Talk:White flight

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Is white flight also occurring in Canada at all? I would suspect that there are at least some racial tensions in Canadian cities but to a lesser extent than most US cities, which are indeed in very bad shape. Are some Canadian cities undergoing urban decay like Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles? As an American, I'm not trying to start a flame war (I hope it doesn't lead to that as well), I would just like to keep an open mind and learn more about the differences and parallels of our countries. 172.196.183.35 03:40, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

see below for response

Same person here. It's unforunate there's no response to my previous query.

I am from Britain myself and I've begun to mention the UK because white flight is not unique to the US. I'm attempting to broaden the view to the UK. 172.193.49.78 01:18, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I don't really know anything about this, but as for Canada, you might want to look for Asian immigration in Vancouver, Asian and Caribbean in Toronto, and I guess Caribbean in Montreal. That's very simplistic, but maybe it will help. Adam Bishop 01:29, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Regarding Canada, my impression is that white flight has not been a factor there as it has in the US, where it's absolutely changed the character of cities like Detroit and Cleveland. Max klindt is the coolest. Certainly the fact that the populations of Vancouver and Toronto are more non-white than they were a generation ago (due to more Asians and people from all over the world, respectively) is not an indication in and of itself of white flight, in the sense that the term is used here and usually known. Canadian cities haven't been decimated by the phenomenon in the same way some American cities have; or, if they have, I have never, ever heard of such an occurrence. Moncrief, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I propose we should restructure the paragraphs to a broader view. Convenants in the UK were quite common as well (like African-Americans, most South Asian immigrants were not able to purchase homes due to discriminatory real estate agent practices (they're called "estate agents" in the UK)). Perhaps we should divide the sub-sections into countries... 172.197.53.126 05:27, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It's an idea, except is "white flight" actually a term used in the UK? I just want to make it clear that white flight is a specific phenomenon that is not the same as the fact that all western countries have greater diversity than they had 30 years ago. White flight refers specifically to white people leaving cities in droves (it's usually associated with white people who were themselves the children and grandchildren of immigrants, such as Italian and Jewish Americans) and the effect that that had on cities specifically. My impression is that the UK, while much more diverse than it used to be, has not had white flight to the extent the phrase is known in the US. Certainly cities like Bradford (merely 19% non-white, according to Wikipedia, although it's often thought of as the classic example of a British city transformed by immigration) and Birmingham are more diverse, but the entire cities have not been transformed into majority non-white cities with the vast majority of white residents moving to a suburban belt. Am I wrong about that? Feel free to add more info, if it's factual, but don't assume that the experiences of the US and UK are necessarily similar just because there has been increased immigration to the UK. White flight, until recently, was overwhelmingly about native-born African Americans being left in the core cities, and the UK did not have this existing population and I think many white Britons have remained inside cities, so the expereinces are different. I don't want to say the UK is less racist, because that's probably not true, but at the same time there is no UK equivalent to Detroit, where 80%+ of a city is non-white whereas the suburbs, just over a particular road or boundary, are 90%+ white. Moncrief, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)
There might be one someday. Racial minority populations in the UK and Europe (and even Canada) are still pretty small overall. It seems that the flight doesn't occur until newcomers reach a critical mass. White flight in Detroit didn't really take place until the 1960s, when the black population in the city soared to over 600,000 (it had been 300,000 in 1950), and increasingly agitated for a share in the city government, which was still white-dominated (frustration over this situation played a role in the 12th Street Riot) that whites began leaving the city in large numbers. I've read that Amsterdam will be 50% nonwhite by 2020; it will be interesting to see what will happen there.

Funnyhat 06:17, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You might want to do a search into continental Europe's most nonwhite cities, Marseille and Rotterdam, to see if the phenomenon has occurred there. I am under the impression that Marseille is very ethnically divided, and there are unofficial "boundaries" between Arab and African Marseille and white Marseille (much of which is composed of the descendants of immigrants from other European countries). Prairie Dog

I live in San Luis Obispo, California (which is mostly white at the moment but Hispanics have indeed established a foothold). With white flight occurring at a rapid pace, with Hispanics taking over Californian communities, we'll probably become like the Canadian province of Quebec (which, as all of you probably know by now, is officially French-speaking with French-language street and business signs; they have some kind of "language police" as well).

With the Hispanic population at a growing rate, Spanish is everywhere and the California legislature appears to be dominated by Latinos. On the streets, someday we'll have see signs to "ALTO" instead of "STOP" and "Avenida de (fill in the blanks)". It's the "Latinization" of America. Who knows?

I do not want to bait a flame war (please do not interpret that way), but while in the Los Angeles area, I was inspired by a talk radio host who was mentioning this prospect.

James Gordon 172.199.6.198 02:01, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

While a lot of what you're saying has some validity and a lot of it is just hyperbole, all of it is pretty Point of View so I'm glad you put it here and not in the encyclopedic entry. Moncrief 03:21, Mar 16, 2004 (UTC)
You're right. However, it's not my POV. It came from a conservative right-wing radio program. :)

J.G.

A set of maps accompanying a recent article in the LA Times on the demise of the King/Drew Hospital showed how the demography of South Central LA has changed in the past two decades. It has gone from a predominantly Black area, with some Whites and Latinos (1980), to having no Whites (1990), to having a majority of Latinos (2000). Black flight? -Willmcw 00:54, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure why an unregistered user today removed the city names of Compton and Inglewood from this entry. The reason I can imagine is that he or she believed both to bad examples since they have been thoroughly non-white for many, many years. However, this is an article looking at the process of white flight really since World War II and both Compton and Inglewood are good historical examples of communities in which white flight occurred, albeit a while ago. Inglewood, for example, was a rather middle-class and certainly mostly if not exclusively white suburb until about 1960. Moncrief 03:46, Mar 16, 2004 (UTC)

I concur. -Willmcw 00:54, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I am interested in white flight occurances in mainland Europe; notably Holland, the south of France, and other nations and regions of nations where large non-white populations reside in large numbers. Questions regarding white flight in the European mainland: Is there white flight on the European mainland? If so, to what extent? If not, why not? How do native Europeans react to white flight? To where do "white flight" populations of smaller mainland European nations emigrate? I do not know enough about white flight to add to this topic, except to ask these questions. Kind regards, --Cormac Canales 18:24, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

In mainland Continental Europe, white flight is largely confined to the banlieue housing projects of France, in which large numbers of poor whites have left. I am not sure where they have gone to. I do know that certain red-light slum districts like the Barrio Chino area of Barcelona and the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele of Rome have become largely nonwhite, but those areas had tremendous drops in population and I don't think the whites have actually fled so much as previously abandoned housing stock has been reclaimed by immigrants from third world countries, primarily Black Africa.

While Brixton did undoubtedly experience "white flight" in the 50s and 60s, the reverse is true today - Brixton is becoming whiter as the middle classes (of all ethnic backgrounds) flock back to a rather interesting area with some first rate housing with a fast tube link to Central London. On the other hand, working-class blacks are either cashing in on increased equity on their homes, or else being pushed out by prices outside the range of most first-time buyers, and moving to areas like Mitcham and Central Croydon. London's probably the worst example of white-flight and racial segregation in the UK - it's a largely integrated city where districts change characted in a matter of a few years. In the sixties Battersea was a formerly white working-class area becoming increasingly black; now it's very Upper Middle-Class and so white they could probably use it on Daz commercials. There's more evidence of white flight in Birmingham and Leicester; Nottingham and Manchester are considerably more integrated; the real heartlands of American style segregation however are the small mill towns of the Penines - Rochdale, Oldham, Halifax, Accrington, Nelson, Burnley and Blackburn are all shockingly segregated.

I also took out the comments about people living in poverty in the same area for generations - it's far too early to say if that's the case. There is plenty of embourgoisement among the UK's black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, and the Indian and Chinese communities are wealthier and better educated than average. The rate of inter-racial marriage in the UK is also just about the highest in the world.

In terms of France the process is the reverse of that in America - the core city areas tend to be relatively wealthy and whiter than average, while many of the public housing projects in the suburbs have seen their working-class white populations move out. Argenteuil, in the northern suburbs of Paris springs to mind as perhaps the best example.

