You're right on with race. Even living in Philadelphia, I just don't interact with black people all that much. Just a little at work and with my neighbors. This is not a good situation because the absent party is easy to scapegoat when you and yours are not doing so good. I grew up with that lot and Reagan did a lot to put working people under pressure. End result was a lot of racism(on all sides) in LA and the rest of California as well. That changed following 92, but it took the riots to shake people out of their scapegoating habits.

I think that's one reason why I liked Ann Arbor quite a bit. Given that it was a university town, everyone was an outsider and enough out of their comfort zones that they had to take each other as they came. Plus it was one of the few cities in Michigan that was doing well, so non university people came there from all over the state just to get a job.