Kotkin contrasts Houston and New Orleans
Joel Kotkin has penned a provocative column for The American Enterprise in which he examines the underclass in New Orleans (positing a connection to urban liberalism run amok) and contrasts it with the immigrant class (noting that immigrants tend to skip over cities like New Orleans for cities more like Houston).
There is much of interest in Kotkin's article. Here are a few Houston-specific snippets:
In many important ways, the problems of America’s urban underclass are radically different from those of their European counterparts. In this country, the deepest and most intractable problems are not in cities with heavy immigrant populations (as in Europe) but rather in places like New Orleans that are dominated by native-born African Americans. Most of the cities with the highest concentrations of poverty in America—New Orleans, Louisville, Atlanta, Cleveland, Philadelphia—are predominantly black cities.
These are also cities that most immigrants skip over. Only 5 percent of New Orleans residents were born outside the country—compared to 28 percent in Houston, 40 percent in Los Angeles, and 36 percent in New York City. This decade, immigrants to the U.S. are headed to cities like Phoenix, Houston, and Orlando that have burgeoning economies. Immigrants who do settle in heavily black metro areas generally move outside city limits, to places like Northern Virginia, Baltimore County, or Kenner (outside of New Orleans).
[snip]
The critical factor separating most U.S. immigrants from our underclass is this: Attitude matters. Most newcomers to America see this not as a land of oppressors (the sore exceptions tend to gravitate toward journalism, politics, or academia, so we sometimes get a skewed impression), but rather as a place of opportunity and fundamental fairness. This often contrasts mightily with conditions in the immigrants’ home countries. In many of those places, connections and ethnic privilege are essential to getting anything done. In Nigeria, notes U.S. immigrant/entrepreneur Ibim Bobmanuel, the key issue is “who you know.” Land is expensive and controlled by powerful families.
On the other hand, in Houston, where he immigrated in 1984, Bobmanuel was able to start a dry cleaning business in a strip mall with “about five minutes of training.” In two years he sold that business and got a license to teach special education at a public school. On the side, he started a health care business. He now employs 15 home-assistance workers, and, from an office in suburban Fort Bend, runs a trucking operation back in Nigeria as well. “Africans come here because there are far fewer barriers,” says the jet-black businessman.
Recent immigrants like Bobmanuel and their children now amount to almost 60 million Americans, the largest number in our nation’s history, and roughly one fifth of our total population. Some of this large group will inevitably fall into our underclass, as will millions of whites. And certainly the persistence of Latino second- and third-generation gang members in places like Los Angeles confirms that the integration of immigrants into the productive part of American society has been far from perfect. But the overwhelming trend in this country is for new people and new races to be folded into an ever-shifting and ever-increasing American mainstream.
There is a second article by Kotkin on the same page. It contrasts New Orleans and Houston, much like an earlier op-ed.
Feel free to discuss Kotkin's thoughts in the comments.
BLOGVERSATION: John Wagner comments.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/13/05 09:09 PM | Print |
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