Gerry Lynch 15:23, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"numerous smaller cities such as Newark, New Jersey" -- Not sure about this, it is confusing, what standard of smaller is that? Newark is a humongously populated sprawling city. Perhaps it is a smaller city compared to New York City. Should this be corrected or am I just full of it? RFC. DG 21:54, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Would middle-class flight be a more accurate description? Even among non-white minorities, all but the most destitute tend to move as far from the center of cities like Cleveland or Detroit as they can afford to. Further, most of the white people in Detroit, Cleveland, Newark, etc. are gone already. --156.77.108.72 16:08, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Good point. -Willmcw 00:54, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I just did a big cleanup: little re-writing, mostly moved things into sections and break into topics. There were a couple of lists of affected US cities that I merged. I left empty slots for see also and ext lnks to remind us to give the article some context and citations. -Willmcw 01:25, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"WHITE FLIGHT" AN INVALID TERM....Throughout history, people have always shifted locales and migrated to be with other people with whom they have much in common. There is nothing "shameful" or "dis-heartening" about this...it's human nature. Black newspaper columnist Thomas Sowell gives us a very valid and in-depth look at this very subject:

"WHAT FLIGHT?" by Thomas Sowell. [www.CapMag.com]

"The New White Flight" was the title of an eye-opening article in the November 20th issue of the Wall Street Journal. It was about a high school in Cupertino, California, where a growing Asian American student population is causing rising academic standards -- and causing many white parents to withdraw their children from the school and some to move out of the community.

The school has some of the highest test scores in the state. But, although everybody is in favor of high academic standards in the abstract, not everyone is in favor of having to struggle to meet those standards.

One white mother who was taking her son to an after-school soccer game noticed all the Asian American parents arriving to take their children to an after-school study program. A few years of her son playing soccer while the Asian kids were hitting the books would be bound to create academic disparities.

The phrase "white flight" is completely misleading. All over the world and throughout history, groups have collected together with people like themselves, whether by race, income, education, religion, or any number of other characteristics. There is nothing unique when white people do it.

A century or so ago, when Polish immigrants began moving into various Detroit neighborhoods, blacks began moving out. The research of pioneering black sociologist E. Franklin Frazier showed long ago that Harlem and other black communities were internally divided, with people of different income, education, and behavior patterns living in distinctly different zones.

When Eastern European Jewish immigrants began arriving in the United States and some began moving into German Jewish neighborhoods in Chicago, the German Jews began moving out. Similar patterns have been found among all sorts of groups.

When blacks move into a neighborhood and whites move out, that is something visible to the naked eye but there is nothing unique about such "white flight." The phrase is misleading for the same reason that saying white people have toenails would be misleading. It is true in itself but suggests something unique that is in fact common to human beings of all sorts.

It is not just in residential patterns that people sort themselves out in many ways. People tend to marry other people with similar IQs, even when they don't know what those IQs are. They just tend to gravitate toward people whose levels of understanding are similar to their own.

Cliques form in all kinds of places for all kinds of reasons. Chess players, jazz fans, and gamblers tend to hang out with others who share their interests.

The fact that people sort themselves out in many ways is not usually a big problem -- except to those people who cannot feel fulfilled unless they are telling other people what to do. Government programs to unsort people who have sorted themselves out have produced one social disaster after another.

The decades-long attempts to mix black and white school children through school busing produced no real educational benefits but much racial polarization and ill will. The same thing continues to be done in colleges in the name of "diversity" -- and with the same bad results.

Among the most unconscionable attempts to unsort people who have sorted themselves out by behavior are government programs to relocate people into neighborhoods where they could not afford to live without subsidies. Often the people in those neighborhoods have sacrificed for years in order to be able to live where they could raise their children in decent surroundings and not have to live in fear of hoodlums -- only to have the government import the bad neighbors and hoodlums they have tried so hard to escape.

Both kinds of people may be of the same race but that does not make the consequences any less painful or the resentments any less bitter. Blacks as well as whites have objected to having problem people thrust into their midst through housing subsidies or government housing projects being built in their neighborhoods.

Almost never do the social experimenters relocate dysfunctional and dangerous people into their own elite neighborhoods. They unsort other people's neighborhoods and embitter other people's lives.


Does anyone else see a problem with the phrase "white-skinned," which is used repeatedly throughout this article? The use of the word "skin" when describing people of a particular race, is not only offensive but also unneccessary. If this practice is deemed acceptable, perhaps the same expression should be similarly applied to all other races mentioned in this article; i.e. "black" should be replaced with "black-skinned." Now does that offend anyone??

Some parts of the US (the "red states") seem more afraid of the "white flight" phenomenon than the more affected "blue states". I'm not stating conservative states are more racist, but oppose the type of racial diversity affiliated with liberal policies of urban states. Race relations in the red states aren't strained, unlike what I observed in California, a blue state during the early 1990's.

Interestingly, the strong conservative trend in American politics hasn't put an end to political correctness that brought on racial diversity in the first place. The fear of the white European race may become extinct by the year 2100 in north America, Europe and Australia -- is beyond reasonable doubt, but it fuels the flames of white supremacists and right-wing extremism.

Now I'm worried on the future of the western world, whether we're more accepting of different races (i.e. African Americans) or we could follow a pattern akin to the rise of Nazism in 1930's Germany (i.e. anti-Semitism). The attitudes of racial tolerance in more conservative US states in the Southeast, rural Midwest and Inner west is different from the Northeast, urban Midwest and the west coast, where socio-economic disparity between Black and white are more prevalent.

The racial friction in more liberal urban states is a result of white flight, decreased opportunities in employment during the 1970's and enforced class privilege as a result of conservatism in the 1980's and 1990's. But today, most people in a primarily white neighborhood won't leave because a Black person moved in, than 30 or 40 years ago.

Although these problems of Black Americans denied the right to purchase any house they want is less evident since the 1990's, we never solved the problems of disparity between Black and white Americans. It appears that the situation hasn't went away no matter how much society changed to rid off racial practices in housing and employment when it became illegal.

Most red state politicians like to point out liberal policies in blue states made more racial and economic class divisions, while "red" states rather not use white middle-class areas into sudden "dumping grounds" for poor blacks, in order to integrate the community, like "blue" state politicians has done. The reason why mostly white areas (urban and older suburbs) become mostly Black and/or Latino, was most old timers moved outward to new suburbs. --Mike D 26 03:50, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] White Flight Happening Right Now In San Francisco

The latest meth epidemic with shootings "in the daytime" as an AA person stated on the news has made me rethink about living in SF. I'm leaving, and I've lived here most of my life. Plus the fact that there are no white working class jobs available in SF due to an unreasonably high illegal immigration problem. And it is a problem. Formerly, people in bands, students, etc. worked in pizza parlours, Walgreens, etc. No longer. Illegal immigrants are highered at an alarming rate by these corporations. There are no janitorial, construction, or school district working class jobs for people who do not speak bilingually Spanish or Chinese. The working class whites of SF have, for the most part, moved on.

San Francisco is growing whiter and richer, as some neighborhoods became gentrified such as the Van Ness/Market street section. Young adults, singles and couples bought and repaired those townhouses or apartments, and mostly they are white Anglo. Another demographic factor is the chic trendiness of urban centers, such as San Francisco appealed to the rich, bobo (Bohemian Bourgeoise) or yuppie segment of the retiring "baby boomer" group. The older generations of white ethnics (Italian, Irish and Polish), African Americans, Mexican-Americans and Asians (Chinese, Japanese and Filipino) already relocated onto counties in Central California and some headed out of state for affordable housing. I don't necessarily call it "white flight", but the flight of working class and non-affluent whites, Blacks, Asians, Latinos -- all people out of san Francisco, one of the world's most expensive cities. --Mike D 26 03:54, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: white flight in Canada question

I think this article talks about Gentrification, and that is certainly a social problem in Toronto. This article says it is the opposite of white flight, which in many U.S. cities is a good thing, but when you get too much of it, like in Toronto, a host of social problems and issues develop. Namely rental housing rates in traditionally working class, immigrant or working poor areas, such as Parkdale, Cabbage Town, York Town, and Regent Park escalate and cause displacement. Moreover, rental housing is legally changed into condominium housing, or existing apts are razed to creat more expensive, revenue generating condo complexes which cater to the wealthier urban professional. A look at the skyline of Toronto today shows an enormously large amount of condo construction in the core, around the SkyDome and Harbourfront, as well up near the 401 and Yonge Street. Toronto is also noteworthy for its large amount of homeless people.

