White Flight Case Study

Political forces, which are controlled by the government, can majorly influence and change the way people live their life. From the Federal Housing Administration, which enabled citizens to become homeowners by underwriting mortgages, to the Interstate Highway Act, that change the route of expressways, political forces can dramatically change the way a city runs and functions. Wilson (2011) states, “In short, public housing became a federally funded institution that isolated families by race and class, resulting in high concentrations of poor black families in inner-city ghettos” (pg. 14). Wilson describes political forces as

In the article The Construction of the Ghetto by Massey and Denton, there are several policies and practices that still has its effect on racial structure today. Among the several practices and policies are the Government Issue (GI) Bill for veterans and housing loans. At a political view, the GI Bill for veterans helped them buy houses at a lower price due to their contribution in the war. Since White veterans have the GI Bill, they moved out to the suburbs during 1940-1970, which was during the time of suburbanization. Because Black veterans did not receive the GI Bill, they were unable to move out and buy houses. This effect is still present today, considering that in the statistics, Blacks are less likely than Whites to own houses.

The author explained how the government established policies and initiatives that created ghettos and suburbs. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is a program that helped citizens become homeowners by lending loans. However, only certain neighborhoods qualified for those loans. Research and data were used to prove that certain areas were considered a loss of investment. The

A large influx of colored people created many problems. First, there was a major problem in the availability in housing, of which was responded to with racism. This is the root for the hatred between the black and white communities. There wasn’t enough housing in the “black belt” community, so Negroes began to spill into white neighborhoods. The very existence of a colored person in a neighborhood would lower the property values. When a house was sold to a colored person, the rent for the house would be higher than the previous, white owner’s rent. Real Estate companies believed that “it is a matter of common knowledge that house after house…whether under white or black agents, comes to the Negro at an increased rental” (Sandburg 46). They sold housing despite the fact that “the Negro in Chicago, paid a lower wage than the white workman” (47), and that black people would have

During the mid-20th century there was much racial discrimination, specifically in home ownership. During this period there was mass immigration of Southern blacks to the north. In Lawndale Chicago, there was adverse reactions to this. As the

According to Daily Life... (Kaldin, 2000) the population of suburban areas during the 1950s had started to double from 36 million to 74 million. This rise in suburban residents had continued from 1950 to 1970.When more families had started to move to suburban areas, they came together by adding things such as playgrounds, libraries, and schools to the neighborhood to benefit their kids. This “flight to the suburbs” was difficult for blacks because of the racism in society at the time. Many black people were ignored and shunned at this time in society, so it was hard for blacks to move into suburbs knowing that they could be ridiculed in these areas because of their skin color.

Beginning after World War II, another major force – the mechanization of agriculture – also contributed to the northward migration.

The Great Migration was a relocation of 6-7 million African Americans from the rural south to the cities of the North, Midwest, and West from 1916 to 1930 which had a huge impact on Urban life in the United states. They were driven from their homes by unsatisfactory economic opportunities and harsh segregations laws, many blacks headed North, Where they took advantages of the need for industrial workers that first arose during the first World War. Between 1910 and 1930, The African American population decreased in the South and increased in the Northern states by about forty percent as a result of the migration. This “Great Migration” was on the largest internal movement of people in the history of the United states and it is a shift that impacted culture, politics, and economics as a new African American communities struggled

Its crazy to think that our world keeps changing with a blink of a eye as our world keeps evolving to the new everyday. We never settle down with what we have while we continue to strive for the new and the best. In one of the passages, What Happens When Your Hood Is the Last Stop on the White Flight Express?, Smith tells her side on how the evolving and futuristic world we live in changes the community she was raised in, moving many of her dearest friends and neighbors from the area. The higher class decided to take the land and create it the new, elegant living community, disregarding many of the working class and lower class are residents who live here. Smith calls it Gentrification, which is an economic issue that attacks the working,

The development of the suburbs has been appointed to be the result of the “white flight” from the inner cities. In the 1950’s black Americans moved northward to cities to find industrial jobs that were within walking distance. Discrimination in cities worsened, crime rates increased and educational facilities’ credentials weakened or gained bad reputations. The upper-class families left the cities and mass migrated to the suburbs to escape the increasing crime rates and worsening conditions. This movement was later termed the “white flight”. Every American wanted to begin building the “ideal family”: two parents, two children and maybe a pet or two. This newly invented middle-class prospered as

When the wealthy white population left for the suburbs, they wanted to bring their money with them. They didn’t want to pay taxes for the inner city poor black society that they payed to get away from. Therefore, there was a tax revolt where white people rebelled paying for the city taxes and services where they no longer lived or benefit from services. This fragmentation led to some resegregation as wealthy white people cohered in suburbs.

During the early twentieth century, the United States was enduring significant social and economic changes due to its transformation into a commercial and industrial world power. As the need for labor escalated within many urban areas, millions of Europeans emigrated from Southern and Eastern Europe with the hopes of capitalizing upon these employment opportunities and attaining a better life. Simultaneously, many African-Americans migrated from the rural South into major cities, bearing the same intentions as those of the European immigrants. The presence of these minority groups generated both racial and class fears within white middle and upper class Americans. The fervent ethnocentrism resulting from these fears,

At the start of the twentieth century, America was still facing racial inequality post-Civil War and segregation of whites and blacks after the Reconstruction Era. With the blacks being fed up with their current conditions, they participated in the Great Migration, in which they moved from the South to the North for a better life filled with more opportunities; blacks were ready for real reform of American society. Realizing the seriousness of this

The immigrants from abroad and the African-Americans both left their homelands of restricted opportunities and sought to find better ones. The African-Americans came without proper clothing and skills, unaware of the future obstacles ahead. Their environment and surroundings were significantly different in the South than the lively cities in the North. Before migrating, the African-Americans lives consisted of mainly working in the fields in the blistering, hot sun, or working as servants or tenants for white property owners; they had never laid eyes upon a building or factory. For the immigrants, coming to urban America was an enormous change as well. They were oblivious to the American culture, American politics and economics, and were unable to read or speak English, in most cases. While settling in the northern cities, there were certain harsh conditions that the African Americans along with the immigrants experienced. They both were forced to live with their families in small, unsanitary living spaces due to the intense persecution and racialization from American outsiders. Families in neighborhoods grouped together, and each family member contributed economically to the family income. To relieve these challenges and harsh conditions, both African-American and immigrant groups were obliged to do certain tasks in the new, metropolitan surrounding.

It was a way to constraint African Americans to areas that were far away from those with status, class, and power. Segregation led to discrimination in economic opportunities, housing, and education. The black culture has suffered from the barriers that were placed through segregation. However, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 tried to limit some of the discrimination associated with segregation. It was discovered that even a “rising economic status had little or no effect on the level of segregation that blacks experience” (Massey and Denton 87). The authors imply that “black segregation would remain a universal high” (Massey and Denton 88). The problem with the continuing causes in Segregation is that even though the Fair Housing act was placed, many realtors still discriminate against blacks “through a series of ruses, lies, and deceptions, makes it hard for them to learn about, inspect, rent, or purchase homes in white neighborhoods” (Massey and Denton 97). Segregation and discrimination have a cumulative effect over time. Massey and Denton argued that the “act of discrimination may be small and subtle, together they have a powerful cumulative effect in lowering the probability of black entry into white neighborhood” (98). William Julius Wilson had