White flight
White flight is a demographic trend that has been taking place in many American cities, especially in the Northeastern, Midwestern, and Western sections of the United States since the 1950s. Due to the economic boom and growth of suburbia in the years after World War II, whites (a term used broadly to describe Americans of European heritage) - many of whom were the children and grandchildren of immigrants - began to move away from inner core cities and to newer suburban communities in order to escape the increasing crime and racial tension that plagued inner cities throughout the country. Due to racist real-estate covenants and other discriminatory practices, non-white people were often not afforded the same opportunities to move away from the cities, even when they may have been economically able to do so.
The effects of white flight have been devastating for the cities that have been hit by this phenomenon, especially Detroit, Michigan, St. Louis, Missouri, Chicago, Illinois, parts of New York City (especially the Bronx and much of Brooklyn), Cleveland, Ohio, Los Angeles, California, and numerous smaller cities such as Newark, New Jersey. Detroit and St. Louis have lost more than half of their 1950 peak populations due largely to white flight.
As wealthier white residents abandoned the inner city neighborhoods, they ultimately left behind increasingly poor ethnic populations whose neighborhoods rapidly deteriorated, beginning in the 1950s and especially in the 1960s. Jobs and businesses disentegrated along with the neighborhoods and ultimately turned the increasingly poverty-stricken areas into crime-ridden slums with failing and dilapidated public schools. These areas are often populated by African Americans and Hispanics. Much of Detroit, the Greater Los Angeles Area (e.g., Compton and Inglewood), large areas of the West and South Sides of Chicago and St. Louis are prime examples of this phenomenon.
Many whites once lived in urban neighborhoods in Los Angeles before departing the city in large numbers after the 1965 Watts Riots (a trend that acutally began before the riots but accelerated after them).
White flight continues in some areas to this very day but has taken on a new trend as some of the older suburbs have been experiencing urban decay similar to their parent cities, such as in some of the southern and western suburbs of Chicago adjacent to the city. East St. Louis and many of the neighboring communities on the Illinois side of the St. Louis metropolitan area have also long suffered from urban decay with the decline of the manufacturing industries that had once powered the economies of the region. Other examples include the suburban regions of the San Fernando Valley and the San Gabriel Valley in Southern California, where many working-class Hispanics have moved during the past quarter century. The exodus of white Americans from these particular regions occurred during much of the 1980s and 1990s.
However, the population decline of some Midwestern, Northeastern, and Western cities has either slowed down or even reversed, while other areas remain economically devastated due to seemingly-permanent economic shifts and job losses. The future of this trend remains to be seen.
It should be noted that several predominantly poorer white communities also face similar conditions to areas that have experienced white flight. The cities of Buffalo and Niagara Falls in New York serve as prime examples where manufacturing jobs were once dominant but have largely disappeared thus resulting in urban decay.
The opposing social trend of wealthy social groups moving into an inner city area and displacing the indigenous minority groups is called gentrification. In Cleveland, as reported on PBS in 2003, several wealthy gay and lesbian couples have purchased and restored homes in the predominantly African American neighborhoods.
Referenced By
Inner-city
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