After World War II, millions of white families moved from cities to new suburbs. The Federal Housing Administration and the GI Bill helped them buy homes, while refusing to insure mortgages in Black and mixed neighborhoods. Developments like Levittown, New York, barred Black buyers through restrictive covenants. At the same time, real estate agents used blockbusting, stoking white fear to buy homes cheaply and resell them to Black families at a markup.
Courts shaped the pattern too. In Milliken v. Bradley in 1974, the Supreme Court blocked a desegregation plan that would have bused students across Detroit's city and suburban district lines. That ruling let suburbs stay largely white while city schools became mostly Black and Latino.
White flight drained city tax bases, which cut funding for schools, transit and services in the neighborhoods left behind. It also concentrated wealth in suburbs, where home values rose. The same pattern continues today when white families leave schools that become more diverse or when wealthier areas break away to form separate school districts.