THE FUTURE'S OPEN WIDE:

Big cities struggle to hold onto new immigrants as costs rise (Sara B. Miller, 10/09/03, The Christian Science Monitor)

Every day, new immigrants pour into America's largest metropolitan areas, swelling the population and diversifying the culture. There's only one problem. An increasing number of those immigrants are later picking up and moving somewhere else. And unlike the middle-class whites of the 1960s and '70s, they're not fleeing to the suburbs, they're moving to entirely different cities that are more affordable.

This migration bodes well for the assimilation of these immigrants and the diversification of middle America. [...]

The rising cost of living and lack of job opportunity are driving the outmigration. In the last two years, for example, thousands of immigrants have left the densely packed, well-established "Little Guyana" section of Queens, N.Y. Their destination: Schenectady, a former manufacturing town in upstate New York. [...]

That immigrants are increasingly moving to nontraditional gateways is a sign of hope, for many, since it can be viewed as a measure of their assimilation.

"It shows that immigrants are not remaining a separate class for long," says Ann Keating, a professor of urban history at North Central College near Chicago. "They are adopting the mores of American society.... They, too, are searching for more opportunity."

We'll melt with you.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 8, 2003 10:47 PM