African American

a largely white enclave and is now much more colorful. We're also seeing some small amounts of diversity sliding out to the burbs, to historically pale cities and towns where there's decent access to the city.

Small cities like Lawrence and Lowell are demographically very different nowadays, too--Lawrence (which was, a half century ago, mostly Irish and Italian children of mill workers) is on their 2nd Hispanic mayor, and Lowell boasts one of the largest Cambodian populations in the entire USA.

NH now has a PERCEPTIBLE black population--it's not much (one percent!!), but it's more than the .001% of days gone by~! And the hispanic population in NH is a whopping TWO percent!

For the life of me, I don't understand why that state gets to be "first in the nation" -- they're so ... UNREPRESENTATIVE!

That said, in comparison to other states, MA is losing population (notwithstanding that Boston is growing by leaps and bounds and is completely different and way more "high-rise-y" than it was back in the 70s). I've got friends and relations whose kids have moved to places like Georgia and North Carolina, which back in the day I would have perceived as rather unfriendly places unless you were going to see family and turn around and get the hell out or something--but they're making their way there for jobs and weather. And the living is good, apparently.

Brookline, though, is still weird. It's like they're stuck in a time warp or something. And they KNOW it--and LIKE it. That's rather a sorry situation IMO. I hope they get correct.

Gentrification is hitting all the neighborhoods in Boston--I think East Boston will be next. Northeastern University has built up around Dudley Station and "upscaled" that whole area and they wiped out a lot of affordable (but, to be completely transparent, woefully substandard) housing that was a mix of neighborhood people and student apartments and the average schmuck can't afford to buy in Southie, either. In the city, proper, fuggedaboutit---the shitbox apartment I lived in, in days gone by, condo-ized and is valued close to a half million. I paid a hundred and some odd a month for it! You couldn't rent the doorknob for that price, nowadays!

I think the people who get screwed with gentrification are the renters--the owners make sure they get their cut--of course, they are told every year when they pay their taxes how much their properties are worth, and they know before the tenants when the best time to sell is.