Jackson Jambalaya

Atlanta, GA PAC. Astroturf.

A lot of black people (those that could afford to) have been part of the flight also.

Open Secrets: Black Voters Matter Action PAC

White flight is really a misnomer in southern cities. It's more of a (get ready to cringe) class flight.

Man, oh man, them white folk. They be a problem if they stay and they be a problem if they go. Uh,uh,uh.

Has been economic flight for nearly 20 years as Rankin and Madison counties have welcomed the black middle class émigrés from Jackson seeking safety, good schools and lower taxes.

Stoking racial hatred to stimulate GOTV isn't radical.

It used to be properly called white flight because they were the only ones who could leave.

Now anyone can leave if with the money and desire. Lots of blacks people live in Madison and Rankin counties. Their kids go to public schools and life moves on.

There is still discernible angst and moderate hatred held by certain groups of white people who live in Madison (Germantown school area specifically) against blacks for “causing” the white folks to have to leave Jackson and their roots. I’ve witnessed conversations where this was the topic of discussion. If you live in Jackson you have to pay for JA or Prep.....and at $15k plus per kid.....well lots of people get priced out and have to move to where public schools “work.” [you can figure that out]

As relates to Jackson - housing is booming in the usual areas...agents have 10 closings lined up and housing stock is scarce.

If Joe gives 1 billion to Jackson and that money makes it Into infrastructure.....who knows what lies ahead for Jackson.

Hope springs eternal for Jackson's pollyannas living in denial.

His nibs Baby Chowke will soon be requiring an "exit visa" to leave Jackson, just like in Saudi Arabia. That will keep those white folk on his plantation.

By "thirty years of white flight" do they mean "a broken billing system that can't even send a bill to the state government, which is guaranteed to pay it"?

Them low-down dirty white people....

Gentrification. What will save Jackson eventually.

I must confess. I'm just a white guy that left (ok, "took flight") from the city of my birth, Jackson, more than 30 years ago. I've got 3 deer heads on the wall, a stuffed bobcat and my old water meter on my fireplace mantle. I guess I wasn't the only one.

White flight was a thing in the 70s and 80s. But look at the growth of black population in Ridgeland, Brandon, Clinton and Byram over the last 30 years. Ask yourself, where did they come from? The last 30 years was not race-based flight. It was competency based flight.

The water comes on in black households in Clinton and Ridgeland. And the roads are smooth. And they aren't dumping raw sewage. And the schools are good.

Awesome kingfish. Allow anything racist except the truth. You could do better, but you won’t!!!

The message says that “white flight” caused the water crisis. They clearly don’t have a clue how water systems work. At all.

The voters on Jackson never disappoint in who they vote for... can’t... freaking... wait

Is this an admission that Black leaders can't properly run a city without participation from White people? Seems a bit disempowering to Black people, doesn't it?

I guess Lumumba's BS reached the ears for which it was intended: those with campaign cash who are eager to swallow the race bait.

The Black people I know praying like HELL, lying Lumumba lose tomorrow.

@8:03PM. Try fire. And lots of it.

When I moved to Madison, half my neighbors were black professionals, formerly living in Jackson. It was “everybody who can afford to flee” flight - a CPA, the President of the postal workers Union, a professional athlete, an industrial services salesman, an insurance agent, etc. Mayor Johnson said he wanted to make Jackson a “Republican free zone.” He got his wish, and more.

Stay away from this crazy man.

"The Big Payback"

Here you have it. In a city that is over 80% black, your voting choice's primary motivation should be to pay back white people who have been gone for 3 decades.

I guess the message is, "Make sure they don't come back!"

KF, you know that the bitchers don't want 50,000 white people to move back to Jackson. They just want those 50,000 white people's "money"!!

And anytime you hear a proposal pertaining to a "Metro Jackson" government area or agency, it's an attempt by Jackson to regain some of that money it lost to Madison and Rankin Counties. Everybody grab your wallet!

8:03 PM said: “Gentrification. What will save Jackson eventually.”


@8:03, not if people like Chokwe can help it since good law-abiding citizens will elect competence over excuse making failures to be the Mayor of Jackson.

High crime resulting in so-called white flight (really anyone that can afford to flee that can’t afford or doesn’t want to pay for JA) is a tactic used for control of Jackson.

The same people that believe “the water crisis (is) caused by over thirty years of white flight from the city of Jackson” are the same low IQ individuals that believe more gun laws will fix crime in a catch and release revolving door criminal so-called justice system.

both of my neighbors are black, and they left Jackson too.

