Opinion: Without vision, a new migration pattern could leave metro Phoenix susceptible to problems that have plagued Black communities across the nation.
By Greg Moore ||The Arizona Republic
It’s been said that where there’s no vision, the people perish.
Makes me wonder: What’s the future for Black people in Arizona?
It doesn’t take sophisticated data analysis to see that we’re in the throes of a new migration pattern that could leave the Phoenix area susceptible to the types of problems that have plagued Black communities in big cities across the nation.
Arizona’s Black population is growing
About 800,000 have people have moved to Maricopa County since 2010.
We know that Maricopa County has been the fastest-growing region by population since the nation started rebounding from the Great Recession. About 800,000 have people flooded the Valley since 2010, and that expansion hasn’t stopped, even with the pandemic.
“If you follow the Census numbers, you know that we’ve been growing rapidly over that time,” Maricopa County communications director Fields Moseley said in a recent phone interview. “I believe that it was around 2016 that we became the fastest-growing county in the country, and we’ve maintained the No. 1 or No. 2 status ever since.”
