Fascinating story out of Wilmington about folks coming to Charlotte looking for more opportunity. The Wilmington Star-News reports:

When Nakia Byles leaves Wilmington on Saturday she doesn’t plan to come back. … Charlotte – voted one of the Top 10 cities in the country for blacks to live, work and play in 2003 – has experienced a 16.5 percent increase in its black population from 2000 to 2005, according to new census data.

The same data show Wilmington losing more than 2,000 of its black residents.

From 2000 to 2005, Wilmington’s black population decreased from 19,579 to 17,302, an 11.6 percent drop. The city’s Hispanic population grew 92 percent, and the number of whites increased by 28.4 percent. … Shai Simmons, 26, had been living in Wilmington since the age of 10. He moved to Virginia to attend Norfolk State University in 2005.

He grew up participating in the Community Boys and Girls Club drum and drill team and worked as a promotion assistant for Coast 97.3 before leaving, but those ties aren’t enough to bring him back here for good.

“I really don’t think Wilmington will be a place that I will come back to. It’s not made for minorities. It’s like a retirement home,” he said. “Maybe when I retire I’ll come back to Wilmington, but as a young man there’s no opportunity here for me.”

Simmons, who is now interviewing for a radio job in Richmond, Va., said he tries to encourage friends that still live in Wilmington to consider moving out of the city to see what other areas have to offer.

“I tell my friends that they’re living in a box,” he said. “Why stay somewhere where you’re not making ends meet and you’re not happy?”

Exactly. Pick up and move. Americans, all Americans, tend to discount the wonderful mobility our sprawling — yes, sprawling — nation affords. Maybe this is part of the victim culture, which requires a “no choice” mindset to flourish.

In any event, it is clear that some people are rejecting that. Good for them.