“We had to explain to people, you don’t own the street in front of your house,” said Susan Rich, who lives in a working-class neighborhood called Connecticut Avenue Estates that is heavily Hispanic. “It caused a lot of tension. People almost came to fisticuffs arguing over parking issues.”
The county has mailed leaflets in Spanish and English outlining trash pickup days and explaining when homeowners are supposed to put their trash on the curb, easing another source of conflict.
Is life getting better or worse? We take a look at how people’s perceptions of change in their area match up with the way things really are.
A Washington Post analysis of census data since 1980 shows a diversifying region as well as an increasing number of black “segregated neighborhoods” — areas comprised of roughly 2,000 households where at least 85 percent of the residents are of the same race or ethnicity.
But residents say few Hispanics attend their homeowners association meetings, even though they started having an interpreter on hand and post bilingual notices of meetings.
Neighborhoods off Connecticut Avenue and Viers Mill Road were melting pots 20 years ago. Whites were the biggest group, and blacks outnumbered Hispanics and Asians. Today, Hispanics outnumber whites and blacks combined as the changes have prompted many whites and, to a lesser degree, blacks to move away.
Demographers have found that there are still tipping points, where the increasing presence of one ethnic group makes the other groups feel uneasy, though much of the research focuses on the dynamics of whites and blacks.
Roderick Harrison, a Howard University sociologist and former head of racial statistics at the Census Bureau, said studies show that whites start to abandon a neighborhood when blacks exceed 30 percent. That’s the same point, however, where blacks start to feel comfortable in a neighborhood.
“They feel vulnerable” when it’s less than 30 percent, Harrison said. “You want to see people like you at the supermarket.”
Peter Tatian, who studies the District’s demographics for the Urban Institute, said the housing boom boosted the number of whites, Asians and Hispanics living in neighborhoods such as Shaw and Columbia Heights. But he worries that minorities will be priced out.
“It could be a transition,” he said. “If prices start going up, is that going to push the change to more whites and more upper-income folks and fewer minorities? Soon those neighborhoods would look more like Dupont Circle.
“It’s diversity. It can be a good thing. But I don’t know if it’s sustainable.”
Hillandale’s transformation
A dream job lured Wayne Cole to Washington: teaching the history of U.S. diplomacy, at the University of Maryland. In 1965, he and his wife, Virginia, paid $29,500 for their house on McGovern Drive, almost double what they got for their old house in Ames, Iowa.
They moved into a county that was 95 percent white, a neighborhood where half the residents were Jewish. Their son, Tom, now an elementary school teacher in Ellicott City, recalls attending Cresthaven Elementary School with only two black children.
In the past school year, Cresthaven was 45 percent Hispanic, 35 percent African American, 13 percent Asian and just 5 percent white.
Wayne Cole said the change was so gradual that it was barely noticeable.
“People moved away after their children were done with high school,” he said. “Or they moved to a bigger house. People moved to a place rather than away from here. And the people who moved in have, for the most part, stayed.”
Tom Cole said that when he goes to his childhood home to visit his parents, what he is struck by is not the diversity of the neighborhood. It is the way the generosity of their neighbors has made it possible for his parents to age in their home.
“The lady across the street brings them dinner,” he said. “The couple next door help them all the time. It’s a tiny little street, and almost everyone on the street looks after them. All of their neighbors have been good.”
A region remade
This is the first of a two-part series on residential segregation. For expanded coverage, go to washingtonpost.com/PostLocal
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