On a related note: The 'Metro Jackson Chamber of Commerce' is a misnomer intended to cultivate the notion that we're all one happy family in a blob with a radius of fifteen or so miles. It's an illusion that never worked and never will work. An illusion sort of like "Although the gut is eaten up with cancer, the rest of the body is doing fairly well...so, overall, things are fine".

Next, will we have a Metro Police Force, Metro Mayors' Council, Metro Area School Board, Metropolitan Restaurant and Tourism Board?

Water and sewer pipe isn't manufactured to match a skin tone. The money collected from water billing, and the money used to repair infrastructure is green. It doesn't match a skin tone.

The problem with the water crisis isn't "white flight." It is mismanagement, lazy employees, lack of maintenance, wasteful spending, incompetence, and hiring practices based upon race rather than work ethic and qualifications.

That is their problem. Claiming "white flight" for the problem is just playing to the audience of black residents, the Jackson Free Press, and Mississippi Today.

The root of the problem isn't race. It is management and operation of a utility.

"As relates to Jackson - housing is booming in the usual areas...agents have 10 closings lined up and housing stock is scarce."

Uhhhhh ok? That is the real estate market pretty much everywhere in the metro area. There is no inventory and a plethora of buyers. That is facilitated by a great past 4 years and the lowest interest rates in history. That will soon dry up and the market is turning and not for the better. I'll let you figure out why. No one is selling if they dont have to due to the lumber and other building materials being 150-200% more than a year ago.

"Metro Jackson" is abso-damned-lutely meaningless other than as some sort of antiquated census-nomenclature used by geeks who look at population data.

Jackson has long been experiencing economic flight, not white flight. Other than a handful of "woke" white people, and some junior leaguers who think Jackson is still the place to live, everyone who can afford to leave Jackson has pretty well left.

I have an AA couple in one of my rental properties in Brandon. Moved in 3 years ago. They are some of the nicest people and I am glad they are there than the white preacher that was moving here to work at a church in hipster Jackson. He was shady. The AA couple told me they were moving out of Jackson because they were scared and sick of the BS. If that doesn't speak volumes as to the leadership in Jackson, I don't know what is. Keep playing the race card Lumumba and company, out here in the burbs, we just like and accept good people. Lumumba and his ilk are not good people.

Dear city of Jackson officials that might read this post: I never moved out of Jackson because I never moved to Jackson. I avoided the trend by moving directly to flowood, Ridgeland, then Madison. Why not Jackson? When I first moved here I had a relatively new car. I called the county peoples to see what the tag cost, it was $x in rankin, $x+5% in Ridgeland, and $3x to live in Jackson.

Your greed did it to me.

Enjoy your collapse and crappy water.

An investigation by Kingfish or someone into the actual demographic numbers of the suburbs--percentage increase in minority population and if there is any way to tell if it came from Jackson--now that would be a great piece of journalism.

Let the numbers speak for themselves.

I did that a few years ago.

'Wow', you're so behind. Catch up.

If 25% of the population left the city, doesn't that put less strain on the infrastructure and make it easier to maintain? Or, were the 50,000 that left, the only ones supporting the tax base?

Sold our NEJax house fall last year. Should have done it long ago but got it done. 4/5ths of my immediate new Madison neighbors are black. Oh no, oh no, oh no. ALL of them left Jackson well before we did. Crime, schools, taxes. One neighbor says she had it with Jackson 24/7/365 drama.

There is an unspoken tone to many of the comments regarding the people who elect Jackson's incompetent leaders, and it's the belief that the buffoon Jackson politicians are continually elected because either: (a) the constituency who elect Jackson's politicians are unintelligent and unable to see through the BS to understand the real issues; and/or (b) those who elect Jackson's politicians do so because they fall prey to inflammatory racist remarks by the Jackson politicians that causes them to hate and forget about the issues.

Many of the problems regarding intelligence and the ability to understand the issues could be overcome if the education system in the JPS (as well in all of MS) were improved so that smarter students graduated from high school. But, the politicians DON'T want an intelligent population because then the voters would be smart enough to understand the issues and see through the political BS. That's the reason that our education system has NEVER consistently improved -- politicians are afraid of intelligent voters so they don't improve education in JPS. Better education leads to better understanding which leads to the ability to understand issues and elect leaders who actually know how to address the issues of Jackson. But don't expect it to happen. The politicians are afraid of intelligence.

