By HOPE YEN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON – The nation’s blacks are leaving big cities in the Northeast and Midwest at the highest levels in decades, returning to fast-growing states in the once-segregated South in search of better job opportunities and quality of life.
The Southern U.S. region – primarily metropolitan areas such as Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Miami and Charlotte, N.C. – accounted for roughly 75 percent of the population gains among blacks since 2000, up from 65 percent in the 1990s, according to the latest census estimates. The gains came primarily at the expense of Northern metro areas such as New York and Chicago, which posted their first declines in black population since at least 1980.
The findings are based on 2009 census population estimates, with official 2010 results released Tuesday for Illinois reflecting much of that change. Illinois had a 1.3 percent drop in the number of African-Americans since 2000, the first decade-long decline in the state’s history.