As far as white flight, its really difficult for me to cite any Canadian example, but I am white person, and maybe I have not had any experience of it. I risk upsetting some people by saying this, but currently the city of Mississauga is trying to divorce itself from Peel Region, a regional municipality structure that includes the City of Brampton. Mayor McCallion of Mississauga is leading this campaign, and she argues there is an unfair tax burden upon Mississauga residents in Peel Region funding. Brampton is more populated with people of colour, than Mississauga- although just slightly. However it is nothing like the racial divisions found in Detroit along 8 Mile Road. In fact, the mixed population of both communities is fairly similiar; nevertheless, neighbourhoods in Malton, and other sections of Brampton are predominently Caribbean.

Finally, cities like Brantford, London, Hamilton, and Windsor had downtown areas that suffered from decay and neglect. Brantford in particular had a downtown area that completely collapsed, it looked like a great place to film a movie set in Detroit for a long while. The provincial and city governments have tried to revitalize the area with a library and charity casino, but most retail shopping is still located in malls outside the city centre. London experienced the same demographic flow away from a 'historic' downtown. many retail centres outside of the city core attracted shoppers and dt became a ghost town at night, and still pretty much is, at least last time I was there i could not find a drug store open past 6PM. the new library and John Labatt Centre was built to help revitalize the city core.--Mikerussell 18:52, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

There is also white flight going on in the Fresno / San Joaquin Valley area in California as more Hispanics are moving in.

[edit] California demographics

Is there a "black flight" article? East Palo Alto, Watts, and Compton, California, are all getting Latinized while blacks are moving out at a rapid pace.

No, but you can create one. If you like can you start by adding a section to this article on the topic. Be bold. Cheers, -Willmcw 00:02, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Although I've never heard the term "black flight" used, it is indeed occurring in the places you mentioned above in California and middle-class blacks have been moving from inner-city Washington, DC. to places like Prince George's County, Maryland for some years. I know an African American here in California who is fleeing to greater Atlanta for many of the same reasons whites left cities for the suburbs forty years ago. Certainly the trend of blacks moving from the North back to the South is tied into this although not exactly the same. Anyway, worthy article topic or, even better maybe, as an add-on section to an existing article on African American demographics.
One caution is that blacks who move from, say, East Palo Alto to, say, Vallejo, California are not necessarily doing so because they've moved up economically - it may be more so that they can live in a cheaper (if renting) and/or less Latinized community. Moncrief 06:36, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)
"Fleeing" is a pretty racist way to state it... and that's the common terminology. There's nobody forcing African Americans to leave Compton. They are leaving of their own accord. That's not "fleeing". That's "moving". (Blacks moving to the South from the West is more like "gentrification.")
The "Hispanization" of California, also called the "Asian invasion" will continue to have an impact in the state's metropolitian areas. Blacks are indeed leaving South Los Angeles, Oakland and san Jose, emptied out mostly black residential areas as it morphed to either diversified or re-segregated (solely Hispanic or Asian) areas. There is great deal of anger by some in the African American community that the "illegals" or immigrants settled in their neighborhoods without limit, but to do this will violate civil rights law.

The Inland Empire region of California has a rapid growing middle class Black population, same goes to San Joaquin valley despite Hispanics are fast becoming a majority there. The san Diego area had gentrified inner-city areas like City Heights and Hillcrest, once is an entirely black residential area. While skyrocketing apartment rents and housing prices drove away many Black residents, it hasn't curtailed the large influx of Hispanic immigrants, whom usually seek cheaper rents in not so popular real estate tracts.

Many political critics swear from the lack of immigration reform, affirmative action and cultural preservation, the tens of millions of Hispanics "may take over California and the Southwest states", a viciously racist comment itself to offend or degrade Hispanics/Latinos are "invaders" unable to stay in Mexico or Latin America. If it weren't the need for "cheap labor" in the booming U.S. economy in jobs most U.S. citizens will not take, this wouldn't happened.

There are some white Anglos in California who want to "bring back" real estate discrimination, restore former social codes that allowed businesses to refuse service to Hispanic patrons, and random deportations of Mexicans--including those born in the U.S. Some in the far right want "internment camps" for all illegal immigrants, if the current system cannot simply deport them back to their country.

California, unlike Texas and Arizona, never shifted to official racial segregation of Hispanics, although not as severe than the "Jim Crow" laws in the Southern U.S. But in 1948 a Los Angeles city councilman, the first of Mexican descent since 1870 said he was denied the right to purchase a home in Hollywood. He pressured L.A. councilmen to pass an ordinance in 1951 prohibited discrimination in housing sales based on the buyer's racial, ethnic and national origin.

Los Angeles once declared certain housing tracts "off limits" to Black Americans, as well Asian Americans and any "non-Caucasian/Anglo" ethnic group throughout the early 1900's, and some bigoted writers of the L.A. Times newspaper stated in a 1928 article: "The whitiest city in America" though at the time, 14 percent of L.A. residents are non-white/ Anglo--compared to San Francisco was 6 percent, mostly are Chinese. --Mike D 26 04:11, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Definition of White

Moncrief, you stated in the summary "For the purposes of white flight as a historical movement, it generally does not include people of non-European descent." If that's true, why does the government define white as the original people who decend from Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. So saying that white is just European is very unfair to non-European whites. I think I sense hatred and racism over here!--140.144.175.93 21:00, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I took out the definition of whites within the article and if people want a better clarification of what is meant by "whites," they can click that link. I'll ignore your personal, unwarranted, out-of-left-field attacks. If you could point to cases of white flight involving whites of Middle Eastern descent - for example, and this may have happened though I don't know, Arabs leaving Detroit for Dearborn because of the reasons or the impetus described in this article, that would be helpful and encyclopediac. Instead, you just choose to make a personal attack. Oh well. What can you do? Moncrief 21:12, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

Hello Moncrief, I think it's very interesting how you pointed out the white flight involving Middle Easterners that moved from Detroit to Dearborn. I personally know that many whites who are of Middle Eastern ancestry that have lived in Michigan have moved to the South such as Texas, and Florida. Many whites who are Middle Eastern have also went to white majority areas in southern California such as San Diego and Orange County. As for you 140.144.175.93, nobody here is a racist or a hater. If you don't have anything respectable to say, don't say it, everybody here in Wikipedia is entitled to their own opinions. So don't rant out nonsense, the only thing we want from you and everybody else is only their opinions, not insults!--Gramaic 03:59, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Orange County is no longer a white majority region. It was pointed out during the 2003 World Series between the Angels and Giants that Orange County has a lower percentage of non-Latino whites than San Francisco does, although higher than Los Angeles.

[edit] Southern U.S.

I've noticed that there is no mention of the white flight involving whites from the South. A good example of white flight in the South would be looking at the cities of Memphis and Atlanta. These cities were once a white majority, and today the majority of the people who live in Memphis and Atlanta are black.--Gramaic 08:00, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

White flight in the South is of a virtually identical nature to that in the Midwest and Northeast. Memphis and Atlanta are no exception to this; Atlanta's suburbs, for one, are almost completely white (there are some affluent majority-black communities, however) and remarkably disconnected from the central city. Remember too that Southern cities have always had much larger black populations than those in the North, because of pre-Civil War population distributions (not too many blacks in antebellum Illinois or Michigan, y'know?).--Slightlyslack 06:22, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] California section

The section on white flight in Southern California is pretty badly done. For one thing, white flight in Los Angeles began as early as the 1930s, with whites leaving places like Montebello and Lincoln Heights as refugees from a very unstable Mexico flooded in. As with most places, it really got going in the decade or so after the 1948 Supreme Court decision that struck down the judicial enforceability of racial covenants (although housing discrimination itself was not officially banned until the Civil Rights Act of 1964). The exodus of politically conservative whites from Greater Los Angeles has an awful lot more to do with the post-Cold War collapse of the defense industry (and the manufacturing base that supported it) than it does with the L.A. Riots.

