by Tim Gilmore, 7/15/2012
Population in the suburbs decades ago surpassed population in the core city. The suburbs became most of the city, or most of the city became its suburbs. Most of the immigrants of the past three decades live in this part of the city that is not the city, the inside-out non-city city—its large Indian population, its Bosnian population, its various African nationalities and ethnicities. So residents of “historic” neighborhoods close to downtown—San Marco, Springfield, Riverside Avondale, Murray Hill—have sushi restaurants, Thai restaurants, Middle Eastern restaurants, a Tapas restaurant, but at least for now, they have to get in their cars and drive out to Baymeadows if they want Indian or Ethiopian. A lot of the far Westsiders and far Northsiders don’t know the city’s not still just Southern whites and Southern blacks.
