White Flight

The term White flight refers to the process of White migration from racially mixed urban areas to more racially homogeneous suburban or exurban areas. This [Page 1396]entry discusses the history of White flight and some of its repercussions for urban neighborhoods.

The historical era to which the term usually refers is the post-World War II period of the 1950s and 1960s, when the creation and expansion of the suburbs gave urban dwellers a place to relocate. The term also describes the current phenomenon of Whites migrating from the older, inner-ring suburbs of metropolitan regions to nonmetropolitan regions in rural areas, and from the U.S. Snowbelt (Northeast and Midwest) to the Sunbelt (Southeast and Southwest).

In the 1950s and 1960s, White flight from urban areas was mitigated by numerous push-and-pull factors. One significant push was the desegregation of public schools and facilities following the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. In both Northern and Southern urban neighborhoods, there was strong and sometimes violent White resistance to the subsequent racial mixing of people in public spaces, including schools, swimming pools, golf courses, streetcars, buses, and parks. Many Whites feared that “their” facilities would be taken over by Blacks, and they responded by establishing private facilities (including new private schools) serving only Whites.

The desegregation of urban neighborhoods was seen as a threat by many city-dwelling Whites. This was partially the result of White racist stereotypes and prejudice against Blacks. Whites commonly perceived the presence of Blacks in a neighborhood as a symbol of an encroaching ghetto and an inevitable decline in property values and public services. Because public facilities were also tied to neighborhoods, racially mixed neighborhoods meant more mixed facilities, which stirred up old prejudices of White females mixing with Black males. In addition, the Black population of cities was actually growing, due to the continued migration of southern Blacks into urban areas. Even when Whites did not perceive new Black neighbors to be a threat, unscrupulous real estate practices such as blockbusting and panic selling helped turn previously all-White urban neighborhoods into all-Black neighborhoods, sometimes within the course of just a few years. Although many neighborhoods formed homeowner “improvement” associations, meant to stall the rapid racial turnover, numerous Whites abandoned the fight for an all-White neighborhood in favor of “flight” to a newly expanded suburbia.

The pull factors for Whites to leave urban areas were many, such that many Whites who did not see any racial turnover in their neighborhoods were nonetheless compelled to leave for greener pastures. The demand for housing in the postwar era was enormous, spurring a period of new construction in previously rural areas, removed from cities. The federal government backed loan programs that placed home buying within the reach of many families, as well as new highway construction that allowed suburbanites to easily commute to work or shopping centers. Families in the United States grew during the “baby boom” years, and suburbia was a welcome refuge from the oftentimes cramped and deteriorating city neighborhoods.

However, suburbia was not open to everyone. Very few Blacks were able to take advantage of federal loan programs due to the “redlining” of neighborhoods with high minority residency rates and racial covenants to keep out any “new element” that might disturb the racial homogeneity of the neighborhood. Redlining was a discriminatory practice institutionalized by federal loan programs. Neighborhoods that were deemed a credit risk for mortgage loans were coded the color red, and prospective homeowners in redlined neighborhoods were unlikely to receive federally backed mortgages. The neighborhoods most likely to be redlined were older and had significant Black populations or were determined to be undergoing racial turnover.

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