And, politicians like Chokwe and Kenneth won't genuinely address the real issues of government because fanning the flames of racism and appealing to hate is so much easier and it completely eliminates the need to address real issues with the constituency. When everybody is lathered up and hating, they aren't thinking about the issues.

rough #s for you off the top of my head...

2000 jxn pop. 190k...with 40k whites in the mix

2010 jxn pop. 190k with 22k whites in the mix.


so in a decade about 50% of the whites still left in jxn ...left for the burbs.

yes its white flight ...along with blacks that have the money to.


core issue: public school. jxn public school district is awful- nobody that can afford to send their kids elsewhere attends jxn public school district (which wastes about $11k/pupil per yr with terrible metrics across the board). assuming you have 2 kids and live in jxn you're only reasonable educational options are

1. send them to prep, ja, st a, whatnot at $15k/yr post tax dollars - so $30k post tax...or about $40k/yr pre tax/earnings.

2. move to madison or rankin and send them for free to good schools.

so to stay in jxn and educate your kids reasonably how much income do you need...to pay that $40k "tax" for living in the city? I'd say $200k gross family income...anything less then you should ef. move to the 'burb. Now the city household income average is prob about $40k...so even if you are THREE TIMES above the city income average - you still cant come close to affording to send your kids to a reasonable school within the city...

so that leaves jxn with 2 populations which def. doesnt include a middle class.... the uber wealthy ( many x the average income...$200k+ here) and the poor/average incomers.

with these dynamics in place there is no way jxn will ever prosper...bc nobody that cares about their kids and is middle class will stay in the city.

ironic bc the ones who would benefit the most by leaving are the poor and stationary ones with kids.

and thats whats going on here. and i didnt even use the word black once in the topic.

"White flight" would have been significantly slowed if Jackson public schools had kept academic and conduct standards high. I've watched many white, working class neighbors leave Jackson due to failing schools.

"Awesome kingfish. Allow anything racist except the truth." So what is the truth? Please, enlighten us.

2000 jxn pop. 190k...with 40k whites in the mix

2010 jxn pop. 190k with 22k whites in the mix.


Is it that hard to be more-than-wild-swag accurate?

1990 196,637
2000 184,286
2010 173,514

"That's the reason that our education system has NEVER consistently improved -- politicians are afraid of intelligent voters so they don't improve education in JPS."

JPS' education metrics don't improve because most of the parents who care about the education of their children have fled to the suburbs. It's not rocket science to tie education success to parents who care. Good schools do not become good schools without good parents.

How to fix class flight:
1a. Bill for damn water usage. It isn't hard. Roll up your down sleeves and manually bill residents/businesses if you have to. Stop the revenue bleeding.
1b. Fix crime. Saturate the City with officers. Let the Feds help when the volunteer. If residents who can afford private schools feel safe, they will remain. Living in Jackson is convenient as hell - I can be anywhere within the metro area within 20 minutes. It has so much to offer.
2. Create a business friendly environment. Guarantee their safety and basic services if they locate here.
3. Get the residents back. Change the perception.

9:02 facts don't matter. Only the narrative.

(See also, the entire year of 2020)

When asked specifically what could be done to help, he said "We SEEM to be having some acoustical problems in here!"

it’s crazy to me to read all the posts from the Jackson haters on here, most of whom don’t live in Jackson. Here’s the reality: I’m white, a professional, have lived and worked in Jackson all my adult life, and love it. Y’all can have your vanilla, cookie cutter houses in Madison that all look the same

Also, the residential real estate market in Jackson is booming. My real estate agent friend who lives in Jackson says that he’s busier than he’s ever been buying and selling homes in Jackson.

New businesses are opening all over Belhaven and Fondren.

Yes, we have crime issues like all urban cities do, but I am working to be part of the solution. I have proudly cast my vote today for Mayor Lumumba, who has done a great job of leading our City and will continue to do so after he is re-elected today.

Jackson Population by race:

2000: 187,600 (total) 52,971 (28.24% white)

2010; 173,514 (total) 31,961 (18.42% white)

http://censusviewer.com/city/MS/Jackson

2021 (est.): 154,340 (total) 27,520 (16.54% white)

https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/jackson-ms-population

Conclusion: A lot of people have been leaving Jackson, but the "flight" of the last 10 years has not been "white."

@11:42 AM if you 2021 estimate is close, and I suspect it is, Jackson will (and should rightfully) get hammered in state legislative redistricting.

