In the 1960s, as blacks and Latinos slowly integrated school and housing in American cities, many white middle-class families abandoned changing neighborhoods for newer, segregated suburbs. This created a fundamental shift in demography wealth and power as cities lost income and property while governed by new majorities of color in Detroit, Washington, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, etc. Middle-class blacks sought new suburban options, while poor and older whites, often in ethnic enclaves, built uneasy defenses.

Gentrification later returned younger, wealthier whites to a dual city, but zones between the downtown and suburbs have been scarred by decades of neglect.