Perhaps an example (but on a city scale rather than a census tract scale) would be Cupertino, CA. From 2000 to 2010, the white (non-Hispanic-or-Latino) population declined 29.3% in absolute numbers (while the city population grew 15.3% overall), falling from 47.8% to 29.3% of the population of the city. This is despite the fact that the city is not poor, and the schools in it have strong academic reputations.
Interesting paper at first skim. It will be nice to sit down and read through it.
My son will soon be attending U of Dayton. During this decision making process, I did a little research on the cities that were home to his final choices. Dayton has a past that clearly depicts white flight.
For decades, Dayton experienced rapid growth. When public schools were finally forced to integrate in the 70s, white flight resulted in a loss of nearly 50% of the population to date. While employment is sometimes mentioned as the cause, it is interesting to note that those who moved did not move far. The overall Dayton MSA held steady through the 2000 census, before sliding slightly in 2010, with a 5% loss.
To me, that clearly indicates that families moved away from the city of Dayton’s schools to avoid integration, and settled in the nearby mostly white suburbs of Dayton which experienced significant growth after the 70s. The white population of Dayton went from 78% to 51% after the 70s.
While it’s curious to see the phenomenon continue across the country, I guess it is not very surprising. In NC, it continued to occur in Mecklenburg (Charlotte) and Wake (Raleigh) counties until fairly recently. Whenever efforts were redoubled to ensure integration (usually involving busing) neighborhood/tract patterns noticeably shifted.
Thanks @ucbalumnus for the interesting articles. It’s nice to see research applied to this.
But surely it can’t be “white flight” in Cupertino, rather the changing demographics (more highly educated Asians) due to the growth of the tech sector. (?) I’m shocked by this… I lived in Cupertino in the 70s… graduated from Monta Vista High School.
Wouldn’t “white flight” be a form of “changing demographics”?
For comparison to Cupertino’s 29.3% drop in white population, Santa Clara County saw a 15.8% drop, and the entire San Francisco bay area saw a 10.6% drop during the same 2000 to 2010 time period.
I live in a neighborhood that fought redlining in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They deliberately worked (and still work) at making it a fully integrated neighborhood.
Middle class Californians have been leaving the state. A family who owned in the Bay area can sell their home, move to a cheaper locale and have a nest egg from the profits. This is especially true of retirees who are more likely to be white.
There are definitional problems with the research. Kye is treating all Hispanics as non-white. Hispanic is an ethnicity and not mutually exclusive with the white race.
While that is technically true for US Census and similar purposes, the social treatment of “Hispanic or Latino” is more like that of “race” groups. While many “Hispanic or Latino” people may also mark “white” on the US Census form, that is not protective against social or political hostility based on being “Hispanic or Latino” (such hostility including flight from neighborhoods that they move into). Hence, treating “Hispanic or Latino” as not “white” for the purpose of the study is reflective of the actual social dynamics of what is being studied.
I always thought of white flight as white families fleeing neighborhoods when non-whites move in. There were always many Asians in the Bay Area, and certainly many in Cupertino in the 70s. People moved away, but not because they feared non-whites moving in, but rather for professional opportunities or lifestyle reasons.
Where I live - Denver - there was white flight due to busing. By the early 90s whites started moving back into the city in large numbers… and now huge sections and many neighborhoods which were historically either Latino or African American are now noticeably white. So, gentrification for the past 30 years.
1970: 17,552 (96.4%), includes some of the 592 (3.2%) “persons of Spanish origin or descent”
1980: 30,938 (91.0%), includes some of the 1,473 (4.3%) “Spanish origin” persons
1990: 29,918 (74.3%), includes some of the 1,937 (4.8%) “total Hispanic” persons
2000: 25,342 (50.1%), includes some “Hispanic or Latino”; 24,181 (47.8%), not “Hispanic or Latino”
2010: 18,270 (31.3%), includes some “Hispanic or Latino”; 17,085 (29.3%), not “Hispanic or Latino”
1970 → 1980: overall growth (18,216 → 34,015), still mostly white, but a bit less so than before
1980 → 1990: overall growth (34,015 → 40,263), white population basically steady, but essentially all growth is non-white (almost all Asian)
1990 → 2000: overall growth (40,263 → 50546), white population starts dropping, non-white (almost all Asian) growth
2000 → 2010: overall growth (50,546 → 58,302), white population accelerates drop, non-white (almost all Asian) growth
It’s no surprise that people for the most part prefer to live among their “own kind,” for lack of a better term. When demographics change, people tend to move if they have the financial means to do so.
This party explains why in higher SES areas you see greater “flight” than in lower SES areas. There is really no reason to get all worked up over all this. We are just seeing the expression of people’s preferences.
The change in Cupertino demographics is nothing to do with race and all about the fact that house prices have gone up by about a factor of 100 since 1970 (from $15000 to $1.5M). So for most homeowners in the Bay Area their house represents their main retirement savings. It’s unsurprising that many of those who lived there in 1990 and before have retired and moved out. And the demographics of the people who have moved in are those of the workers at Apple down the road.
That’s my impression, too. Of all the Cupertino families I knew in high school, only one is still there. Everyone else sold (for what they thought were staggering prices) and bought bigger homes, on bigger lots, elsewhere in the Bay Area or out of state. And as you say, race had nothing to do with it. It was a desirable suburb then, and it remains a desirable suburb today.
I grew up in a suburb less than a mile from Detroit. White flight hit Detroit and the surrounding area when I was young (before talk of bussing, although bussing talk accelerated WF). Even as a preteen, I was aware.