Black Flight

Black flight is a term applied to the out-migration of African Americans from predominantly black or mixed inner-city areas in the United States to suburbs and outlying edge cities of newer home construction. While more attention has been paid to this since the 1990s, the movement of blacks to the suburbs has been underway for some time, with nine million persons having migrated from 1960-2000. Their goals have been similar to those of the white middle class, whose out-migration was called white flight: newer housing, better schools for their children, and attractive environments. From 1990 to 2000, the percentage of African Americans who lived in the suburbs increased to a total of 39 percent, rising 5 percent in that decade. Most who moved to the suburbs after World War II were middle class.

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. Since the 1950s, there began a period of major restructuring of industries and loss of hundreds of thousands of industrial jobs in northeast and Midwest cities. Since the late 20th century, these events led to reduced density in formerly black neighborhoods in cities such as Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia, which have also had absolute population decreases, losing white population as well. Since the 2000 census, the number and proportion of black population has decreased in several major cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Boston, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.

More importantly, 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. In many cases, they are following the documented movement of jobs to the suburbs and the South. Because more African Americans are attaining college degrees, they are better able to find and obtain better-paying jobs and move to the suburbs. 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.

Achieving higher education has contributed to an increase in overall affluence within the African-American community, with increasing median income, both in absolute terms and in relation to that of European Americans. According to a 2007 study, average African-American family income has increased, but the gap with white families has increased slightly.