Search Results

This chapter focuses on the first phase of racial change in Parkmont: white flight. When middle-aged and elderly whites left Parkmont in droves and new whites failed to plant roots there, an unusual mix remained: elderly white stayers and striving black pioneers. These two groups are profiled and the ways that they came to co-exist are discussed. The chapter looks at the elderly whites who continue to live in Parkmont, as well as the blacks who first moved into the neighborhood. It considers these so-called pioneers' desire for integration and their perception of white flight. It examines how these groups came to share a community, paying attention to the role of choice and agency. It also discusses racial prejudice as factor in racial turnover and concludes by showing that Parkmont became a black neighborhood with two populations who are distinct in several ways as a result of the selective white flight of the 1990s and selective black in-migration.

This chapter explores the cross-racial neighboring between white stayers and black pioneers as part of black–white social relations in Parkmont. Drawing on interviews with stayers and pioneers, it considers how the two groups affect each other, and by extension, the culture of the neighborhood. The chapter first discusses the reasons why black neighbors support the stayers, with particular emphasis on the relationship of cross-racial neighboring to black caregiving culture, occupational socialisation, and reverence for the elderly. It then examines the rewards that blacks get from cross-racial neighboring, including emotional support/companionship, sense of stability, and institutional memory. This chapter shows that in communities that experience white flight, pioneering black residents can play an important role in the lives of those who remain.

This book has explored the structural and cultural dynamics that occur in the aftermath of racial integration by focusing on the case of Parkmont. By following the neighborhood of Parkmont through two distinct phases of change, it has demonstrated the complexities of race effects in the face of neighborhood transition. It has also shown that interracial cooperation and increased agency for both the black pioneers and white stayers are positive outcomes of Parkmont's changing racial composition. The book concludes by summarising its key findings and their implications for maintaining racially integrated neighborhoods and sustaining more viable, stable black communities. It also considers why and how neighborhoods that experience white flight work the way they do in the current era of white population loss in many U.S. cities. Finally, it discusses the reasons why these neighborhoods are vulnerable to black flight.

This chapter profiles Stella Zuk, an eighty-seven-year-old resident of Parkmont since 1951, in order to show how white stayers and black pioneers interpret their respective places in the community. It first describes the history of Parkmont and the relationships between white stayers and black pioneers before focusing on Stella's story. Stella shares her personal experience of aging in Parkmont over the years and says she wants to stay in the neighborhood for as long as possible. She also reflects on the white neighbors who left and the factors that led them to move out of the community. Stella's vignette reveals that elderly white stayers view their decision to remain in a black community as a logical choice and an assertion of independence, and that they have sophisticated understandings of neighborhood racial change. The chapter considers Stella's immersion into an elderly life cycle stage that involves aging in place within the context of white flight and interracial relations in changing neighborhoods.

This chapter provides a portrait of Parkmont in order to show how white neighborhoods change into black neighborhoods—that is, the transformation of white flight into black flight. It first considers the racial and ethnic history of Parkmont in the context of urban housing after World War II and the implementation of school integration policies in the 1970s. It then examines the demographic, cultural, and physical changes that occurred in Parkmont over time. It also takes a look at the three key groups: the white stayers, the black pioneers, and the black second wavers. The stories of blacks and whites who are still living in Parkmont reveal the various stages of neighborhood transition that continue after the majority of white residents have left.

This book explores the ramifications of white flight for race and culture by presenting an ethnographic study of Parkmont, a modern community in a northeastern U.S. city. Settled in the late 1940s as a white working-class neighborhood, Parkmont has experienced firsthand the phenomenon of white flight and a second, less discussed stage of racial change: black flight. Whites began to leave in the 1980s in the wake of the city's efforts to enforce racial integration, and by the start of the new millennium Parkmont had become a majority-black neighborhood. Drawing on three years of fieldwork in Parkmont, this book examines the cultural and social dynamics that occur in the aftermath of white residents leaving a community as well as the ways that white neighborhoods are transformed into black neighborhoods. The experiences of the three groups who remained in Parkmont are discussed: the so-called white stayers, the black pioneers, and the black second wavers. The findings highlight important features of new, predominantly black neighborhoods that emerge in the aftermath of white flight.

This chapter examines how black flight has transformed Parkmont, with particular emphasis on the changes that have occurred in the community as the second wave of black residents has begun to replace the pioneers. It considers how black pioneers differ from black second wavers as well as the distinct circumstances of each group's arrival in Parkmont. It also discusses the nature of the cultural conflicts that have emerged between the two groups, along with the ways in which strained neighbor relations over daily disturbances can give rise to neighborhood dissatisfaction and mobility thoughts among even the most dedicated residents. The chapter shows that the second wave of blacks are seen as a neighborhood problem by both pioneers and white stayers, partly because they are the source of disorderly behavior, school conflict, and crime in the community.

This chapter explores the link between white flight and black flight in Parkmont by focusing on the story of Ken Wilkinson, a forty-seven-year-old pioneer and one of the first black residents on his block. Like many black pioneers, Ken is an active community member who is frustrated with the way that the neighborhood's social character has declined, even as he acknowledges that Parkmont remains far better than the other residential neighborhood options available to him in the city. This chapter examines Ken's concerns regarding the values, norms, and behaviors of the incoming black second wavers and his belief that there are major values differences between the pioneers and second wavers. His narrative offers important insights into the conflicts within Parkmont's black community, the affinity shared by white stayers and black pioneers, and the pioneers' experiences from the time of racial integration to resegregation and the era of black flight.