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The Truth About White Flight. Conventional history of the exodus out of cities ignores numerous complex and interrelated causes.
City Journal ^ | Autumn 2020 | William Voegeli

Posted on 12/24/2020 5:50:46 AM PST by karpov

...

How differently would white flight have unfolded absent the crime wave that began in the 1960s? According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, the national homicide rate doubled between 1960 and 1980, from 5.1 murders per 100,000 Americans to 10.2, its highest level. Chicago, always a rough city, already had a homicide rate of 10.5 per 100,000 residents in 1960, but it exploded to 28.7 in 1980 and 30.7 in 1990.

The riots of the 1960s saw lawlessness engulf entire neighborhoods. Chicago’s most serious disturbance was in April 1968, after Martin Luther King’s murder. Some of the looting and National Guard deployments were near South Shore, Rotella recounts, but most of the mayhem was on the West Side. By the riots’ conclusion, nine people were dead, more than 300 injured, more than 2,000 arrested, and 260 stores and businesses destroyed. In its aftermath, white flight from Chicago accelerated. The city, which had been 85.9 percent white in 1950 and 76.4 percent in 1960, saw that proportion fall to 65.6 percent in 1970 and 49.6 percent in 1980. (The Census Bureau didn’t begin to identify “non-Hispanic whites” as a separate category until 1980, when that group accounted for 43.2 percent of Chicago’s population.) In 1988, an official in the city’s planning department calculated that nearly 500,000 people, mostly whites, departed the city in the first half of the 1970s.

We know that the sharp drop in crime that began in the early 1990s coincided with gentrification, evidence that many whites prefer high- to low-density living—if cities are safe. Some of the gentrifiers are the children or grandchildren of people who, with varying degrees of reluctance, moved out of neighborhoods like South Shore.

(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; US: Illinois
KEYWORDS: chicago; michelleobama; whiteflight
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To: Clemenza
Yes, it's a lot more complicated than just people not liking blacks. There was a lot of pull factors as well as push factors. One of the best books on the subject is "The Slaughter of Cities". The use of subsidized loans was a huge factor.
21 posted on 12/24/2020 6:40:57 AM PST by Shadow44
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To: karpov
I grew up in Flint, Michigan during the 60s. We had a nice little town, famous for being the home of Buick and GM and Chevy trucks. We had Republican mayors, great schools and a great police department.

Then the riots took place in Detroit. Being one hour away we got scared that they might come to our town.

People began to move to the suburbs. The Republican leadership left also, leaving a hole that needed to be filled up. The dems came in and every problem became an even bigger problem.

White Flight is a real thing. It will devastate a city. The cause is mainly crime. People want safe areas for their kids and their livelihoods. The people with gumption will leave before it gets so bad they can't leave.

22 posted on 12/24/2020 6:43:57 AM PST by Slyfox (Not my circus, not my monkeys )
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To: karpov

bump


23 posted on 12/24/2020 6:44:31 AM PST by Albion Wilde ("When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice." --Donald Trump)
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To: frnewsjunkie
here in Ga, a home will cost 200,000 to get something safe and comfortable.

You'll pay at least a million dollars for something safe and comfortable in California. And, that'll be a fixer-upper.

24 posted on 12/24/2020 6:44:45 AM PST by Bon of Babble (In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Baby!)
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To: jimfree

BINGO!!! Class, and culture. That IS the answer.


25 posted on 12/24/2020 6:45:58 AM PST by Hardastarboard (Don't wish your enemy ill; plan it.)
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To: ronniesgal
Saw this over the week - how the media treat Michelle Obama vs. Melania Trump:


26 posted on 12/24/2020 6:49:11 AM PST by Bon of Babble (In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Baby!)
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To: karpov

Sometimes we must face our inner-racism. The number of Asians in the country is roughly half of the number of blacks. And if whites don’t want to be around blacks, why would they be ok with Asians? Answer: They aren’t.

Think about all of the articles that were written as Asians took over neighborhoods, how crime shot up, schools went to hell, property values crashed. All in the past 20 to 30 years. Hang on, I’ll find some of these articles and link to them.

...hmmm, can’t seem to find any. Interesting, perhaps white flight back then had a bit more to do with their neighborhoods going to hell than whether black families started moving in? You think?


27 posted on 12/24/2020 6:50:35 AM PST by BobL (I shop at Walmart and eat at McDonald's, I just don't tell anyone, like most here.)
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To: Da Coyote

Always someone else’s fault to a leftist. From the fall of man, to the first murder in the Bible; someone else’s fault.


28 posted on 12/24/2020 6:50:53 AM PST by vpintheak (Live free, or die!)
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To: ronniesgal

I’m a swimmer with some big shoulders and arms... and I am in awe of Mooch’s arms. She’s got some solid guns, I will grant her that.


29 posted on 12/24/2020 6:52:30 AM PST by Mermaid Girl
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To: Da Coyote

“Those short sentences completely undoes all of the Mooche’s claims.”