See Up Against the Sprawl (University of Minnesota Press, 2004) for more detail.--Slightlyslack 06:32, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Housing discrimination was banned in California in 1948, 16 years before the Civil Rights Act. Ironically, the area most affected by post-riots white flight would have been the eastern San Fernando Valley, which did not see much rioting ; there was a considerable amount of middle class African American flight, but that would technically not be "white flight" Prairie Dog

California is comparably more liberal and tolerant in other races, but this didn't make the state immune to racial discrimination. Some of the state's wealthy counties are conservative, like Orange county back in the 1960's and 70s was overwhelmingly white Anglo. The pattern of "White flight" since the 1950's in Los Angeles, later since the 1970's in Orange county, has to do with real estate prices made the places unaffordable, the general decay of communities and the "empty nesters" left en masse to retirement communities like Palm Springs. The eastern end of San Fernando valley is just as Hispanic like much of older Central Los Angeles, but large communities of Iranians, Koreans and middle-class Blacks exist in the same area once was primarily white until the 1980's. Conservatives in the state blame the "race-baiting" liberals for forcing neighborhoods to play a game of preferential treatment to let more Blacks, Latinos or Asians to buy homes in very white neighborhoods, soon was changed to ensure diversity or became "low income" ethnic enclaves. There's a sense of reactionary feeling against Black people moving in at the first place, but this is California where most white residents (esp. those born after 1960) are brought up not to hold racist feelings and remember the liberal Democrats in the 1960's wrote most of these anti-discrimination real estate laws. --Mike D 26 04:19, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

In addition to the concerns already listed, whoever wrote this section really needs to go back to high school for some remedial English. Did some cleanup but this section definitely needs more help. Bsharkey (talk) 19:04, 2 June 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Northern California

Another form of white flight is also taking place in many parts of Northern California, such as the western suburbs of San Jose, California. White flight, though taking place at a slower pace, is also affecting high-income upper-class neighborhoods that are becoming increasingly Chinese American.

That's badly written. Which phenomenon is "another form of white flight", the increasing Chinese population in high-income neighborhoods, or what's happening in the western suburbs of San Jose (Silicon Valley)? How is it different? (Answer: whites are the lower-income group, and are being displaced by gentrification.) It's also inaccurate, as San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose have experienced the ordinary variety of white flight, though in Oakland, it's being reversed by young people attracted by low housing costs. Argyriou 16:34, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disgraceful

From the article:

"In addition to the United States, many cities in Great Britain, including many parts of London, have also been affected by white flight, especially after Indian, Pakistani, Black West Indians, Black Africans, and immigrants first began arriving in that country in significant numbers in the 1950s and 1960s after many British colonies in Africa gained their independence from Britain. The ghettoisation of many areas, high crime, and lack of affordable housing for white natives, has led to many white families being forced out of areas, or leaving for a better standard of life away from the problems of inner city life. "

I'm removing this disgraceful, inaccurate, biased POV and basically flawed paragraph which sounds like a statement in the manifesto of the BNP. Jooler 09:27, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree and second the above posters opinion that that section is disgraceful and racist. I was going to make similar comments myself, and I am glad that someone else has pointed out the same thing.

I am 'white' and live in the UK, and the section that most displeased me was "The ghettoisation of many areas, high crime, and lack of affordable housing for white natives, has led to many white families being forced out of areas.....". There are plently of white criminals. The part about "lack of affordable housing for white natives" dosnt make any sense since how then do non-white people afford them? These are clearly the comments of someone with a grudge.

In Britain we are proud of our multi-ethnic culture. It is becoming increasingly silly to describe people as 'white' or otherwise since there has, I am pleased to say, been a lot of inter-mariage and other parenting, so young people especially are all shades. I understand that such integration is much greater than in the United States.

Just popping in to defend my country: I think it's worth noting that segregation/integration levels in the States vary by class and region. I'd say the middle class in most cities is now fairly well integrated, it's at the far ends of the spectrum (rich and poor) that the starkest splits occur. Not that that's good or anything, I just wanted to say that in some ways, we're doing just fine. jengod 18:40, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there is any 'white flight' in London or elsewhere in the UK. When I used to live in London I didnt notice any.

It is a Home office statistical fact that Black people in the united Kingdom cause disproportionately more crime (especially violent crime) than whites. Therefore the statement that whites left because of higher crime rates is not disgraceful but a likely reason. The comment that plenty of whites are criminals too misses the point that Black people cause DISPROPORTIONATELY more crime than white people by a significant margin. The censorship of this article is not fair and merely caused by a knee-jerk reaction to anything which implies there is a link between non-indiginous populations and increased crime rates. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.80.46.237 (talk) 13:27, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Concerned.

I think the paragraph about white-flight and its effect on white working-class inner city-dwellers in British cities is entirely accurate and just a statement of facts of life. I do live in a working class area of a British city, by the way.

If you are the writer of the above paragraph, please could you explain why you wrote "lack of affordable housing for white natives"? You imply that there is some sort of discrimination that bars "affordable" housing from whites. Yet I do not believe there is any, since if their was it would make headlines and probably be illegal too.

Are you sure you are not just forming opinions from your own emotions, rather than objectively from the facts?

Concerned.

There is an undoubted movement of the 'white' population away from larger towns and cities in the UK, but it is complex. Some 'whites' (especially young childless professionals) are moving INTO the inner cities, but the balance still shows a decline as they are probably outnumbered by working-class 'whites' moving to smaller towns and rural areas and the increase of minority populations that (with the exception of the Caribbean group) are growing strongly, partly through immigration but more often because of their younger age profile, which results in a relative "deficit of deaths". Two papers by Ruth Lupton and Anne Power at the LSE are instructive in this regard http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/publications/census.asp).

Interestingly, the Economist recently featured an article on the increasing suburbanisation of the Afro-Caribbean population, which is gradually moving from Inner to Outer London - Hackney and Wandsworth showed substantial losses of Caribbeans in the 1990s, Croydon and Redbridge significant gains. Like working-class 'whites' this group has been able to move out of the inner city because of increasing house prices and gentrification.

With reference to the mixed race issue, it's true that this is the fastest growing group in the population, but it hardly invalidates the point that, compared to the US, the ethnic minority share of the whole is still relatively small (9%) - although 15% of school children in England are non-white according to DfES. An interesting phenomenon is that many children described as "Caribbean" actually have one white parent (I think it may be as many as half). Combined with the slow growth of West Indian community in the 80s and 90s, I would speculate that this part of the UK's 'black' population will eventually be absorbed into and replaced by a mixed race community, and the 'black' group will be largely Black African in future (indeed the number of Black Africans overtook the number of Black Caribbeans in the 90s).

-Jon

[edit] Russia

Makemi, the very first sentence in the article states "White flight is a colloquial term for the demographic trend of white people, generally but not always upper and middle class, moving from increasingly and predominantly non-white areas". In the case of the Russians, there is a class element as well, as the ethnic Russians living in former SSRs were more often than not part of a privileged elite, and had access to better education and opportunities. Having lost their privileged position with the collapse of the USSR they are finding themselves in the position of an "unprotected" minority, and moving back to Russia. I think it's a legitimate "white flight" phenomenon, since there is an ethnic difference between the ethnic Russians and the Turkic people's of Central Asia or the ethnic Caucasian peoples. I think you ought to re-insert the paragraph.—thames 22:13, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that, according to my understanding, Russians have always been an ethnic minority in these areas. The fact that they are losing privileged status is significant and so moving away is significant, but does not make it "white flight". What you are talking about is more like what happened in the former Rhodesia after the minority white government was overthrown. Again, I think it's interesting and significant, just not appropriate for this particular page. Also, the motivation is different. In white flight people who are still in power leave in order to avoid seeing and experiencing the poverty and violence present in poor American urban minority communities. Not in order to avoid persecution. Makemi 22:27, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I see what you're saying. Is there another article where this might be appropriate? Perhaps the content could go there, and we could add a "see also" link here. —thames 22:43, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Maybe it would be appropriate in something like Political migration or Emigration, or Immigration. These at least would be appropriate as "see also" articles for this article. It might also go somewhere in Post-Soviet states. Makemi 23:22, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Snowball Effect

