White flight

White flight describes the movement of large groups of white people from one area to another. This often happens when a neighborhood becomes more diverse with different races or cultures. People might move to suburbs or rural areas to live in places that are more similar to where they came from. This can happen very slowly or quite suddenly. Sometimes, people move from older suburbs to new towns. In other cases, they move from the northern United States to warmer places in the South or West.

Many things can cause people to move to new homes. In the United States, some people moved because of the Great Migration. This was when many Black people moved from the rural South to cities in the North and West. Historians also point to unfair business practices. For example, redlining and mortgage discrimination made it hard for minority groups to get help. This caused some city neighborhoods to struggle with overcrowding or broken buildings. This is sometimes called urban decay.

This movement has a long history in many parts of the world. In the late 1800s, many white Americans moved from Southern states like Alabama to other regions. In the 1950s and 1960s, white families moved out of cities like Detroit, Cleveland, and Oakland. This happened during the civil rights movement. In the 1970s, some families moved again because of new rules about school busing. A scientist named Morton Grodzins studied this in 1958. He found a "tipping point" where people would decide to leave a neighborhood very quickly.

Mathematical models help explain why neighborhoods can become separated. An economist named Thomas Schelling wrote about this in 1969. He used a "checkerboard model" to show how segregation happens. He found that even if people want to live in mixed neighborhoods, they often choose to live with people similar to themselves. If enough people leave, it creates a domino effect. This makes even more people decide to move out. This can lead to large groups of people living in very different areas.

White flight also happened in parts of Africa. In South Africa, about 800,000 white people left after 1995. Some left because of crime or changes in the government. In Zimbabwe, many white people left during the Rhodesian Bush War. Between 1960 and 1976, many people moved in and out of the country. Some people used the phrase "chicken run" to describe those who left. By the time Zimbabwe became a new republic in 1980, many more people were moving away. These changes shaped how those countries look today.