AT 7 BILLION PEOPLE, HUMANS GOING STRONG AND GRAY 3

SHUT OUT

in a 23-0 loss to the Bills

WEIRD WEATHER

leaves millions in the dark

WITH COWBELLS ON

the Mark Twain Prize

FRANK GUNN/THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP

LaShonda McFarland gets her son, Troy TJ McFarland Jr., ready for school at their home in Bowie, Md. McFarland and her husband decided to live in Prince Georges County so that their children will grow up among positive black role models.

F O R E X T E N D E D F O R E C A S T, S E E PA G E 2 9

JAHI CHIKWENDIU/TWP

M O N D AY | 1 0 . 3 1 . 2 0 1 1 | E X P R E S S | 11

Together, but Separate

As Pr. Georges becomes more diverse, its neighborhoods remain homogeneous
Colonial and Georgian manses are rising at the Hamptons at Woodmore in Bowie, featuring fourcar garages, opulent kitchens and model names such as Tara. The fact that all the residents so far are African-American, many of them new to Prince Georges County, underscores just how differently the county is evolving compared with the rest of the Washington region. From Loudoun to Fairfax to Montgomery, communities that are growing are also growing more integrated, with people of every race and ethnicity living side by side. Prince Georges stands virtually alone as a place that is gaining population yet has an increasing number of residents living in neighborhoods that are overwhelmingly one race in this case, African-American. county is largely over and that Hispanics have helped make the county feel more diverse than ever. State delegate Justin Ross and his wife are raising four young children in Hyattsville, Md., not far from the University of Maryland in an area that has long attracted a mix of people. His two oldest children attend University Park Elementary School, where the student body is 30 percent black, 30 percent Hispanic, 26 percent white and 8 percent Asian. Were giving [our children] a competitive advantage in a real world that will look much different than the one my parents grew up in, said Ross, 35. But most white longtime residents have friends and neighbors who have left the county and made little secret of why, said several who discussed white flight and diversity. A lot of white people dont want to live around black people. Its crazy, I know, said John Petro, a developer who lives in a predominantly black subdivision in Bowie.

The McFarland family gets ready for breakfast at their home in Bowie, Md. A Washington Post study of census figures found a growing number of Prince Georges County residents live in neighborhoods that are overwhelmingly inhabited by one racial group.

Business executive Sterling Crockett, 49, who could afford to live just about anywhere, moved from North Bethesda to Bowie, Md., four years ago with his wife, Florence. He chose the Hamptons at Woodmore. To appreciate some of the reasons why, go back to the small town in southwestern Virginia where Crockett was one of only four black students in his graduating class. An elementary school teacher once ordered a white classmate not to share her scissors with Crockett, and his high school hosted a slave day auctioning off athletes to raise money. As an adult, he yearned for a

A Washington Post analysis of census data shows that the number of Prince Georges County neighborhoods where more than 85 percent of residents are the same race or ethnicity what demographers consider a high level of segregation has inched up, from 25 percent in 1990 to 27 percent last year.

place where he could feel proud of who he is, where race isnt everything, and where he and his family would live around other upwardly mobile blacks. I saw it as an opportunity to get into a community that is inhabited and run by AfricanAmericans, Crockett said. Its a county of African-Americans doing well more black millionaires.

JAHI CHIKWENDIU/TWP

In the District, just one in three neighborhoods is highly segregated, the Post analysis found. A decade ago, more than half were.

In the Maryland suburbs, one in five neighborhoods is dominated by one race or ethnicity, down from almost a third in 2000.

The biggest drop has been in Northern Virginia, where only one in 20 neighborhoods is a racial or ethnic enclave. No suburb is more diverse than Fairfax County, where just 2 percent of neighborhoods are segregated.

Twenty years ago, fully a third of the countys segregated neighborhoods were white. Today, none are. And there are only a few communities where whites are a majority, mostly in College Park. Some whites with deep roots in Prince Georges County say they sense that the white exodus from the

Today, integration has moved beyond black and white. Often, integrated neighborhoods are created when Asians and Hispanics move into predominantly white neighborhoods, said John Logan, a Brown University sociologist who has studied segregation patterns for 30 years. He says these global neighborhoods pave the way for more blacks to move into a community without triggering white flight. In the D.C. region, 90 percent of whites still live in neighborhoods where they are a majority or the largest group. Many whites remain unwilling to buy houses in black neighborhoods, Logan said, and so are most Asians. Its going to be a long, long time before that disappears, he said.
(THE WASHINGTON POST )

BA RT L A NDRY, A SOCIOLOGIST AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, WHO HAS RETURNED TO PRINCE GEORGES FOR AN UPDATE TO HIS 1987 BOOK, THE NEW BLACK MIDDLE CLASS.