Change in the Ethnic makeup of NYC

That is quite a report. It appears that immigrants and other ethnic groups are leaving Manhattan and going where the cost of living is cheaper. From reading the census report, it appears that Manhattan holds more white people than any place in the suburbs.

@hhusted You see such diversity on the streets of New York City that honestly you would never know demographic patterns would you?

How bizarre! Especially given the number of reports about the diversity in New York at large, I would never have expected Manhattan to be so white. I suppose that high rents have driven people into the boroughs, even those that work in NYC/Manhattan, turning Manhattan into a bit of an enclave of privilege.

Well, this is a great topic for practicing what I have learned in sociology class. Sorry, I'm happy to be back in school. There was a recent news report that covered other areas of the US using the most recent census. It somewhat explained how ethnic groups are moving to certain areas. More whites are in rural areas and more Black's and Hispanics in suburban areas. I felt the news article failed to keep to it's topic though, about how segregation is more prominent now than ever. It just covered the census. here is the addy. I want to write on it but haven't gotten to it yet: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101214/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_census_racial_segregation

@Uptowngirl: That's because they come to the city to shop or hang out and go back home later. Why do you think the subway is full of ethnic people, especially at night.

@hhusted more than shop and hang out I think they come to the city to go to work...

@Freyja4 very interesting article thanks for the link

One of the first things I noticed when I moved back to New York was how strikingly the owners of Manhattan businesses were white and the workers were some other ethnicity: hispanic or black mostly. Yeah, you could say NYC is culturally diverse, but let's face it, that doesn't spell fair distribution of wealth.

@uptowngirl I'm sure you're right that minorities travel here to work rather than to spend money.

@uptowngirl: Thanks.

@Uraniumfish: I also think business owners take advantage of minorities as well. At least that is my opinion based on what I've seen and what some of these workers tell me.

@Uraniumfish What are you comparing business owners in Manhattan to...?

@BroadwayBK Not comparing anything to anything. But the vast majority of lousy jobs - kitchen work, cleaning - are done by minorities. In part that's because new immigrants will take those jobs and new immigrants are often minorities. But in part it's because there isn't exactly an equal distribution of wealth in this country. DOn't think I'm saying anything all than new here.

@Uraniumfish You're not saying anything new; it's the phrasing that confused me. You said you were struck by the unequal distribution of wealth when you moved back to New York, so I assumed you were comparing it to wherever you'd been before you moved back.

@Uraniumfish: I agree with you. Most immigrants that come here are minorities. They know that Americans are too proud to take such crappy jobs, so they take them instead. By the way, do you think companies were crying when the government was going to pass a law to stamp out illegal and legal immigration?

@hhusted I cant help but wonder if Americans ever did these jobs.. do you know?

@BroadwayBK I was in Europe. While they certainly have an ethnic underclass in Germany (the Turkish) and in France (the Arabs) it is not so large that you don't also see Germans and French people doing menial jobs. Whereas the racial divide between menial workers and middle class workers was really striking on first landing back here. Once you've been in the city long enough, I think you stop seeing it. But if you make a point to peer into every kitchen of every place you eat at in Manhattan, I doubt you will see anyone white. Sad but true.

@Uraniumfish You are so right

@Uraniumfish Just wondering. @uptowngirl It's commonplace for Americans to do these jobs in suburbia and cities where there isn't a huge immigrant population. Though Uraniumfish is right about the consistency of immigrants and minorities working low wage jobs in NYC.

@Uraniumfish; Yeah, most are Ecuadorans or Mexicans.

@BroadwayBK and hhusted that's so true..

BroadwayBK: It used to be that mostly whites lived in suburban areas, but not anymore, at least not according to the census. With the increase of illegal immigrants, the toughest jobs, like dishwasher, cook, waitress, or clerk, is being handled by foreigners, as many Americans don't want such menial tasks.

Servers don't tend to be immigrants, actually.

I never thought about it, but a first job for a kid in suburbia is typically some menial gig of the type we described above; whereas a typical first job for a kid raised in Manhattan is usually a lot more flashy! It pays to grow up here, you get a real career boost from very early on.

