In the 1960s though, American culture lurched to the Left toward a do your own thing ethic that embraced recreational drugs and ditched traditional mores and sexual responsibility. In addition, federal welfare policies rewarded lack of work, illegitimacy, and lack of marriage. The end result of not having the father in the household supervising his children and supporting their mother is that adult males lose their defining role in life and their children are much less likely to grow up to be law-abiding and responsible adults.
This is all abundantly shown by well-researched and strongly argued conservative studies, articles, and books. What has astonished me over the years is that I have so often heard the same thing from thoughtful black people I have known, from ordinary citizens to black welfare bureaucrats, school teachers, civil rights activists, and criminal justice professionals. Their contrarian thinking though lacks an organized voice, with Republicans too inhibited to reach out to them with politically attractive reforms and counter-policies.
With the benefits of education, good work habits, and accumulated wealth and social capital, white families have mostly resisted the downward pull of bad cultural trends and social policies. Sadly though, that is not universally true, and there are few more determined supporters of Leftism's destructive policies and politics than educated, unmarried, white women.
A more important factor is what is the population of these cities; race, employment percentages, welfare, school performance.
Blame LBJ for that.