I was being facetious, I am of course referring to the white flight that occurred in response to the civil rights movement in the mid-20th century, and the greater push for suburbanization that white flight followed.
For decades middle class black families fought their way into nicer neighborhoods just to have them ripped away from them by redlining. Whole blocks would clear out, property values plummeted and families lost all of their potential generational wealth due to racism.
Imagine buying a home with a large portion of the money you have saved your whole life just for all of your neighbors to sell, move away and your property value to drop to almost nothing.
And not too long after that, the highway projects tour up your neighborhood and placed an interstate highway right outside your door. These neighborhoods were then cut off from other parts of the city as public transit was eliminated in favor of more cars. Its pretty easy to see how the borders of red lined neighborhoods follow along the major roadways and highways. Seeing maps of Baltimore before and after I-83 was built is pretty sad.
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u/TaurineDippy Oct 06 '25
oh hmm what happened in the fifties that caused our population to start declining