I was born in Brooklyn. When I was two, my parents, about to have a second child, decided to move to Long Island, where the schools were supposed to be better. I think that's part of what built Long Island-- a euphemistic way of talking about "white flight." First stop was Valley Stream, basically a walk from the Queens County line and then after a few years to Roosevelt, habit deeper into Nassau County. Roosevelt became one of the first big African-American suburbs and my parents decided to move back to Brooklyn. A few years ago, The Atlantic did an update on a long and much-discussed top-- the state of segregation in the suburbs. "Want to see what segregation looks like in America today? Take a drive on New York's Long Island, one of the most racially segregated portions of the country. I grew up there, and the differences between adjacent white and minority towns can be so sharp it's as if invisible fences divide them. Two villages, Hempstead and Garden City, lie adjacent to one another in Nassau County. Hempstead has a medium household income of $52,000. Garden City's is $150,000. Hempstead, in parts, resembles an inner city-- with bodegas, laundromats, low-rise apartment buildings. Garden City is a suburban idyll, with tree-lined streets, gourmet grocery stores, and large colonial-style homes. Garden City is 88 percent white; Hempstead is 92 percent black and Hispanic (split about evenly). The transition between the two villages occurs within one block, a visual whiplash.
"Long Island is becoming more diverse, Nassau County is becoming more diverse," says John Logan, a Brown University sociologist who has been studying demographics since the 1970s. "But within Nassau County there's been hardly any change in the degree of segregation. The predominantly minority areas are becoming more minority. And the predominantly white areas are staying mostly white... [He] finds that blacks and Hispanics who earn over $75,000 a year live in areas with higher poverty rates than whites who make less than $40,000.A good way to evaluate these neighborhoods is to look at the elementary schools, which often represent a sub-community of a larger school district. Overall, suburban schools are academically better than city schools. But white suburban schools are better than black and Hispanic suburban schools. "The average black or Hispanic elementary school student attends a school that ranks below the 45th percentile in the state," Logan writes in his paper. The average white student in the suburbs? They attend schools that score above the 60th percentile.What's true of the schools is true of many of the resources in black suburbs: They are objectively better than those in the city. Poverty rates and crime rates are lower in these communities. "There are reasons why you would move to a predominantly black suburb as opposed to staying in the predominantly black, or black and Hispanic, inner-city poor neighborhood-- it's a step forward," he says. But that does not make up for the fact that, by many measures, blacks and whites are living in different worlds. "I think that's the underlying situation that then becomes the basis for frustration and anger when something happens to spark it," he says.There has been progress. Black/white segregation has been declining over the years. In 1980, fewer than 6 million blacks lived in the suburbs. Now 16 million do. These numbers are more dramatic for Asians and Hispanics. In solidly middle-class neighborhoods, Logan finds, whites won't leave when minorities move in, like they might have in previous decades. But that is mostly occurring in places with already good public resources. The suburbs are a cornerstone of the American dream. But, for right now, the realization of that dream looks very different in black and white.
Earlier this year, Long Island's top newspaper, Newsday reported that "Nassau County’s white population dipped below 60 percent for the first time in its modern history in 2018, as Latino, African-American and Asian populations across Long Island grew while the number of non-Hispanic white residents continued to decline... The population estimates for July 1, 2018, reflect a decades-long trend that has transformed Long Island from overwhelmingly white to a more diverse place, where Hindu temples and supermercados share the landscape with synagogues and Italian bakeries. Less than 30 years ago, Long Island was more than 84 percent white, according to the 1990 census. In 2018, about 59 percent of Nassau County residents and 67 percent of Suffolk County residents were white, according to the new estimates. Since 1990, the number of white, non-Hispanic residents dropped by nearly 400,000.Thursday, the New York Times reported that "Well before Rep. Peter King announced that he would retire next year, enough evidence existed that his prospects for re-election on Long Island as a Republican were narrowing. Democrats now outnumber Republicans on Long Island, a once unthinkable development in a traditional conservative stronghold where voters backed every Republican presidential candidate, bar two, from 1900 to 1988… The numbers on Long Island enumerate the challenges for Republicans. In 1996, registered Republicans in Nassau County outnumbered the Democrats, 360,000 to 257,000. By this year, the number of Democrats had rocketed to 411,000. The number of Republicans, by contrast, had dropped by more than 30,000."Basically there are 5 Long Island congressional districts representing Long Island voters:
• NY-01- Lee Zelden- R (eastern Suffolk Co.)- 75.2% white• NY-02- Peter King- R (western Suffolk Co., South Shore Nassau Co.)- 62.3% white• NY-03- Tom Suozzi- New Dem (north shore)- 68.7% white• NY-04- Kathleen Rice- New Dem (western Nassau Co)- 57.1% white• NY-05- Gregory Meeks- New Dem (a Queens district with a small piece of southwestern Nassau Co.)- 10.9% white
The second district is looking increasingly shaky for Republicans. The Democrats now have a registration advantage over Republicans, a new development. Obama won it both times, although Hillary lost it to Trump by almost 10 points. Peter King was reelected in recent years because he was Peter King, beloved on the transpartisan super-corrupt Long Island establishment, not because he was a Republican per se. All things being equal, a Democrat is likely to win it in 2020. Rick Lazio begs to differ. He was born in Amityville, in the eastern end of the district, although he represented the North Shore district (now NY-03) for 4 terms in the past--1993 to 2001. He was known as one of Congress' most corrupt members, taking immense amounts of money from Wall Street while serving as chair of the House Banking Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity. To this day, the over $7 million in bribes Lazio took from the banksters is more than any other currently serving House members other than Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy ($9,472,747) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer ($7,355,624) two other paragons of corruption.Since King announced he isn't running for reelection, 16 Republicans launched trial balloons, as did half a dozen Democrats. The Democratic Party had already solidified behind Babylon town councilwoman Jackie Gordon, a centrist. The Republicans are looking at a vast array of candidates including Billy Joel's former girlfriend, Islip town councilwoman Trish Bergin Weichbrodt, state Senator Phil Boyle, state Assemblymen Joe DeStephano, Doug Smith, Phil Ramos, Mike LiPetri and Andrew Garbarino, former Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, current Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone and Lazio. He says he's seriously considering jumping in. "I have lived in this district my entire life. It would be unusual if I didn’t give some thought to the representation of the district. I know these folks well and have been among them my whole life... I won this swing district four times, the last three by 2-1 margins, enjoyed broad-based support of Republicans, Democrats and independents and carried it against Hillary Clinton by nearly 20 points," Lazio said. Except its was a different district then, the North Shore district, not the South Shore District.
Since leaving office, Lazio has worked as a corporate lobbyist, CEO of the Financial Services Forum, and as an executive for JP Morgan Chase.He is currently an executive at alliantgroup, a giant consulting group that helps major companies score tax breaks and other government business.That resume could give Democrats ammunition to paint Lazio as a corporate and government insider as politics in New York-- and across the country-- take a populist turn.But Lazio insisted that his business background would be viewed as a plus.“In my role at alliantgroup I serve as an advocate for small and medium business, cybersecurity, energy efficiency and workforce development,” he argued.One veteran Long Island Republican, who requested anonymity, called Lazio’s trial balloon “bullshit.”The Republican bench on Long Island has thinned out after Democrats toppled four GOP incumbents in last year’s state Senate races.