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'It's a good balance of the things we were looking for,' manager says of MANSFIELD
11:14 PM CDT on Saturday, June 25, 2005
Marcus Martin grew up dirt poor in Jennings, La. So some might think the
chance to live in a $350,000 home with a pool in an upscale suburban
neighborhood would be enough to satisfy him.
It isn't – not entirely, anyway.
"I would love to live in South Dallas," said Dr. Martin, director of
research for the Foundation for Community Empowerment in Dallas. "In
terms of natural beauty, I don't think there's anywhere prettier. I know
a lot of blacks just like us who would love to move there right now."
Dr. Martin and his wife, Dr. Eddilisa Martin, a senior manager of
clinical services with Abbott Laboratories, make well above $100,000 and
acknowledge that they could own a home just about anywhere in North
Texas.
But they settled on Mansfield – a Tarrant County city that the 1990
census showed had no black household incomes above $75,000. A decade
later, according to 2000 census data, Mansfield had 62 black households
with incomes of at least $100,000 – equal to about $75,000 in 1990 when
adjusted for inflation.
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.
The Martins moved to the area from Oklahoma in 2000, first to Arlington
and then to Mansfield two years later, primarily for the same reasons as
many of their black and white neighbors: a respected public school
system, a safe environment and a good housing value.
"I feel it's a good balance of the things we were looking for," said
Eddilisa Martin, 40. "I feel satisfied where I am."
She said that part of her satisfaction comes from what she believes is
the diversity of southern Tarrant County. Mansfield is only 4 percent
black, but combined with Arlington's black population of more than 13
percent, she sees a lot more racial diversity than she did in other
North Texas communities where they considered buying a home.
"That was real important to me," Eddilisa Martin said. "I wanted to see
people who looked like us. I wanted that for our kids."
And in reality, Marcus Martin said, he and his wife are staying in
Mansfield instead of migrating to South Dallas for the sake of their
children, ages 2 and 4.
"In the back of your mind, you're always in a Catch-22," he said. "You
always know what it is you want to do, but you have to do what's in the
best interest of your kids. Right now, that's living here."
But while his wife says she's satisfied in Mansfield, Dr. Martin, 36,
talks like a man who isn't quite ready to call it home, sweet home. He
drives through parts of South Dallas on his way to work downtown and
holds out hope.
"I'm happy in Mansfield, but passing through South Dallas every day, you
see the neglect – and the potential. We're all just waiting to move to
South Dallas," he said, alluding to other black peers he knows with
incomes above $100,000. "I just think that there is a time factor."
E-mail scrawford@dallasnews.com
