Black flight
[4] Early years of residential change accelerated in the late 1960s after passage of civil rights legislation ended segregation, and African Americans could exercise more choices in housing and jobs.
[citation needed] Since the 2000 census, the number and proportion of black population has decreased in several major cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Austin, Cleveland, Denver, Miami, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis and Washington, DC.
[5] In addition to moving to suburbs, since 1965 African Americans have been returning to the South in a New Great Migration, especially since 1990 to the states of Georgia, Texas, and Maryland, whose economies have expanded.
[citation needed] [7] Because more African Americans are attaining college degrees, they are better able to find and obtain better-paying jobs and move to the suburbs.
[4] Most African-American migrants leaving the northern regions have gone to the "New South" states, where economies and jobs have grown from knowledge industries, services and technology.
As C. Hocker writes, The fact is African Americans desire the same things all Americans want for their families: employment opportunities with well-paying positions that can keep up with -or stay ahead of- the cost of living; the chance to own affordable homes in safe neighborhoods; quality options for educating our children; and the social and cultural amenities that make it all worthwhile.
[4]In the last 25 years, for example, the population of Prince George's County, Maryland, where suburban housing was developed near Washington, DC, became majority African American.
From 1950 to 1970, the black population increased dramatically in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Newark, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, Kansas City, Cincinnati and Indianapolis.
By 1960, 75 percent of black persons lived in urban environments, while white people had been moving to suburbs in large numbers following WWII.
Black flight has altered the hyper-urban density that had resulted from the Second Great Migration to cities (1940–70), with hyper-segregation in inner-city areas, such as in Chicago, St. Louis, and East St.
In Los Angeles, the percentage of population that is black has dropped by half to 9.9% since 1970, a proportion that also reflects recent increased Hispanic and Asian immigration.
[22] In a change from previous settlement patterns, new regional migrants settle directly in the suburbs, the areas of largest residential growth and often the location of jobs as well.
[23] In addition to Atlanta, the top metropolitan areas attracting African Americans include Charlotte, Houston, Dallas, Raleigh, Washington, D.C., Tampa, Virginia Beach, San Antonio, Memphis, Orlando, Nashville, Jacksonville, and so forth.
Many of United States suburbs are becoming diversified with black and white residents coexisting in affluent neighborhoods[citation needed].
Some scholars suggest that the narrowing economic divide is helping the US to become an increasingly "color-blind" society, but others note the de facto segregation in many residential areas and continuing social discrimination.
[25] In other instances, longtime black homeowners in central city areas have "cashed out" at retirement age and profited from increasing home values.
