Mayor Eric Adams, state senators discuss New York City's Black population decline
NEW YORK - Mayor Eric Adams pleaded his case for more funding at a state budget hearing in Albany on Wednesday. During the lengthy hearing, the discussion turned to the decline of the city's Black population.
"I'm concerned about my teacher and McDonald's worker," Adams told legislators. "They are being priced out of the city."
Adams and state lawmakers agree, more affordable housing would mean more New Yorkers could find a home, especially people of color.
"We know there has also been historic barriers put in the way of Blacks renting and owning in New York City," added Sen. Cordell Cleare of Harlem.
"Your community's ground zero for that problem," acknowledged Adams.
Cleare pointed to a recent New York Times article outlining the disparities in the data. The latest census shows while the city's overall population grew by 7.7% in the past decade, the Black population dropped by 4.5%. Brooklyn lost nearly 70,000 Black residents.
"Landlords are able to have these exorbitant fees and costs is because of the stock," said Adams. "That's why we have to build more."
Dr. Regine Jackson grew up in Brooklyn before moving to Atlanta to analyze migration patterns as a sociology professor at Morehouse College. She also serves as Dean of the Humanities, Social Sciences, Media & Arts Division.
"Even as neighborhoods are being revitalized," Jackson said, "we need to make sure that it's not just a bunch of tear-downs, where what we call legacy residents are displaced."
Jackson said now we are seeing the reverse of the Great Migration during the Reconstruction Era, when Blacks moved from the South to northern cities.
"The South is still struggling with some of the same problems that were plaguing Southerners during the Civil Rights Movement and before," she said, "so it really is complicated in that way."
City and state leaders hope to find a way to make New York affordable for all those who grew up here to stay.
"We build a whole lot, and we build our own displacement," emphasized Cleare, "so I want to make sure that going forward that we now focus on that, learn from those mistakes and make sure that we're ... including all New Yorkers, including Black residents who want to remain in the community."
Mayor Adams also asked the legislature to provide possible sites in their districts where affordable housing could be built.
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