueled, Reynolds says, not only by economics and declining housing stock but by the controversial urban redevelopment program in Gainsboro.
At one time, Gainsboro was the most populous part of city's constricted black community. In 1969, the city housing authority started buying many of the multifamily dwellings there, tearing them down and selling the land for residents to build new, single-family homes on suburban-style lots.
Some blacks were simply forced to move, Reynolds says, and they looked first in nearby Upper Northwest. It was an almost all-white neighborhood, but its residents were mostly older. As often happens in aging neighborhoods, Reynolds says, a fairly large number of homes became available fairly quickly, as occupants died or moved out to retirement homes or nursing homes.
With those factors combined, the black population in three parts of Upper Northwest surged during the 1970s:
The neighborhoods around the Roanoke Country Club, which had already started to integrate in the 1960s, went from 20 percent black to 61 percent black.
The area between 24th Street and Peters Creek, which includes the Wilmont Farms subdivision, went from 1.4 percent black to 41 percent black.
The neighborhoods along Peters Creek, Cove and Hershberger roads also jumped from 2 percent black to 24 percent black.
The speed at which blacks moved out of inner-city Northwest Roanoke and into Upper Northwest slowed during the 1980s, but the migration continued - with the greatest changes taking place in two areas:
The neighborhoods between 24th and Peters Creek saw their white population decline by almost 1,200 - whether by death or moves, it's impossible to say - and its black population increase by almost 800. That turned those neighborhoods from 41 percent black to 59 percent black.
Along Peters Creek, Cove and Hershberger roads, the white population declined more than 1,300 - again, it's impossible to say just how - while more than 900 blacks moved in. That increased the black percentage there from 24 percent to 42 percent.
This migration of blacks into Upper Northwest hasn't stopped at the city limits, either. The number of blacks living in and around the North Lakes area of Roanoke County, just across Peters Creek Road, more than doubled during the 1980s, from 152 to 314 - about 7 percent of that neighborhood.
The growth of these new black neighborhoods, however, has come at the expense of older sections. For instance, Gainsboro's population is almost half of what it was two decades ago - and many of the remaining residents are older, Marlles says.
That's a danger sign for city planners, Marlles and Reynolds say. When any neighborhood becomes dominated by elderly residents, it tends to run down, they say, because older people don't have the strength or money to keep houses fixed up and young families tend to stay away from declining areas, which further accelerates a cycle of decay.
That's why one neighborhood group, the Northwest Neighborhood Environmental Organization, led by Florine Thornhill, has made attracting younger people one of its priorities.
"She's very aware of the problem of black flight from her neighborhood, especially young families with children," Marlles says.
by CNB