I disagree with the idea that white flight is an invalid term based on the fact that people have historically tried to stay close to people of the same ilk. Much of "White Flight" has to do with what is essentially a mass exodus, which destroys a neighborhood, likely due to a flood of available properties and heated competition to sell which creates a drop in property value, which serves to further exasperates the problem. There is a snowball effect that hasn't really been discussed at all. People have complained that property value was destroyed because blacks moved into a neighborhood when in fact the value was diminished because people were moving out in high numbers, overly eager to sell. This dropped the prices allowing for even more families (often black) with lower income to afford property in the affected area increasing the desire of white families to move because of social/race issues as well as fear of losing even more money on their property. Wal3l3it 18:05, 14 March 2006 (UTC) (forgot to sign Originaly)

The "snowball effect" is one good theory I feel wasn't discussed in the Wikipedia article, please edit the article and don't forget your sources for all of us to see or read it. When troublesome economic conditions (recession) and racial tensions (the Civil rights movement) combined, a single community can collapse or change for the worse. You explained on the difficulty to keep a suburbs' property value as it gets common and cheaper as time goes on.

An example of a high level of "white flight" and this "snowball effect" in California is Santa Ana of Orange County. Not all formerly white cities become Black, but our state does have a pattern of Latinos replace white Anglo residents. Other cities now more Latino and many times more Black than white: Inglewood, Long Beach, El Monte, Riverside, san Bernardino, National City near San Diego, and Indio east of Palm Springs, have grave losses of economic might and lost many businesses, large and small.

The neighborhoods often built before 1930 or after WWII (1945-75) are considered cheap, cookie-cutter, looked blend and are inconvenient places to live. Home property values decline and this opened the doors of affordability to socio-economic groups usually can obtain these homes. When you get large percentages of residents lost good-paying jobs in the late 1970's, 1980s and early 90s (all were recessions), a newly created underclass brought down the community's image to appear it's now an economic failure. So the economic conditions put thousands of people out of work and sold their homes to move on to new places with better economies.

Suburban sprawl intensified in those times of crisis: the 1960's and again the late 90's, but some of the wealthy, liberal and more established "new urbanists" was renovating urban centers since the early 1970's got to where it's headed now: Downtowns and inner cities cost more than older suburbs and small towns, while new suburbs or "exo suburbs", rural home tracts in driving distance to major cities, actually have home equity in record amount than older suburbs. Sooner or later, most middle-class or minority groups will end up "settling" newer suburbs. It's a cycle likely to repeat itself forever and the "snowball effect" may follow them around. --Mike D 26 04:42, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] White-O-Centric

The article is very biased and overly reflects the perspective of white people.

The prior comment had a good point. The article doesn't really deal with the main driver of "white flight", which is the underlying racism that makes white neighbors more "valuable" than neighbors of other races. White flight is collective racism that becomes translated into property values when people sell their homes to escape the presence of nonwhite people.

Statements like "whites are being driven out" are completely racist. They aren't being "driven out"... they are moving out of their own accord. The nonwhite people moving in aren't doing anything to drive anyone else out. They don't show up with burning crosses to frighten the white residents; quite the opposite, it's the white people who terrorise the people of color to scare them out of the neighborhood.

The article doesn't get into the overall effecs of capital flight from an area, particularly when the capital tends to be owned by one race of people. For example, if all the rich, powerful people in a city are white, and all the poor, powerless people are black, and white flight occurs in one area of the city, it will become a poor, powerless area. This occurs when personal income and access to political power are related to race.

During the period of white flight to the suburbs (in America), in the 1950s, black people were restricted in being able to get good jobs, to vote, and to own property. In such a situation, which was an dynamic of political power to assist capital flight, "white flight" was ultimately paid for by the labor of exploited black people.

It's been 50 years since white flight started. Why can't people be honest? White flight is racism.

Meh, I think it's simpler than that. Black people tend towards the kind of Democratic tax-and-spendism and special-interest politics that expand government and drive up taxes. I wouldn't want to stick around if my taxes were going to go up to support people I don't know. Also, there's the whole "Bonnie and Clyde" thug culture that has enraptured so many blacks, as perhaps the mob culture did Italians back in Prohibition. Who wants to put up with that nonsense? I'd rather live somewhere that's got lower taxes and less crime. That's not racism, that's rationality.
Yes, white flight is a product of racism - racist criminal attacks, committed upon both the property as well as the person of white residents, by jealous black residents who would rather steal and rape than work for an honest day's wage. They just assume "whitey" has everything handed to him because their inferior negroid brain can't comprehend people are actually willing to work hard for what they have. If it was purely a "race" issue on the part of whites then they'd be fleeing asian neighborhoods as well, and they clearly aren't. Indeed, even Asians refuse to live in neighborhoods with blacks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.112.236.152 (talk) 18:41, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Not Racism!

My old city Malmö have today around 50% immigrants. 30 000 have leaved the town, most Swedes but also people from many different nationalities. I know a lot about this and it has nothing do to with racism – and I have a hard time to believe the US would be that much different.

That this flight does exist I don’t question. And I am sure some calls this racism. But I don’t believe this is the majority view.

I found this on the net. Written by Allen Johnson who is black.

http://blog.news-record.com/staff/outloud/archives/2006/02/whos_a_racist.html

“I also think that it is too easy to say that housing patterns are race based. It might be for a group of bigots who don't want to live near other races, but I think most people make decisions based on schools, crime rates, and quality of life. "White flight" does exist, but I think it is fleeing from crime, not blacks. I think that most black people also seek to move away from crime if possible- call it middle and upper class black flight. You never hear the stories about the lower class white neighborhoods that are crime ridden even though they exist. White people in those neighborhoods who can afford to leave do leave. They are leaving the crime, not the race. I also think that if you looked at the crime rates for neighborhoods that people are "fleeing" from, you will see that the crime rate has gone up. I think this would justify anyone moving somewhere else.”

Logic and experience tells me that this is not racism. Experience also tells me that behind this term are a political agenda. A propagandistic agenda. If you write that this is by some (and specify some) regarded as racism – then its NPOV. But to take a minority view only because you believe in it yourself and try to make it a proven fact is surely not NPOV.SweHomer 21:31, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I agreed. This is rediculous! Most seem to agree it isn't racism. People move out of a neighborhood do the insanely high crime rate, the poor quality of schools, and steadily rising taxes. Poor people have a lot more children than middle class or wealthy people do, but don't contribute to the tax base which funds public education and the police, among other things. That alone means you have more people, and less money to deal with them, as each generation keeps getting worse. No matter what color you are, if you have the money, you get out of these neighborhoods.
There is also perhaps a cultural aspect these days, where differant ethnic groups tent to settle in the same areas, and speak their native languages. After huricane Katrina, many people had to live in trailers for a time. Many whites reported being harassed constantly by the black population, discribing them as territorial. The "gansta" mentality promoted by violent rap music, a population which is reluctant to cooperated with the police(60 Minutes did a report on that), statistics citing how many don't have a father growing up or in many cases proper parental supervision at all, anger from being in serious overcrowded public housing, and whatnot, causes a lot of very violent angry young men, looking to establish their turf. Thus you have violent street gangs forming. Thats why anyone able to, gets out of those areas as quickly as possible.

Dream Focus 04:57, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scare Quotes

Do we really need scare quotes every time we use the word "white" or "non-white"? Are these terms really so offensive/ambiguous/confusing/undefined that we need to muck up the page? I say: "Down with scare quotes altogether. Peace and tolerance begins by weeding out the rhetoric."

