The demographic impact of "white flight"?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

While there is no doubt an element of that, post-war flight flight did have some pretty tangible consequences for several reasons:

1. The white population is larger than the black population. If all the white people flee the neighbourhood because a black family moves in, there simply won't be enough people to replace them. While some areas were able to flip from being stable white neighbourhoods to stable black neighbourhoods, most were not - hence why every city declined in population.

.

I am not sure this is true in any significant way. We're not talking about replacing the white population everywhere they lived in the U.S. - just in the inner cities. There was more than enough of a mobile black population back then to fill the neighbourhoods that white people were vacating. If anything the neighbourhood populations in the short term might even have increased in many cases due to average black households having more members in them (more children, other family members like cousins, grandparents living under the same roof).

The population only really started to decline once conditions in the inner city areas started to deteriorate to intolerable levels, and no one including black people wanted to live there anymore.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

1. The white population is larger than the black population. If all the white people flee the neighbourhood because a black family moves in, there simply won't be enough people to replace them. While some areas were able to flip from being stable white neighbourhoods to stable black neighbourhoods, most were not - hence why every city declined in population.

Actually, there was a brief period during the beginning of white flight/racial transition where population rose rather than fell. It tended to last for only around a decade or so - and it was probably due to nothing other than black families having a higher number of children (at the time - there's no gap today), but the transitioning neighborhoods did briefly get more dense before falling through the floor.

[jd3189]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

There is a lot to unpack up there, but just want to zero in on one thing:



You should probably start by asking yourself why such a thing as a "black neighborhood" exists at all. Black Americans are, by far, the most American of all ethnic groups in the United States, except the indigenous groups. They are more American than white Americans. There is zero probability that this group has existed in the country for so long, had the same opportunities as any other group, and not blended in seamlessly with the American mainstream.

I’m curious to what you mean with the bolded. Black Americans ( as least the ones whose ancestors were brought directly to the US as slaves), never had the same opportunities as White Americans until very recently. It’s only more recently that Black culture has been blended well into American mainstream culture in some respects.

[Docere]

Yup.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/ar...lack-borrowers

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I am not sure this is true in any significant way. We're not talking about replacing the white population everywhere they lived in the U.S. - just in the inner cities. There was more than enough of a mobile black population back then to fill the neighbourhoods that white people were vacating.

Most northern cities like New York and Chicago were still 90%+ white in 1950. Even with the large movement of black migrants from the South, it would've taken even more to make up for the sheer number of whites who were fleeing the cities.

Especially as was often the case, all it would take was a few black families moving into the neighbourhood for the local whites to board up the house and get out of town (whether or not there actually was any widespread migration happening).

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Especially as was often the case, all it would take was a few black families moving into the neighbourhood for the local whites to board up the house and get out of town (whether or not there actually was any widespread migration happening).

I think that's a bit exaggerated. There's scholarship on racial tipping points during the white flight era, and I think it's usually around 25-30% AA when the white population undergoes dramatic outmigration. And it would really depend on the neighborhood typology and white demographic.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by jd3189

I’m curious to what you mean with the bolded. Black Americans ( as least the ones whose ancestors were brought directly to the US as slaves), never had the same opportunities as White Americans until very recently. It’s only more recently that Black culture has been blended well into American mainstream culture in some respects.

Short: Black neighborhoods exist is because of discrimination.

Long: Had black Americans not been discriminated against for so long there wouldn't be socioeconomic disparities between black Americans and the average American.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I think that's a bit exaggerated. There's scholarship on racial tipping points during the white flight era, and I think it's usually around 25-30% AA when the white population undergoes dramatic outmigration. And it would really depend on the neighborhood typology and white demographic.

Fair enough, it's probably an exaggeration based on a couple of those old anecdotes we always hear. But either way, an increase of 30% of one group resulting in a decline of 90% of another is still a net loss and bound to create some problems with abandonment and municipal revenue shortfalls.

