Cluster Evolution, Part 2

The Clustered World: How We Live, What We Buy, and What It All Means About Who We Are
by Michael J. Weiss

(Page 6 of 9)

Likewise, advancements up the socioeconomic ladder by African Americans have resulted in cluster adjustments. The former Black Enterprise segment, typified by upwardly mobile blacks, disappeared in the 1990 cluster system as surveys showed its residents had more in common with nonblack families of similar socioeconomic status than with other blacks. As a result, the residents of zip code 30034, outside Atlanta, formerly a Black Enterprise community, are now classified Kids & Cul-de-Sacs, with higher-than-average purchases of BMWs, computers, and cell phones. Race does play a major role in some consumption patterns, particularly affecting media preferences. Surveys show that African Americans who live in integrated suburban communities still share with their inner-city brethren some of the same tastes in TV (BET), radio (gospel), and magazines (Jet, Ebony, Essence). When urban black radio station WVAZ in Chicago was trying to attract Citibank as one of its advertisers, the financial services firm resisted because the demographic profile showed that the station attracted a high percentage of downscale urban blacks. Yet a cluster analysis revealed that about 30 percent of the audience were upscale residents who'd assimilated into Blue Blood Estates and Young Literati areas, and the bank eventually signed on. "The issue isn't skin color," says Linda Brown, research director of Eagle Marketing in Fort Collins, Colorado. "It's attitude."

The lack of any predominantly black affluent cluster shows that the civil rights movement and anti-discrimination laws have provided the opportunity for African Americans to put down roots almost anywhere they can afford. Between 1980 and 1990, the proportion of blacks in some overwhelmingly white suburban clusters more than doubled. But two trends trouble demographers: First, few black-only communities in America are wealthy. And second, there's little sign of upscale African Americans returning to city neighborhoods to help revitalize them. Census data confirms that the gentrification of the nation's cities remains a phenomenon of young white singles. "The black middle class will never come back to the inner city," says Edward Smith, director of American Studies at American University in Washington, D.C. "People who can afford to leave the city have done so, and they're happy."

For all the progress toward integrated subdivisions, some aspects of race relations haven't changed. Socially, people tend to cling to those like themselves, a fact that helps explain why, outside of housing or employment, much of America remains a segregated society. True, blacks and whites are intermarrying at rising rates, but mixed-race families still account for less than 3 percent of all households. And there's no one cluster dominated by mixed-race residents. More common is the lifestyle of New Empty Nests, a cluster of predominantly white upscale suburbs where residents say that the races get along and relations are certainly better than they were in the past, but social divisions remain. In the cluster community of Tucker, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb surrounded by increasing numbers of African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians, one can walk into any number of restaurants and shops and almost never see any of the minorities who live nearby. And Sunday remains the most segregated day of the week in the area's racially divided churches. Reverend Michael Cash, minister of the First United Methodist Church of Tucker, attributes the voluntary segregation to historically different styles of worship. "The black singing style includes clapping and swaying, and the preaching style is longer and more rhythmic than in white churches," says Cash, a thoughtful forty-two-year-old white clergyman. "The joke we like to say is, 'God leaves the white sanctuaries at noon,' because the black churches are still going on." But Cash isn't laughing as he shares this fact. Of 1,500 members of his church, none are black.

As middle-class whites and blacks have left the nation's cities, immigrants have moved in, at some of the highest rates seen this century. Nearly one million foreign-born residents arrive now each year, mostly from Asia, South America, and the Caribbean. Asians, the fastest-growing minority group, inhabit a number of upscale segments in above-average concentrations, illustrating their successful assimilation into American society. The number of predominantly Hispanic clusters increased from one to five, but, in a sign of the growing poverty among Hispanic Americans, none of these clusters is affluent. Only one is midscale suburban, and two are midscale urban. In the Mobility Blues cluster, concentrated in cities throughout the western states, the households are filled with young middle-class families who dream of sending their kids to college, read Working Woman, and enjoy HBO. Meanwhile, in more downscale Family Scramble, newly arrived Hispanic couples, struggling to protect their children from gangs, drugs, and violence, are more concerned about finding affordable housing and English language classes. In all, sixteen clusters have above-average concentrations of Latinos.

Today, the American Dream is no longer a single vision but depends on what you see when you look into a mirror. In Grain Belt, a cluster of tiny farm towns, the dream means having enough people to sustain a community. In the small middle-class cities of Starter Families, it's finding a good job and being able to buy a home. In a new cluster called American Dreams, composed of cities filled with first- and second-generation Americans, one can find varied hopes within these remnants of the melting pot. In Buena Park, California, a cluster community in the Los Angeles sprawl, the descendants of Japanese, Dutch, and Hispanic immigrants have achieved the traditional signs of status: comfortable homes, well-paying jobs, and college educations for their children. Yet even in this enviable setting, cross-cultural mixing is limited. Older Dutch-descended residents attend their own parties, and the newer Hispanic residents keep to their own stores. Tom Shozi, the sixty-nine-year-old son of Japanese immigrants, was born in Colorado, interred in California concentration camps as a teenager, and today calls himself "an all-American," with his cowboy boots, Chevy pickup, and country music tapes. But when not working on his strawberry farm, he and his wife attend a Japanese church, watch Japanese soap operas on cable, and socialize at dinner parties with Japanese friends. In his bicultural home, Shozi takes off his shoes at the door and sits down to a typical dinner of meat loaf and mashed potatoes - eaten with chopsticks. "I still like to keep a little bit of our Japanese heritage, but I can't understand the current fascination with sushi," he says, making a face at the thought of eating raw fish. "I'm just as American as anyone else."

Well, not exactly. But that's the point.

Copyright © 2000 by Michael J. Weiss

About the Author

Michael J. Weiss is an award-winning journalist, author, and marketing consultant. A contributing editor to the Washingtonian and Ladies' Home Journal, he has also written for the Atlantic Monthly, the Newport Times, Redbook, and People. His first book, The Clustering of America, was named one of the best business books of 1988. He lives with his wife and two children in Washington, D.C.