Here we go with the political correct terminology. It's not racist to use terms like "white" and "non-white", but to some people this creates tension and held as offensive. I don't like racial slurs and whoever edits/changes the article to read "honky" and "darky" is purely racist to insult people. Some activists in the "tolerance movement" want to abandon or do away with terms like "minority", "inner city", "ethnic" and the very word "race" as a sociological not biological meaning. Those words remain acceptable to most, and don't seem inappropriate to use in any Wikipedia article. Don't get rid of the terms "white" and "non-white", we want to know what the article talks about. I don't mind if someone re-edits the article with substitute terms like "majority" and "minority", or "European/caucasian" and "non-" whatever. It's what we do to other people hurts more than words, but I agree name-calling and labeling people ends up as dehumanizing slurs are equally bad. --Mike D 26 04:25, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
I believe the original poster was calling into question the quotes that surround the words "white" and "non-white," not that using "white" and "non-white" were racist. ~~ Bryan J

[edit] White Flight in Michigan

I believe this article could use more information on the white flight that GM has caused in Michigan. It isn't just Detroit, but Flint and Saginaw, and Grand Rapids to a smaller extent. As GM loses factories, unemployment has swept these cities and the white population plummeted and crime sky rocketed. Mah Freend Amee 00:53, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Outward emigration due to loss of jobs is not "white flight" per se. Actual white flight is racially-motivated.--Orange Mike 23:53, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV Added

I believe this article does not effectively examine exisiting opposition to whether or not 'white flight' is a relavent term. It alludes to whites leaving the inner cities as being the cause for urban decay, while ignoring obvious problems within other communities that are equally or perhaps more significant reasons for such decay (gangs, drugs, absent fathers) and of which only drive out more middle and upper class persons of all cultural and racial backgrounds.--Anonymous

Relevant to what? If we're talking about the demographic phenomenon of white people leaving an area in large numbers, then it is relevant. "White flight" means nothing more nor less than that. Whether or not it explains urban poverty, crime rates, etc, is another matter.--WadeMcR 04:55, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

No one is ignoring other phenomenon, this article is about this particular phenomenon and its effect, not the topic of urban decay as a whole. If you would like to provide cited criticisms of the topic of "white flight", then you are welcome to do so, but the lack of the does not necessarily make the article non-NPOV. --Xombie 03:52, 26 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Central New Jersey

The article states that Central Jersey is an example of newer white flight due to an influx of Asians, citing such Middlesex County munipalities as South Brunswick and Plainsboro as examples. However, can it really be argued that some of these towns are experiencing white flight? Yes, white population as a percentage of total population in these communities has fallen, and Asian population as a percentage of total population has risen, but in light of the explosive growth of some of these towns, numerically does it really mean anything? South Brunswick, for example, grew from 25,792 persons in 1990 to 37,734 persons in 2000, and its white population changed from 84.1% of the total population, or 21,679 persons, to 70.5%, or 26,600 persons. Numerically, the white population grew in South Brunswick in those ten years; if white flight is characterized by whites moving away and white populations declining, how can South Brunswick be experiencing white flight? In Plainsboro, a town of 14,213 persons in 1990 and 20,215 persons in 2000, the white population grew from 11,116 persons in 1990 to 11,765 persons in 2000, while the percentage of whites to the total population fell from 78.2% to 58.2%. Another example is the Mercer County municipality of West Windsor Township, which grew from 16,021 persons in 1990 to 21,907 persons in 2000; the white population changed from 13,121 persons in 1990, or 81.9% of the population, to 15,670 persons in 2000, or 71.5%. Is this still white flight if white population numerically increased in these communities while the percentages of whites in relation to the total population fell?--128.235.249.80 20:04, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Crime

This article really kind of ignore the aspect of WHY White Flight occurs. In the United States, especially, White Flight occurs because many predomiately non-White/Asian areas are filled with crime. Usually the demographic of these areas is Black and Hispanic. It's not Whites fleeing because of another race but because of the crime and social problems these groups bring in, in large numbers. Whether people want to hear/read it makes no difference to me because we all know why it occurs. Volksgeist 23:05, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

That's highly racist of you. Everyone knows that most violent crime is committed by old Chinese women. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.137.146.155 (talk) 21:59, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think he should be labeled with a term that is the equivalent of labeling someone "worthless" or "sub-human." That seems hateful to me. (Barkmoss 20:33, 24 December 2007 (UTC))

Of course, he's at least partially right you know; Black crime rate is astronomical compared to Whites. Still, end "War on Drugs" (legalize it, regulate it, make it easily accessible and keep it cheap) and you could end a big piece of that, but no where near all! Furthermore, Blacks are a messy people and Whites don't like that. (Remember, the exception doesn't prove the rule). Barkmoss (talk) 22:50, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

"Interracial Crime

Of the nearly 770,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving blacks and whites, blacks commit 85 percent and whites commit 15 percent. Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against blacks. Forty-five percent of their victims are white, 43 percent are black, and 10 percent are Hispanic. When whites commit violent crime, only three percent of their victims are black. Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit a violent crime against a white than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery." Source [[1]] Barkmoss (talk) 22:21, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Other countries

I removed the few words about a white flight in France. There is no such evidence of racial mass moving here for non-caucasian immigration is pretty new. Poor neighborhoods and projects are very often located in middle-class areas and this lasted for more than 30 years. Besides, the fact that the riots where more racials than socials is very controversial : many white kids took part in them because they lived in the same area of their other rioter friends, and you wouldn't be beaten because you were white, but because you were rich...

And unfortunately, we litteraly have "black flights" where thousands of africans workers and kids are rudely pushed back to a country of which they sometimes ignore language and culture :(

[edit] Citations

This article is in desperate need of citations. Statements like, just for example, "The effects of white flight have been significant in the cities affected by this phenomenon, especially in Detroit, Memphis, St. Louis, Milwaukee and New Orleans, all of which lost more than half of their white populations due to white flight." must be supported by reliable sources. --ZimZalaBim (talk) 19:14, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Maybe this will help, [[2]] Barkmoss (talk) 22:22, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Emigration from the US

I've removed the following statement which is highly doubtful:

There is also a growing trend of White Americans moving outside the United States in it's entirety, mainly to Canada or Australia, which is a good explaination for the drop in of the white population in the USA.

This should not be added back without a verifiable source. First, both Canada and Australia have tough immigration requirements. Second, there would need to be some proof there is any drop in the white population (the count, not percentage) of the U.S. AUTiger ʃ talk/work 06:23, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Overwhelmingly vs. predominantly

User 69.105.96.228 changed the phrase "overwhelmingly white" to "predominantly white" in one place in the article because in his words "the connotation of being 'overwhelmed' by a race is not appropriate." This is apparently not the first time the user has done this; I see the word "predominantly" is used throughout and "overwhelmingly" only once (before the edit), and as the user said he is making the change "again" I presume he is the one who is responsible for this. However, the reason he gives for making the change is bogus. In this construction the word "overwhelmingly" refers simply to the proportion of persons of that race in the area's population. "Predominantly" implies a simple majority, while "overwhelmingly" implies a much larger majority. The word "overwhelmingly" should not be removed simply because someone thinks the idea of being overwhelmed by a race is "not appropriate" -- that's not at all what's being said. I have not reverted this change because for all I know the neighborhoods being discussed (which are in England) are in fact merely predominantly white rather than overwhelmingly so. However, if there are areas that are in fact overwhelmingly white, editors certainly should be able to say so in the interests of accuracy. Jerry Kindall 20:49, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] HISTORY

"White people with the means to leave sometimes did so to escape the increasing racial tensions they observed on television news reports of the volatile Civil Rights Movement, which they thought generated crime in inner cities between radical racists and new black residents."

This smacks of total POV, though I would be happy to concede the point if it was sourced. The assertation that the populance made their decisions in regards to housing due to what they "observed on television" or that they fled their neighborhoods due to the civil rights movement is total speculation (barring evidence to the contrary). Again, this needs to be sourced or it will be removed. Coldbourne 12:28, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Remove it. futurebird 12:30, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Racism

the article seems highly racist i've add an NPOV for the time being.