[dc_denizen]

Much of the time white flight was about simple economics

Imagine it’s 1955. If your house , worth $50k today, might be worth $25k in two years based on obvious demographic trends in your neighborhood

You are a 1950s white factory worker for whom your home is your only asset

Would you sell now or in two years?

[L41A]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

There is a lot to unpack up there, but just want to zero in on one thing:



You should probably start by asking yourself why such a thing as a "black neighborhood" exists at all. Black Americans are, by far, the most American of all ethnic groups in the United States, except the indigenous groups. They are more American than white Americans. There is zero probability that this group has existed in the country for so long, had the same opportunities as any other group, and not blended in seamlessly with the American mainstream.

TruDat

[jd3189]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Short: Black neighborhoods exist is because of discrimination.

Long: Had black Americans not been discriminated against for so long there wouldn't be socioeconomic disparities between black Americans and the average American.

True. Wonder how it would be if the discrimination never existed or ended earlier. This country would already be at the next level of human evolution.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Much of the time white flight was about simple economics

Imagine it’s 1955. If your house , worth $50k today, might be worth $25k in two years based on obvious demographic trends in your neighborhood

You are a 1950s white factory worker for whom your home is your only asset

Would you sell now or in two years?

One thing which hasn't been discussed is that in many cases in the mid 20th century realtors actively fomented white flight via "blockbusting." Realtors would do things such as hire black people as "actors" to begin hanging out in the neighborhood - even in some cases engaging in pretend fistfights. Or the would do relatively more benign things like sell a house to a black family in a white neighborhood - and then drop their cards in the mailboxes of every other household on the street. This worked in many neighborhoods to cause a generalized racial panic, which meant white families sold homes at a loss - and the realtors turned around and sold the homes to black families for a higher price.

In the end, I think the only urban homeowners in the area who may have made out well were in the Mount Airy-like neighborhoods where the community banded together to resist blockbusting and integrate middle-class black families at a lower level. Everyone else lost tremendous amounts of equity, relatively speaking.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by eschaton

One thing which hasn't been discussed is that in many cases in the mid 20th century realtors actively fomented white flight via "blockbusting." Realtors would do things such as hire black people as "actors" to begin hanging out in the neighborhood - even in some cases engaging in pretend fistfights.

I watched a documentary of 1960's-era Detroit, and now-retired realtors (both black and white) acknowledged widespread tactics to encourage racial churn. They would pay young black women to pace up and down the street with baby carriages and gaggles of kids, they would pay young black kids to boisterously play on the street, etc. They would also mail anonymous notes with pictures of new neighbors, using stock photos of scary black men.

Panic selling was a highly lucrative practice.

[Zapatan]

Was suburbanization determined more by push (i.e. fear of minorities, declining property values etc.) or pull (i.e. genuine appeal of suburbia) factors?

Probably both, and not trying to sound like a jerk or anything but I don't think there's anything wrong or weird about people wanting to only live around their own tribe/others like them, and wanting to live away from demographics stereotyped as partaking in ghetto culture, crime etc. (not saying it's always true but stating a stereotype)

Tribalism is human nature.

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by Zapatan

Probably both, and not trying to sound like a jerk or anything but I don't think there's anything wrong or weird about people wanting to only live around their own tribe/others like them, and wanting to live away from demographics stereotyped as partaking in ghetto culture, crime etc. (not saying it's always true but stating a stereotype)

Tribalism is human nature.

That’s why we have to craft a different way to define “tribe” other than skin color and convince people of its correctness.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I would argue that white flight was so damaging in large part because of how quickly it happened.

A neighborhood which slowly switches from white to black over say a 50-year span (particularly with little overall change in socio-economic status) will probably be fine. Local schools probably won't be as good on standardized tests, and crime might be a bit elevated, but the neighborhood will be physically intact, homes will be occupied, and businesses will remain located there.

A neighborhood on the other hand where 80% of the white residents fled in less than 20 years is going to be an awful ghetto. If people are selling that quickly, no one is buying but slumlords.