Interesting thought, @uraniumfish! It's true that kids raised in Manhattan can afford to take necessary unpaid internships in flashy career paths (living at home or having family pay rent), which is unfortunately often the only way to climb up the career ladder - and questionably legal, too!

@ajadedidealist I hear you about unpaid internships.. when i first moved to NYC I was told that the only way that I could land a job was by doing internships! I needed to start earning money right away and just couldn't afford to spend years doing unpaid labor.

@Uraniumfish its not only kids in Manhattan, every year we get requests from my husband's friends asking for internships for their kids,why only yesterday we had such a note from a friend who lives in Princeton. The lady wants a summer medical internship for her kid in India but is quite definite that she wants him to intern at a new research hospital rather than gritty government hospital where he will be exposed to all the horrors of the third world.

Internships are so awful. I did a few in college, and they are pretty much worthless. You basically make copies for people and learn very little.

Same here... somehow an internship looks super on a resume, even if all you did there was transcribe interviews and print mailing labels.

@Everybody: According to a client, who i wrote a book on the subject of internships, the idea of internships is to get you into a company, let the company become familiar with you, develop relationships with the boss and co-workers, and learn as much as you can about the job. This way when the internship is over for the summer, you have a possible place to go for employment after your college days are over. This is the way it is supposed to work, but sometimes things don't happen that way.

@hhusted I have a friend who just graduated from Columbia.. she has done several internships during her college years at hedge funds, banks, the PR department at Saks and even Southeby's but she is yet to land a job ...and has resorted to her network of friends to help her find one.. I guess internships are good if you are still as student but if you are adult who has already joined the work force and then are forced to intern due to circumstances it can be very tough.. akin to unpaid labor

It's pretty rare that an internship turns into an actual job with that same company, sadly.

@Uptowngirl: Maybe so, but it could also have been the way she performed on the job, and various other factors. I'm not saying internships guarantee you a job after college. I'm saying it is a good way to get into a company, if that is possible.

@JenMac: To be honest with you, I never interned in my life. So I don't even know what those who do interns go through. I did research for a book for a client to write about internships, but my book was more about how to find internships, not how to keep the job after the internship was over.

There are so many start ups and non-profits that use internships as institutional free labor. The practice just sucks, and doing one would make me feel like a sucker. I always feel sorry for the kids who agree to do it for the illusive hope that they'll be kept on - yeah, right! Next!

@uraniumfish, I totally agree! I've seen so many interns for things where I'm like "this is barely a company: they just don't want to pay an assistant." It's criminal.

@JenMac, Uraniumfish I totally agree with the two of you .. its free labor nothing more. i dont give away my services for free period.

Yeahhhh... I did an internship for a nationally distributed magazine and I had similar thoughts on it being barely a company and not wanting to pay for assistants.

Internships are by no means awesome, but I always just considered them one of those necessary evils. And haven't many big companies begun paying the poor interns at least a little bit?

@NeverSleeps my friend who has just graduated from Columbia has done recent internships at Sothbey's and Sak's( both PR departments) and wasn't paid at all. Needless to add she hasn't got a job in either companies.

@uptowngirl Ah, interesting. Also depressing.

@Everybody: There are two different kinds of internships: paid and non-paid. If you are in college and looking to make some money, do research and look for those that are paying. There are some around, you just have to look for them.

The paid internships are even more competitive than the non-paid (which themselves can be impossible to get!) The NYTimes internship is highly paid, for example, but it requires a previous summer newspaper internship as a criterion for entry. And I know nobody who has gotten a job through internships except those who have gotten highly paid investment banking jobs - but in those cases the internships are well renumerated as well. For artsy or literary fields, it really does feel like a con!

@hhusted Duh. @everyone I will say that I have known people to get jobs through internships - but of course not at any big companies. So it's not impossible, though it's best to just think of an internship as something to help out your resume when you go to look for a job in a related field, but outside the company to which you donated hours of free labor.