Someone removed the NPOV marker, which I have replaced. The article is repetitive and propounds explanations without supporting references or considering alternative explanations. Racisim is given as a universal explanation without adequate discussion of other explanations, particularly fear campaigns by interested parties. Redlining is an separate phenomenon that does not belong under this topic. The first paragraph needs to be rewritten because it seems to confuse cause and effect. Moreover, whites are generally referred to in this article as "wealthy", although white flight more often affects working-class neighborhoods, while wealthy neighborhoods in central urban areas have been more stable, or peacefully integrated. --Zeamays 19:34, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed with Zeamays. In addition it looks like the article has mixed and matched "white flight" with both "wealth flight" and depopulation of central cities (& more recently inner suburbs) in general. In addition, the article has mixed in the recent incorporation of suburbs in Atlanta, which doesn't involve people relocating at all. Personally, I would classify "white flight" as that predominately by whites to an area with a significantly higher percent of whites as the area they left, "wealth flight" as that predominately by anybody of above average income moving away from areas seen as poorer to places seen as wealthier, and general depopulation when those migrating are coming from social economic groups across the board. Jon 19:49, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I also find the find the majority of the article to be heavily slanted and without any references. The number of unsubstantiated claims passed off as fact is astounding. This needs a total rewrite. Hmoul 17:33, 29 June 2007 (UTC)


This article is one of the worst that I've ever seen on Wikipedia as far as bias. As someone that grew up in Detroit I can tell you what really sparked the exodus from the city. #1 was the 1967 Black riots in Detroit that started after a blind pig was shut down. No liquor lead to a riot. Some areas burned in the riot are still burned out to this day.

  1. 2 Downtown Detroit had an old mega-department store (think Macy's), Hudson's was the name of it. When a White woman working there got stabbed to death inside of the store in the 1960's it sent shockwaves through the still mostly White population. This stuff never happened Downtown in pre-1960's Detroit.
  1. 3 Detroit had a very racist and crude Black mayor, named Coleman Young (think Marion Barry, but much worse) in the 1970's and 1980's that had, as a goal, the removal of the non-Black population. Whites, Mexican-American and Arab Detroiters were hugely affected by the city spending much less in their neighborhoods, and favoring Black residential neighborhoods. Coleman Young also totally neglected Downtown Detroit. In letters to the Detroit News Mexican Detroiters complain that they are being discriminated against by the current mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

Other factors include the expansion of freeways and the huge decline in city schools as the population demographics changed from White to Black. The big city schools went from being some of the best in the USA to being the very worst. Insane levels of crime and the ruination of the once great big city schools are probably the most important factors. White Flight is a far far more complicated (and non-politically correct) issue than Liberals (and this article) will have you believe. If Wikipedia can't get this article right it should be deleted.

But what are the factors for the decline of urban schools? The schools receive their incomes mainly in the form of property taxes. When a neighborhood becomes poor, regardless of color, the school funding automatically declines. That could be more of a failure in how schools are funded in principle, which automatically favors classism which is connected to race when the class demographics [i.e., who is poor, who is not poor] is proportionally related to race [i.e. whites and asians are found to not be poor, blacks and latinos are found to be poor] --EC


An important point regarding racism and white flight is brought up in one of the article's sources but is not mentioned directly in the article itself: that federally subsidized suburban housing was not available to non-whites. This means that whites who were otherwise without the means to vacate the city were given the means to do so, while socioeconomically disadvantaged non-whites were left without the means due to racist policy. Naturally, non-whites who had the means to leave could do so if they desired, which ultimately (due to factors mentioned above) led to concentrated urban populations of socioeconomic disadvantage, thus leading to municipal services being cut, etc. Perhaps this should be included more prominently in the article, while speculative statements regarding more subjective and cultural motives of white flight be removed. Perkunas 20:59, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree the federally subsidized suburban housing issue should be a bigger part of the story here. futurebird 18:21, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redlining Photo

This map belongs to the topic of redlining, which is the practice of geographic denial of financing products which is thinly-disguised racism, is tangentially connected to white flight, but is not core to the discussion of it. White flight is about people leaving a geographic area out of fear. Redlining is about people from being blocked from coming into it in the first place. They are not the same topic.

Different topics, but very closely related. During the 1950s, it was common to restrict suburban home sales to people of color. Some developments were integrated, but some were not. This automatically put minorities at a disadvantage. These inequalities that mirrored existing social inequalities probably amplified the effects of racism.66.245.192.245 10:24, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Improper use of term "Red Lining"

Red lining was the practice, now illegal and a thing of the distant past, of denying mortgages to certain already-established African Ameerican neighborhoods. It is not the cause of white flight. In fact, if anything, it was the elimination of red-lining which hastened white flight, not its actual use. Since red lining effectively kept racially segregrated neighborhoods in place and discouraged racial "diversity", it was only when red-lining was elminated that African Americans began moving into traditionally white neighborhoods which in turn saw the birth of white flight. I've edited the term out of this article; red-lining is not a cuase of white flight.

You don't understand the role redlining played in the period immediately after WW2. An ordinary white family who would have been happy to find a cheap house in a changing neighborhood such as mine simply could not get a mortgage here because the neighborhood was redlined as one attracting "undesirables" (i.e., black people), and were thus pushed to go to the newly-burgeoning suburbs. Read some of the source materials! Your edits will have to go. --Orange Mike 12:58, 10 August 2007 (UTC) (on Uihlein Hill)

[edit] American Bias NPOV

This article is extremely NPOV due to the large focus on the United States. "White Flight" should either be sourced as specific to America with out of country instances or the focus on American examples should be moved to a "White Flight in America" section.

The article makes the extremely accurate point that white flight is more common in the US than the rest of the world. On the merits of that point, it's worth focusing on the US unless that point can be indicted. For instance, the article on cul-de-sacs, even though it has pretty pictures of the things in Spain and Ireland, almost exclusively focuses on the US, because, let's face it, the US the is the country you think of when you think of the suburban-style cul-de-sac. If you think, on the other hand, that this article has a dearth of information on other countries' white flight, just add the info. I don't think the article in itself has a US point of view. 68.209.119.35 17:31, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm really happy to see that recent edits have started to open this article up to a more global perspective. Is this the reason for the NPOV tag?futurebird 18:19, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] White flight NOT exclusively making the mountain states more Republican

It's a 2002 article. Back then, it would have made sense. In 1996, the entire region trended toward the Republicans albeit of Arizona. In 2000, it did so again (albeit of New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada). And finally, in 2004, the entire region (albeit of Utah and Arizona) trended toward the Democrats.

Source? http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html

Also, bear in mind since 2002, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona have all elected Democratic governors. And don't forget that in Colorado, the Democrats have made MASSIVE gains.

Before you start citing articles from 2002, do your research on changes that have happened since then. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.5.170.110 (talk) 19:23, August 29, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] what about gary

Northwest Indiana's steal industry attracted a considerable number of migrant workers from the south. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.189.40.225 (talk) 11:42, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Zealand

I have taken the liberty of removing the word pakeha from the article as it unnecessary and offensive word both to White New Zealanders and South Island Maori. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.150.122.143 (talk) 15:01, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Biased Introduction

The introduction to this article presents one biased point of view that simply denies the fact that Whites fled when integration was forced on them. Hence, this article's introduction lacks common sense, reason and connection with reality. Any child who reads this article's introduction will be rewarded with muddled thinking. It is a public menace and should be "burnt." Barkmoss 17:49, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

As this is the only thing resembling "discussion" of the NPOV tag, I will address it here, before removing the tag. The introduction is not "biased." It goes straight down the middle, expressing no opinion (which is all you cite above) regarding the causes. As such, I am removing the tag. If anyone wishes to re-add it, please start an appropriate discussion here at talk. Tagging-and-running is not cool at all. Mr Which??? 20:36, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not surprised that you think the introduction is "down the middle." However, I do think you are in denial. Whites were forced to integrate with Blacks; that is historical fact and denying that is, well, denial. Not surprisingly, when people are forced to do things they don't want to, they often resist, in anyway they can. As Whites were outgunned by the Federal Government, fighting was not a viable option. Hence, running away was the next natural choice. This appeared to be viable and for awhile, was. (Barkmoss 20:55, 24 December 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Whtie Flight in chicago and the surrounding suburubs

