Image by Flickr user THEfunkyman

In the last 30 years, Charleston County has undergone a racial shift in which downtown's black majority of the 1980s has been replaced with a large white majority for the first time in memory.

While the peninsula's population as a whole has been falling for years, the gentrification and expensive downtown rental fees have pushed the black community into the suburbs.

So how big is the dip in downtown's black population? Every 10 years since 1980, the Census has showed the black population falling by about 5,000 each decade. On the flip side, the Census shows that the white population has increased by about 4,000 each decade.

The Post and Courier has a lengthy piece on the trend and the reasons behind it along with a map of the peninsula's overall population shift from 2000 to 2010.