@ajadedidealist you may be right about investment banking internships though I think the market has become a bit tight nowadays so unless someone is truly exceptional or has great connections it maybe quite difficult to land a job.

@BroadwayBK: I get leads everyday for internship positions in Hollywood. Some of these are paid and some are unpaid. And out of curiosity, I did a search online recently for paid internships and found a few websites that advertised them. Although, I do agree with Ajadedidealist that those internships probably have a lot of competition.

@hhusted: it is almost impossible to get an internship with a reputable production company or studio that actually pays. So many people will do it for free.

@hhusted are these paid internships in the movie biz only?

@JenMac I would think its insanely competitive and hence folks will be happy to work for free just to get the job

@Uptowngirl: No. I was using them as an example. I actually saw paid internships for businesses in NYC. They are around, but you have to grab them quickly.

@uptowngirl The sad truth about the intense competition though is the extent to which companies feel they can then exploit people to do work for free.

uraniumfish Too true. I feel like the more popular the profession, the less they have they have to pay you in the beginning. I have a friend that does production for theatre. The lowest item on the production cost sheet is the actor section. And, you look at what's been going on with Spiderman, and you think they spent 60 million dollars on this show and can't secure a safety line for someone they're paying 1650 / week. And, before we say that's good money, let's consider that Broadway is as high up as you can get in theatre. This is for 8 shows a week after 80 hours / week of rehearsal and before taxes, manager, and agent fees. You could die for about 1,000 bucks a week if you really work your way up the ladder.

The ill-fated production that is Spider-Man on Broadway really worries me. I would not be able to enjoy the show knowing that someone could fall to their death at any moment.

@JenMac OMG so much for the glamor of being on 'Broadway'. @Uraniumfish too true! its totally pathetic

@neversleeps and uptown: it's kind of terrible (ok, it's really terrible) but part of the only reason I would want to see Spiderman is because of the trainwreck effect.

@JenMac I don't think you are alone there. But that Spider-Man thing is a classic example of a production spending money in all the wrong places, isn't it? Way to hire Bono to write songs for you but not invest in safety precautions for your actors.

The theater practices in NYC are so wrong for so many reasons. Like you said, BroadwayBK, they hire Bono for the star power draw at the box office but then abuse everyone else who has to work behind the scenes. So many inequities in that world it's scary.

Many art forms are suffering because they double as commodities.

@BroadwayBK so true

@JenMac To add to its woes Spider man is also getting panned by the critics http://www.dnainfo.com/20110208/midtown/new-york-theater-critics-slam-spiderman-turn-off-dark

@uptowngirl Oh, yeah, like there was any chance the show was any good! I haaaaaate Broadway.

I haven't seen a Broadway show in a looooong time, but is it really all that bad? Maybe you feel the way about Broadway that I feel about the stupid Academy Awards.

@uraniumfish: I'm with you on that. I have only seen ONE show on Broadway that I loved . . . and, I see a decent amount of theatre. @Neversleeps: the only good awards show is the Golden Globes because everyone gets bombed during dinner and say totally inappropriate / weird things when they win.

@everyone, has anyone seen Pacino in The Merchant of Venice? I caught in in January and it was one of the best things I've seen onstage, ever!

@NeverSleeps I too havent seen a Broadway Show in ages.. I think the last one I saw was the Producers though I do go to off-Broadway with a friend who is always looking out for interesting productions.

@JenMac Ditto here. Have seen exactly one Broadway show that was good and I see a heck of a lot of theater. I hate that the theater I know and love even shares the same name as that Broadway Schlock. It should just be called something else.

@ajadedidealist: my friend was in Merchant! She played Portia and was pretty incredible. @uraniumfish: I often wonder the same thing. But, then again, TGI Fridays and Dell'Anima are both equally called "restaurants."

The last Broadway show I saw was 42nd St. I think that was the one. I wanted to go see more, but the tickets are so expensive.

@hhusted there is always TKTs or so many other ways of seeing shows for cheap that's if you want to http://gonyc.about.com/od/discountbroadway/Discount_Broadway_Tickets_How_to_get_Discounts_on_Broadway_Tickets.htm