During the 1960s and and 1970s white flight occured in the southern part of chicago such as englwood roseland pullman and several other neighborhoods just like those. It all occured when the first mayor Daily, bussed African Americans from the south,(lower Income people) to work in teh mills, where he developed the Caprini Greens (housing projects) When the new neighbors moved in the caucuasion population wasnt to pleased due to ther cultural differences and rhude natures. So therefore the caucasions spread throughout the suburbs.Which inturn lead to urban decay of the southside. They moved to suburubs such as Dalton, Calumet City, South Hollland, Homewood, Lansing,Thorton. All southern suburbs of Chicago.For years were going alright until around the Late 80s and mid 90s, when the African American population Decided to move into the suburbs. They started at Dalton and finally made it dowward to Homewood, Country Club hills,Lansing South holland.. (all the areas to wherer the original caucasions moved to. So now a lot of them are starting the cycle all over the agian and are now moving to Northwest Indiana. My Town Lansing IL, Is now going to the dump.. we hve over 800 house for sale and several foclosures, most of this is due to the tearing down of the caprini greens, and Mayor dailys plan to Spread the lower income people around the Suburbs, which for some reason the only area that they have been spread to is the south suburbs the middle class area. Due to this the Caucasions have moved in numbers and has brought my community down. The Highschool scores have dropped and Crime rate has trippled. I guess this is reality? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.63.110.36 (talk) 19:03, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] White flight, Black flight

Some parts of the New York and Los Angeles metropolitan areas with emerging Latin American and Asian populations are experiencing a new phenomenon where "white flight" neighborhoods that became mostly black in population are now experiencing a black flight by blacks as new immigrants move in.[1][2]

This seems like it is twisting the facts a bit to me. "Black flight" simply isn't the exact same thing as white flight and it happens for different reasons. I think we should remove this. Objections? futurebird (talk) 19:33, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I think Thomas Sowell did a piece or perhaps even a series about that. So, I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss it. Unfortunately, I don't have time to go find it for you! Barkmoss (talk) 22:27, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Australia Section- Melbourne's Relevance?

Just in relation to the reference to white flight occuring in Melbourne; there is no specific case cited. I feel that, in an article which deals mainly with urban demographic change as it occurs in the United States (and rightfully so, since this is where the term originated) the reference to melbourne should be removed; since no urban change that ocurred in this town is nearly at the same scale as US white flight. I think the case for sydney is stronger, and so its ongoing inclusion is justified.Hydeparkblvd (talk) 18:34, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

– I want to add that not only does the article not discuss Melbourne, there is only speculation in the article about the Sydney demographics. In fact, the phrase is "we can only speculate", implying the authors (Bob Birril in particular should have a question mark over his work) don't have any evidence of "white flight". In fact, I find the whole concept of this article flawed - a case of tail wagging the dog. If a certain sub-group has left an area it is far more likely due to income levels (ie priced out) than race. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.101.147.246 (talk) 03:14, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

- Priced out? I'm sorry, I can only imagine you're not familiar with the American experience, which is where this term originated. The demographic movements of whites from city centres to the urban periphery from the 1960s was certainly not made of economic necessity. The suburbs which grew explosively around almost every major nonsouthern US centre were, and still are, amongst the wealthies zip codes in the United States. This was a racial phenomenon, without question.

Apropos of your other criticism, I'm afraid you're incorrect, there is a parargaph which makes exactly two references to Melbourne. Please read the paragraph below:

In Australia, comparable trends have taken place around the areas of Australia's greatest immigration inflows, particularly Sydney and Melbourne. In Sydney, Anglo-Celtic Australians have left the south-western suburbs in response to growing concentrations of Asian immigrants, and have relocated to outer suburban areas, notably Penrith and the northern coastal area of Gosford-Wyong. These growth areas have remained predominantly Anglo-Celtic.[34] It should be noted that gentrification in Australia refers to wealthier people moving into traditionally working class, often migrant areas and renovating properties (for example, Melbourne suburbs such as Collingwood or Prahran); these areas often have not experienced anything comparable to white flight for over a century, but rather had been continuously working class until the 1970s or 80s.

I don't mean to imply you are a sloppy editor; this paragraph may have been removed from the version of the article you read. Rather, now that we can clearly see that this article does mention Melbourne, I feel we should substantively address the criticism I made above. --Hydeparkblvd (talk) 16:25, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Peasants in the USA

In American there was a great deal of white flight in the 1940s to the 1960s. In the 1940s and 50s the white flight was due to the GI Bill that allowed whites who were in poverty to buy homes they could never dream of. How dare the article suggest that most of the whites who moved were of the middle class, when many were nothing more than spam eating and ghetto bound. Cheap proptery and bias real estate people allowed whites to move to the 1960 suburbs. Those who remember there history recall the old slums of the inner city and the white slums of old.--Margrave1206 (talk) 03:42, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Why Did Whites Leave?

Whites fled because of crime, vandalism, disrespect, incivility and finally, a significant drop in property values. Of course, some left because they were uncomfortable living in a racially diverse community. This is as natural as rain. Barkmoss (talk) 22:34, 14 March 2008 (UTC) [[3]]

[edit] Just California?

I have a serious problem with "White Flight" being noted in both southern and northern California, and not detailed in any other states. Does California really need two sections, much less its own? This will make foreign readers of this article believe that this is something only in California, and nowhere else - which is FAR from the truth. (I'm thinking Detroit and St. Louis here, known for their Urban decay.) I think the important bits of the California lot need to integrated into the larger article, then removed. 165.134.194.139 (talk) 06:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed it is unbalanced, but the better cure is more of other places, than less of California. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:27, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] crime rates

are there any sources for the possible inclusion of increased (or fear of) crime rates associated with white flight?

Yes, here's a good one! [[4]] Barkmoss (talk) 22:14, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Netherlands

An editor has been adding a section on the Netherlands to this article, but the references all talk about any exodus being connected with Muslim immigrants, not non-white people. Many Muslims, and many immigrants to the Netherlands, are white, so I don't see how this has anything to do do with this article. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Most Muslim immigrants in the Netherlands are from Turkey and Morocco, they are easy to distinguish from the native Dutch population by their darker skin color and appearance. --Zero g (talk) 15:40, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
But this article refers immigrants in general, and not Muslim immigrants in particular. This is slightly discriminating to Muslims, suggesting they are the main cause of white flight --Drake1812 (talk) 15:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
The source I used indeed indicates that Muslims are part of the cause of white flight in The Netherlands. This Wikipedia article isn't about immigrants in general however. The term 'Muslim' is often used as both a cultural and racial classification. --Zero g (talk) 16:27, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
The source article only mentions middle-class residents, not particularly Whites. Also, please understand that by most standards Turkish people (and many Moroccans) are White. Lastly, Muslim is neither a cultural nor a racial classification; it is a religious denomination which has nothing to do with skin color. I say the section should go out.--Ramdrake (talk) 16:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
From the NYT article: "This small nation is a magnet for immigrants, but statistics suggest there is a quickening flight of the white middle class."
Given 'white' and 'flight' are used in the same sentence I would say the source qualifies as describing 'white flight'. --Zero g (talk) 18:02, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Yep I see Muslims are defined as an ethno-religious group by many, and yes to many Dutch Whites (self identifying) they would see Turkish and Moroccans as non-white (who also would self-identify themselves as non-Whites). But I don't see the evidence of the statistics showing any white flight as a simple consequence of these groups being there. I do not see any stats given here, of the 2 references - the one is not present, and the other seems based highly on the testimony of a trader that sells visas and immigration packages right after one "racist" murder. Can we have some proper sources here if this is indeed a phenomenon - maybe the group UNITED Against Racism that is based in Holland and is the largest European body on fighting discrimination would be better place to look at what is happening.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNITED_for_Intercultural_Action

for its contacts etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.166.95.134 (talk) 07:41, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sweden

I have removed the section on Sweden as it, and the source quoted, do not discuss issues of skin colour but discuss the relations between Swedish-born people and immigrants, many of whom are themselves white. The term "white flight" is very much about colour, not immigration - in the USA, where the term was first used, many black people are from families who are longer-established in the country than many white people. Information on tensions between immigrants and native populations is perfectly valid for Wikipedia, but it doesn't belong in this article which is about a very different subject. Phil Bridger (talk) 08:37, 27 May 2008 (UTC)