If you’ve lived in Greenville, SC for even a short period of time, you know that it is changing. Beautiful amenities such as Unity Park and continued development of Main Street have only enhanced Greenville’s appeal to visitors and new residents who are moving into new apartments, condominiums, and single family homes within the city and throughout the county.
There is one group that is leaving the city, though - Black residents. Recently released data compiled by the Shi Institute at Furman University document the decrease in Black households in the city - especially in historically Black neighborhoods. The Furman study explores these population changes in detail and goes back in history to map deeds that explicitly prohibited Black families from certain neighborhoods and homes, which is part of the foundation that makes their displacement and departure a feature of today.
Today’s episode of Simple Civics: Greenville County provides a look into this data. Meliah Bowers Jefferson, Executive Director of the Jolley Foundation, interviews the lead researchers from Furman University: Ken Kolb and Mike Winiski.
On today’s episode page, you can find a link to the current Furman research, which is at communitygvl.org. There you’ll find a variety of interactive data tools and maps, including a place where you can see if your neighborhood includes one of the 12000 deeds in Greenville County that expressly prohibited Blacks and other racial and ethnic minorities from living in your home. You can also find a Furman study that looks at house flipping, located at inclusivegvl.org.
Links:
Greenville's special emphasis neighborhoods
Racial displacement in Greenville, SC
Inclusive Greenvlle: includes data on house flipping
About the Shi Institute at Furman University
Related episodes:
Gentrification and affordable housing challenges
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Simple Civics: Greenville County is a project of Greater Good Greenville.
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