You’re setting out the exact reason virtually every inner-city became uninhabitable for middle class whites. Going back to the 50s, whites fled cities for the ‘burb, forfeiting our great cities.
Interestingly, within the past few years, Washington DC, of all places, has crept into being a (slightly) white majority city. Millennials have moved into the city in droves, gentrifying formerly unsafe neighborhoods and making them very expensive. Blacks who’d lived there for generations have been forced out and into one of the surrounding suburban counties. Ye olde Pendulum swings.
And that forfeit is partly our fault (the white middle class). When blacks began to buy homes and move into neighborhoods, many whites fled in panic before bothering to find out what their new neighbors were really like. Most of the new arrivals were business people, workers in pretty well paid occupations, the occasional lawyer or doctor, folks with the down payment and the qualifications to get a mortgage. It wasn't that easy back in the 50s, some of you will remember. This was before the drug explosion, section 8, welfare, etc.
But the white flight was an opportunity for absentee owner investors to buy properties at bargain prices and make a good buck on rentals. And when the Great Society welfare/section 8 stuff heated up, since they didn't have to live there they went with the flow. That was the beginning of the end.
The cities were not forfeited, they were abandoned because they were becoming increasingly obsolete.