Demographers say the subdivision mirrors the rest of the city. Within the next 10 years, black residents will be in the overwhelming majority here. It is happening already. Within the last two months, three homes in Thomas' neighborhood have gone up for sale. They are all white-owned.
Blacks are just more comfortable being minorities than whites are.
Bobbi Brooks-Foster has noticed the same. A black woman married to a white man, Brooks-Foster said that her husband is a minority in their predominantly black neighborhood and he's not comfortable. Like Thomas, Brooks-Foster didn't know who her neighbors would be, because the subdivision was still under construction. But she sensed that Southfield would be more accepting of an interracial couple. She liked the city's central location and access to freeways.