9

CONCLUSIONS

Understanding the Cultural Dynamics of Neighborhood Change

Many anecdotal stories of white flight conclude when whites make their mass exodus from a neighborhood. There is no need to follow up because it is assumed that what will transpire is known: the inevitable, clear-cut, neighborhood racial change “death spiral.” Many anticipate this sense of doom well in advance, which is why school and neighborhood racial integration so often lead to the community phenomenon that is labeled “white flight.”1 Whereas white flight marks the end of an era for those who leave, it is just the beginning for the newcomers and old-timers who choose to remain.

My study of Parkmont begins where the literature on white flight ends. In this book, I have described the structural and cultural dynamics that occur in the aftermath of racial integration. The story of Parkmont makes it clear that race remains an important category of analysis in community research, but it also illustrates the complexities of race effects as neighborhoods continue to change. Interracial cooperation and increased agency for both the pioneers and stayers represent clear, positive outcomes of the changing racial composition of Parkmont, but there are also stressors that trigger further change in the form of black flight. Even though in retrospect it may seem obvious that rapid white flight often creates conditions that lead to a later phase of black flight, this consequence often goes unnoticed.2 Following the neighborhood of Parkmont through two distinct phases of change forces us to reconsider absolutist assumptions about the aftermath of white flight, such as rapid ghettoization, interracial tensions, and intraracial unity.

I began my study of Parkmont with a focus on black-white neighbor relations and the observation that not all of the whites who stayed were simply “left behind” as victims of economic circumstance. Instead, I learned that stayers decided to remain in their longtime community for a variety of reasons, many of which had nothing to do with a financial inability to move. Though I did not initially expect to study intraracial tensions, along the way I found that differences among black residents were also present in Parkmont and that researching this aspect of social relations added much to understanding the phenomenon of neighborhood change. Ultimately, Parkmont’s story is about a neighborhood’s multiple stages of change over time.

In Parkmont, I found an opportunity to study the negotiation of race, class, age, neighborhood longevity, and power after white flight. Differences in demographics and culture were sometimes complex when they seemed simple and sometimes simple when they seemed complex. The individuals in this study did not passively accept the imposed categories of race and age and the assumed associations with social class in predictable and deterministic ways. In many cases, stayers transcended dichotomous ways of thinking and adjusted their views of the new residents, reclassifying pioneers based on their newly formed personal relationships and the newcomers’ abilities and efforts to share Parkmont’s identity as an orderly neighborhood with a sense of ownership over the future. However, the second stage of neighborhood change brought forth conflict that resulted in destabilization as the pioneers and second wave residents could not reach a compromise about the high-stakes issue of neighborhood quality of life.

Pioneers’ very strong views about second wave residents’ behaviors and values should not be dismissed as minor or petty disagreements over lifestyle or habits. Pioneers made universal judgments about the changing cultural milieu of the neighborhood, and second wave residents represented an affront to pioneers’ very identities. As pioneers saw it, the newest residents would never think of Parkmont as anything more than a disposable community. Thus, with a sense of hopelessness about the possibility for successful interventions to deal with intraracial conflict, the pioneers’ dissatisfaction and fears about the future festered and resulted in black flight.

The case of Parkmont provides evidence that white flight, often seen as a topic from the past, is still relevant. Yet by studying the aftermath of white flight in the modern era, new questions are raised about the causes and consequences of white and black flight, the social meanings of integration, and the ways in which neighborhood values and behaviors can be either a unifying or dividing force. By following through after the dust of white flight has settled, the cultural milieu of neighborhood change becomes illuminated, making it clear that places like Parkmont are sites of hope in some ways, but remain vulnerable to more subtle transitions that cannot be detected by simply perusing census statistics on racial composition and ethnic change.

Lessons about Stayers, Pioneers, and Cross-Racial Neighboring

Parkmont’s story changes and complicates the way that we think about race, white flight, and black neighborhoods and invites readers to consider the aftereffects of racial change. This book tells a neighborhood story, while also providing an intimate portrait of elderly whites who age in place and offering insight into what it is really like for black working-class families in the city as they balance family life, work, and school with their search for a suitable place to live and educate their children. Below, I summarize the ways in which the study of Parkmont contributes to understanding the dynamics and culture of neighborhood change in urban environments.

Stayers’ Agency: Aging in Place and Interacting with Pioneers

The existing literature on elderly white stayers focuses on earlier eras and generally fails to value residents’ decision making. Parkmont provided an unusual opportunity to study stayers, in part because of the time-sensitive nature of the fieldwork. During the data collection, many of the oldest people were moving to assisted living facilities, and some had died. Their stories, explanations, and lived experiences have shed much light on this poorly understood group. The evidence from this study points to the lesson that whites who stay in their communities after white flight deserve a careful analytical treatment, one that investigates their motives and extends to their relationships with new black neighbors. In the twenty-first century, white stayers are not the scared, hateful xenophobes historically depicted in the media and in some case studies.

Many people are puzzled and chagrined by white elderly residents who decide to stay in their neighborhoods after white flight. This confusion and frustration is especially noticeable among the younger family members of such stayers. My study of Parkmont shows that, on the whole, once blacks move in, white stayers experience a great deal of pressure to move away from their long-time homes. Despite what many believe, most of them actually can afford to do so. Choosing to leave would certainly go far in quieting the concerns of their families and friends. This is what makes the stayers’ decisions to stay seem so surprising and irrational to outsiders, as well as to the people closest to them.