Yep, NYC did a complete 180 when Rudy and then Bloomberg sent crime levels to the floor there - whites were happy to move back, even with most of the blacks still living there.

...of course NYC is back to business as usual now.


30 posted on 12/24/2020 6:52:37 AM PST by BobL (I shop at Walmart and eat at McDonald's, I just don't tell anyone, like most here.)
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To: Slyfox

My brother-in-law comes from the suburbs of Detroit. He said that the ‘68 riot didn’t scare his grandparents off because they thought the tanks put the fear of God in people. It was the next riot several years later that they packed up and left.


31 posted on 12/24/2020 6:53:10 AM PST by Shadow44
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To: inchworm

“The truth is I left the city years ago, and now enjoy a life...”

And there it is. I lived in various parts of the Denver metroplex for years, starting in ‘76. I kept moving west, away from the crime. Eventually the entire enterprise was a mess of heavy traffic, petty or worse crime and people driving without insurance. My immediate neighborhood was nice but as soon as you drove most anywhere conditions went downhill.

Left Denver for a small town in 2010 and life has been so much better. I never go “down the hill” now, it’s not civilized down there.


32 posted on 12/24/2020 6:55:23 AM PST by SaxxonWoods (Donald J. Trump is the rightful President of the USA and his own party won't admit that.)
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To: karpov

Black Lives Matter - not empty words and not an effective slogan of propagandists.
The lives of black citizens of the United States, indeed, are of great importance
for the country in which they live. It is a fact. And the fact is undeniable,
since it is official statistics behind it. And this statistics says,
that, if suddenly the black population, regardless of age and sex,
tomorrow will leave the country, which it massively hates, then as a result:
- the US population will decrease by 11.3%;
- the number of employees will be reduced by 1.4%;
- The number of prisoners in prisons will be reduced by 48%;
- the number of gangs and other criminal groups will be reduced by 53%;
- the country’s average IQ will grow by 7.4%, placing the US in third place in the world, on a par with Japan;
- The average score of SAT (2016) will rise to 1100 points (now it is equal to 1000);
- the number of AIDS patients will be reduced by 65%;
- the number of patients with chlamydia will decrease by 59%;
- the number of patients with gonorrhea will decrease by 69%;
- the number of patients with syphilis will decrease by 57%;
- The average annual income for the country will rise by more than 20,000;
- the number of people living in poverty will be reduced by 54%;
- the number of homeless people will be reduced by 65%;
- the number of Welfare recipients will be reduced by 52%;
- The Democratic Party of the United States will lose 26% of its voters.
So, yes, everything is correct. Black Lives Matter!


33 posted on 12/24/2020 7:01:04 AM PST by markearl
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To: Bon of Babble

“As “one by one, they packed their bags and they ran from us,” the departing whites “left communities in shambles.”

Huh? In what way did they leave “communities in shambles?” “

Good point. So when the ‘racists’ were driven out, her ‘community’ went to hell? Reminds me of Los Angeles a few decades ago (and probably still now). Back then their schools were 6% white in South Central and 30% white in the Valley. So what they did was bus boatloads of Valley whites to South Central. If nothing else, it certainly makes the case for the KKK that whites are superior and are needed to clean up schools...otherwise why bus them so far every day (20 miles or so)?


34 posted on 12/24/2020 7:01:38 AM PST by BobL (I shop at Walmart and eat at McDonald's, I just don't tell anyone, like most here.)
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To: markearl

Interesting stats. Be good to see what would happen to the murder rate and overall crime rates too.


35 posted on 12/24/2020 7:05:01 AM PST by BobL (I shop at Walmart and eat at McDonald's, I just don't tell anyone, like most here.)
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To: karpov
The slums came later, after whites took the cities’ tax base with them to the suburbs.

Notice how the taxes paid by the residents belong to the city.

36 posted on 12/24/2020 7:07:15 AM PST by Renkluaf
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To: Shadow44
My mom had two sisters and two brothers who moved to the suburbs in 1969. My mother stayed in Flint until after my dad died. We kept trying to get her to move because she could not go outside for a walk because of loose pit bulls. One day there was a knife brawl in front of her house involving about 20 mixed race kids and it scared her enough that she also moved to the burbs. That was about two years ago.

The dems don't seem to mind crime very much or else they would be as horrified as regular people.

37 posted on 12/24/2020 7:09:50 AM PST by Slyfox (Not my circus, not my monkeys )
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To: karpov

I call it “Productive Flight”, successful black people fled as well.


38 posted on 12/24/2020 7:11:04 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: BobL

My experience (NY Metro area) is that whites will tolerate an influx of Asians until said Asians (Indians, Koreans, Chinese, but different with Filipinos) take over the local school boards. Also, having Hangul letters over a good portion of the town can make old timers feel uncomfortable. But, nobody leaves because of fear of the Koreans Bloods or the Bengali Crips.


39 posted on 12/24/2020 7:12:29 AM PST by Clemenza
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To: BobL

My neighborhood here in suburban DFW is mostly folks from India.


40 posted on 12/24/2020 7:13:26 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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