Black flight is a term applied to the movement of African Americans from predominately black or mixed inner-city areas to suburbs and outlying edge cities of newer home construction. While more attention has been paid recently, the movement of blacks to the suburbs has been underway for some time, with nine million migrating from 1960-2000. Their goals have been similar to those of the white American middle class: newer housing, better schools for their children, and attractive environments.

PropertyValue
dbpprop:abstract
  • Black flight is a term applied to the movement of African Americans from predominately black or mixed inner-city areas to suburbs and outlying edge cities of newer home construction. While more attention has been paid recently, the movement of blacks to the suburbs has been underway for some time, with nine million migrating from 1960-2000. Their goals have been similar to those of the white American middle class: newer housing, better schools for their children, and attractive environments. From 1990 to 2000, the percentage of African Americans who lived in the suburbs increased nearly 5 percent, to 39 percent. Most who moved to the suburbs after World War II were middle class. Early years of residential change accelerated in the late 1960s after passage of civil rights legislation gave African Americans more choices in housing and jobs. This period also coincided with major restructuring of industries and loss of hundreds of thousands of industrial jobs in northeast and Midwest cities. Together in the late 20th century, these events led to reduced density in formerly black neighborhoods in cities such as Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia, which have had absolute population decreases. Since the 2000 census, a pattern of decrease in black population greater than white departures has occurred in several major cities: New York, Atlanta, Boston, San Francisco and Washington, DC. In Los Angeles, the percentage of population that is black has dropped by half to 9.9% since 1970. In Washington, DC, the percentage of black population has decreased significantly to 55.6% in 2007, down nearly 8% since 2000. In 1970 at the peak of African American expansion, blacks comprised 70% of the capital's population. More importantly, in addition to moving to suburbs, African Americans have been returning to the South in a New Great Migration, especially to the states of Georgia, Texas, and Maryland. In many cases, they are following the movement of jobs to the South. Because more African Americans are attaining college degrees, they are better able to take advantage of such opportunities in new economic niches. Most African American migrants have gone to the "New South" states, where economies have grown from knowledge industries, service and technology. In addition to Atlanta, the top metropolitan areas attracting African Americans include Orlando, Tampa and Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Florida; and Charlotte, North Carolina. Achieving higher education has contributed to an increase in overall affluence within the African-American community, and thus given people more choices on jobs and housing. The most important long-term trend has been increasing median income in the African-American community, both in absolute terms and in relation to that of White American citizens.
dbpprop:hasPhotoCollection
dbpprop:reference
rdf:type
rdfs:comment
  • Black flight is a term applied to the movement of African Americans from predominately black or mixed inner-city areas to suburbs and outlying edge cities of newer home construction. While more attention has been paid recently, the movement of blacks to the suburbs has been underway for some time, with nine million migrating from 1960-2000. Their goals have been similar to those of the white American middle class: newer housing, better schools for their children, and attractive environments.
rdfs:label
  • Black flight
owl:sameAs
skos:subject
foaf:page
is owl:sameAs of