  The phenomenon of White flight is often illustrated by the case of Detroit
whose population dropped from 1.80 million to 0.95 million between 1950 and
2000 while at the same time its Black and Hispanic component grew from 30
percent to 85 percent. But is this case really representative? The present
paper shows that the phenomenon of White flight is in fact essentially a flight
from poverty. As a confirmation, we show that the changes in White or Black
populations are highly correlated which means that White flight is always
paralleled by Black flight (and Hispanic flight as well). This broader
interpretation of White flight accounts not only for the case of northern
cities such as Cincinnati, Cleveland or Detroit, but for all population changes
at county level, provided the population density is higher than a threshold of
about 50 per square-kilometer which corresponds to moderately urbanized areas
(as can be found in states like Indiana or Virginia for instance).

Physics and Society