That's a very good point.

One of the reasons why white flight was so dramatic and quick was due to the Great Migration being as well. If blacks moving to northern cities would have happened over a longer span then whites may have not fled just as quickly. The whites saw this "onslaught" of blacks into their cities as nothing short of an invasion as if a plague was descending upon their city so they packed up their bags and fled. For many white urbanites they really did believe they were running for their lives.

This caused once very prosperous and growing cities turn into very poor and shrinking ones in a remarkably short amount of time, Detroit being the poster child. This also resulted in those once powerful dominant cities becoming political impotent and hence not getting the attention of their state and federal politicians and the money they control.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Much of the time white flight was about simple economics

Imagine it’s 1955. If your house , worth $50k today, might be worth $25k in two years based on obvious demographic trends in your neighborhood

You are a 1950s white factory worker for whom your home is your only asset

Would you sell now or in two years?

Yeah, in American historical discourse there is a lot of demonization of individual white flighters but in their position 99% of people would have done the same.

The actual "evil" in this story lies in the societal and systemic conditions that placed everyone in this situation in the first place.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

One of the reasons why white flight was so dramatic and quick was due to the Great Migration being as well. If blacks moving to northern cities would have happened over a longer span then whites may have not fled just as quickly.

Another factor is the widespread urban renewal occurring concurrent with the Great Migration. So you had a massive influx of AAs concurrent with the wholesale destruction of their geographically constrained, packed-in neighborhoods.

In 1960, Detroit was already like 30% AA, but almost the entire population was concentrated in a tiny area near downtown, and almost that entire area was wiped out in the ensuing years due to urban renewal, so obviously there was massive demographic pressure placed on adjacent white neighborhoods.

[liat91]

Originally Posted by Zapatan

Probably both, and not trying to sound like a jerk or anything but I don't think there's anything wrong or weird about people wanting to only live around their own tribe/others like them, and wanting to live away from demographics stereotyped as partaking in ghetto culture, crime etc. (not saying it's always true but stating a stereotype)

Tribalism is human nature.

Duly noted, but the the realization of what you say is the product of and arbiter of destructive practices mostly based in the past. If your living in a neighborhood that 5 generations of your family have lived in that is homogeneous to this day then it’s a matter of circumstance. What your implying is racial engineering that has caused an amplitude of crimes against humanity for over a century. Now immigrant ghettos would be understandable for poor groups coming in to a new nation for survival and day to day ease of life. People doing it because of the melanin content of epithelial layers of organic external sheathing is something else. Communities based on economic resource can also be a somewhat benign reality.

What you say could easily be expanded to the segregation of the following “tribes”; height, Intelligence, eye color, athleticism, disability, physical abnormality. Your walking a dangerous line. Hitler thought this way.

[liat91]

Either way, I’m glad white flight is slowing/ending/reversing. It comes from a very very bad place. Sure there’s the “herd” aspects to it that transcends the middle class white factory worker who’s home is his only major asset. Nothing in society is completely one sided in its virtue, but with white flight the pendulum swings towards the negative/avoidable side quite a bit more.

Hate to use the WW2 Germany analogy again, but people looked the other way when tragedy happened in that case as well. You could have lost your job, house and social standing. In America, it was probably the house and social standing and maybe the job.

It also seems like the West is the last place where white flight occurring in large waves, with the exodus from California whites to certain Western cities/suburbs.
Northeast and Midwest whites are mostly headed South, along with many blacks into a region where blacks don’t just live in the inner cities by an large. Very few suburbs in the South that are 90+% white. Not many that are even 80+%. Jupiter, FL-Cumming, GA - Naples, FL - The Woddlands, TX - Frisco, TX - Huntersville, NC - Leesburg, VA - Windermere(34786), FL - Cary, NC etc. All of these places being very desirable. They may be majority white but don’t come close to matching the homogeneity of where these transplants hail.