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'I felt in my heart this is the city'
09:14 PM CDT on Saturday, June 25, 2005
Looking for a change in life, Bernadette Stewart, 34, came to a
conference in Dallas in May 2004.
Two weeks later, she moved to the Dallas area from the Chicago area. She
interviewed with several companies and landed a job in product
merchandising at Hotels.com.
"So far, I like it," she said. "It's just exactly where I'm at in life.
I'm developing my career. Plus, the shopping here is unbelievable."
Ms. Stewart rented an apartment in Plano because it was close to a
friend in Frisco and a short commute to her job in North Dallas.
The Dallas Morning News spent several months examining the
dynamics of affluent black households in the Dallas-Fort Worth
metropolitan region. The News analyzed U.S. census data from 1990
to 2000, comparing the growth in upper-income black households locally
and nationally. Reporters interviewed families, demographers, economists
and educators, as well as civic, business and religious leaders about
the status of black residents in the region.
Moving to an area with a large black population was not a priority, she
said. Her social activities revolve around several professional and
community organizations. Through those, she said, she has met many other
black professionals.
Plano has a small but growing class of high-income black residents. The
city's population is about 5 percent black, but 1 out of 4 black
households earns at least $100,000 a year, according to 2000 census data.
Plano also is among the top 10 area cities in the percentage of black
residents with college degrees. It is among the top cities in median
income for black households, though black income still lags the city's
overall median income.
And although many young black professionals such as Ms. Stewart have not
yet hit a six-figure income, they are a symbol of the black upward
mobility taking root in the region.
Several years ago, Ms. Stewart said, she would not have picked the
Dallas area as a place to live. She checked out several cities that were
rated by Black Enterprise magazine as good locations for young
black professionals.
Dallas was among the touted cities, but Ms. Stewart said it didn't come
to mind when she thought of cities that would welcome people like her.
She had never been to Dallas.
"I looked at the list and thought there is no way I would move to
Dallas," she said. Then she came to Dallas for the Black
Enterprise conference last year – and changed her mind.
"I met a lot of professionals of different races. Everyone was very
welcoming and telling me about all the growth here and all the things to
do," she said.
She did some further research.
And so far, Ms. Stewart said, she has no regrets. "I felt in my heart
this is the city that I needed to move to," she said.
E-mail jlafleur@dallasnews.com