This junk about white flight, tax increases, bailouts, etc. are not the problem. Jackson has two main issues that would be considered legitimate when it comes to digging out of the hole.

One is decreasing population. When your population drops by 15%, your revenue roughly drops by 15%. But that doesn't mean that your number of valves, hydrants, or footage of pipe drops at all. So you still have the same maintenance costs on those items. The reason is that if you lose 15,000 people, they don't all vacate the same area, which would allow you to shutoff or abandon entire sections of the city. Instead, they disappear in a random pattern, so all infrastructure should remain in use. Some maintenance costs will drop with the customer loss, but many will not. And if it is 4-person occupancy being replaced by 2-person occupancy, you still have the billable meter, but they might use less water.

The second problem is per capita income. Water and sewer shouldn't be operated from the tax base. It should be operated from the rate base. The solution for Jackson in a perfect world is to efficiently and smartly rehab the system. That takes money and rates must be raised to fund it. But how do you raise rates on folks who can't afford their bill as it is? Of course many of those customers can afford a cell phone, nails, nice cars, etc., so often it is money management that is the problem.

Jackson wants to blame all of the wrong people. They really don't understand how utilities function or are funded. All they know is that government should bail them out.

@9:31 - You exactly described the situation. We stayed in the city; sent our 4 to private school, but it was a heavy lift. When our children were preschool age our street was filled with very young families. There was no shortage of playmates. As the children became school age, most decided for whatever reason, they were not up for private school and moved North. The few that idealistically tried JPS lasted for about 2-3 years before they too moved. I love Jackson, it is my home, but without a viable school option, the city will continue to be made up of folks who can afford private school, those without school age children, and those who can't afford to move. If only we had an new outstanding public model that could begin at the very lowest grades and grow up with the kids so that young families could stay maybe we could see some improvement in our middle class population after several years. I'm not very hopeful.

Expect the economic flight from Jackson to continue, regardless of whether Lying Ladumba wins today (which he will).

I too voted today for the Honorable Mayor Lumumba. He is our only hope to continue Jackson's downward spiral to a solid third world city; a city that Caracas, Venezuela would be proud to call a sister-city; a city with the highest per capita murder rate in the U.S.; a city where MLK Jr. is ashamed to have a street named after him.

Good news for Mississippi's non-Jackson taxpayers is that if Lumumba is re-elected the state will send very few dollars to help Jackson.

Who on today's ballot was going to do anything better than Lumumba?
What about the independents? Is the bail bonds lady gonna run a city? She's gonna meet with representatives of national foundations to get grants?

Jackson just went thru a series of incompetent mayors who ignored problems in the city. Lumumba refuses to ignore and instead faced them head on. Notice very few complaints about unpaved streets anymore...

The water situation is ridiculous, and Jackson does not have the money to "saturate the city with officers." Not sure that's the answer anyway, when Hinds county judicial system is a big part of the crime problem. The bail bonds lady can't solve crime anymore than Melton did (he didn't).

11:24 is an ostrich with his head in the sand.

1) tells everyone his credentials for some credibility (white, professional, been here my whole life)surprised he didn't list member of Phoenix Club

2)Takes a shot at the people who arent like him(vanilla cookie cutter houses). Not realizing the people like him have HOA's and Architectural review boards to make everything not the same

3)Talks about the good(not realizing sub 3% interest rates and expendable income in the middle class from the last year of not doing anything has Jackson like everywhere else...hot real estate market with low inventory. It's like that everywhere now. Probably less in Jackson than the burbs, but it is a bright spot in Jackson at the moment.

4) Tries to rationalize it (crime happens everywhere) in urban cities. I wouldn't compare Jackson to Dallas, St. Louis, Chicago, New York, New Orleans, Houston, Detroit, etc. Truth is Jackson is a small city. It has WAY more crime than any "urban city".

9:23 AM
Only if you look at use. It is hell for repairs though as the tax base to support repairs has vanished.

Here's really the threshold question: As far as Jackson has declined to-date, what (genuinely) can save it?

@4:53 - gentrification. In places where it’s allowed the pure economic meaning of redevelopment, it works. It’ll never get off the ground here due to MS’s history of race driving everything , on both sides.

@4:53 - Federal Government hand/bailouts to failing cities like Jackson and Blue states is the likely answer. It is the way of the future.

And after these PPP scams with millions of dollars of welfare being paid to business owners that didn’t ask, need or deserve it, there’s not much anybody can say about the welfare nanny state we live in now.