MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota — Bill Carlyon moved to the metropolitan area in 1980 to work as an electrical engineer after a brief stint in the army. Back then, he says, Minneapolis was more inclusive than just about anywhere else in the country he ever visited.

“Almost everybody I know won’t come downtown anymore for any reason. We used to come down to theater events and movies all the time. Now there’s gangs that just rove around and beat up old people,” said Carlyon, 69, who prides himself on working with the black community for decades on anti-poverty initiatives. “When I moved here, it was diverse. [There were] mixed bars [and] mixed restaurants, [and] nobody thought anything of that. I don’t know what happened since then.”