There is a Yiddish expression that summarizes stayers’ attitude about aging in place: Abi gezunt! (As long as you’re healthy!) Stayers clearly represent a certain type of person. They are involved, aware, and active participants in most aspects of their lives, including their mobility decisions. Rather than passively reacting to change and simply following the crowds who flee in fear, they attempt to maintain a sense of normalcy as they age. Stayers’ decisions to remain in Parkmont, even as others question their lucidity and openly pass judgment on the loss of status to their beloved community, might be seen as the ultimate expression of agency.

Blacks Help Stayers to Age in Place

Like everyone, stayers make their housing decisions within a context of constraints. Elderly people vary in terms of their economic limitations, access to assistance from family, levels of independence, health, physical abilities, and availability of other housing opportunities that match their preferences. However, a select group chooses to stay. It is true that members of this group feel especially attached to their homes and neighborhoods. But just as important is the fact that black residents simply do not scare stayers enough to inspire them to drop their lives and move. Even before white flight, stayers had relatively low levels of prejudice toward blacks, and since white flight took hold of Parkmont, this racial tolerance bloomed into a sense of openness. As stayers continued to age in place next to black families, opportunities for contact with black neighbors emerged, and the possibility of meaningful cross-racial neighbor relationships materialized.

Without the pioneers, many stayers would not have been able to remain in their preferred residential situation as long as they did. By providing routine help with daily chores and housework, pioneers took some of the burden off of the aging stayers who increasingly struggled to complete even minor tasks. In so doing, pioneers also are likely to have prevented injuries and, in some cases, criminal victimization of these elderly residents.

However, for the many stayers who have lost a spouse and receive few visitors, pioneers provided more intense forms of help that go beyond the instrumental favors often expected of neighbors. Whether pioneers are keeping company with the stayers, taking their emergency calls in the middle of the night, driving them to the hospital, caring for them as they recover from an illness or injury, checking up on them to make sure that all is well when things seem to return to normal, or making sure that their homes are safe and secure, pioneers function as an essential part of stayers’ lives and contribute greatly to their overall well-being.

The days when the black pioneers first arrived in a white neighborhood are long gone, but the effects of this period of integration remain obvious in Parkmont. Further, it is clear that stayers’ initial efforts to show a welcoming attitude toward pioneers were not unreciprocated. After all, the pioneers had some idea of what they were getting into when they specifically selected a predominantly white neighborhood, and in turn many of them made special gestures to reach out to the aging stayers living next to them. A failure to acknowledge this reality of white-flight contexts would prevent an understanding of the significance of the black residents for stayers’ everyday lives as they age in place. Stayers rely on pioneers for companionship, a shared sense of neighborhood identity, and most important for the help that allows them to remain in their homes into the later stages of old age.

Black Residents Receive Benefits from Stayers

Pioneers also benefit from being with long-time residents who share similar values. For instance, pioneers sprinkled their neighborhood stories with details gleaned from the stayers whom they know. This transmission of neighborhood culture helps pioneers to gain a sense of neighborhood history and continuity. In a sense, these pioneers are “social preservationists” who view the stayers as crucial in the safeguarding of a community that has an authentic, cohesive, and orderly feel.3 This explains some of the pioneers’ efforts to prolong their elderly neighbors’ tenure in Parkmont.

When the pioneers first arrived, the white stayers were hyperaware of the black newcomers, and with little else to do during the day, many reached out to welcome them. However, pioneers reported that they, too, benefited from stayers’ efforts to reach out and socialize them into neighborhood norms. Even though the pioneers were looking forward to life in an orderly, low-crime neighborhood, they appreciated the pleasant change of having so many elderly “watchers” who were invested in Parkmont and who took the time to educate them about community norms, including neighborhood upkeep, local services, and how to handle problems that might arise.

Finally, many pioneers reported that they enjoyed the emotional and social rewards from neighboring with older people, whose values they shared and respected. Through daily conversations, birthday parties, or when involved in the occasional care of children, stayers and pioneers learned about each other’s culture, shared in family celebrations, and provided emotional support during hard times. In some cases, even after pioneers moved on and stayers went into retirement homes, the relationships established in Parkmont continued in the form of phone calls, visits, cards, and gifts.

In summary, this study of Parkmont shows us that researching racially changing communities is much more than just a way to learn about population shifts in cities. Neighborhood change can, at least temporarily, open opportunities for friendship that cross the lines of race, age, and ethnicity, contributing to a stronger community. White stayers in Parkmont are not categorically racist, xenophobic, fearful senior citizens who feel trapped by circumstance. Black pioneers do not resent the white stayers or long for the social comfort of neighborhood racial homogeneity, and they do not bring crime, disorder, and anti-community subcultures with them to Parkmont. The deep cultural description and analysis of Parkmont’s white flight illuminates the potential for mutually beneficial neighbor relations between dissimilar groups who are often perceived as unfortunate presences to be tolerated rather than as assets for people in search of lives that are fulfilling on both personal and community levels.

The Destabilizing Force of Rapid Change

Although Parkmont has provided positive experiences and opportunities for residents, the rapid pace of population change has also damaged the neighborhood in many respects. Whereas some literature on race and community depicts close-knit urban black neighborhoods as places where everyone “keeps up on” each other, other research shows a more complex picture. For instance, African Americans tend to prefer mixed neighborhoods, and most would be happy to enter a white community, as long as it contains some black residents,4 though the degree of blacks’ preferences for integration varies across cities5 and states.6 However, the white-flight phenomenon makes it clear that whites’ preferences are not compatible with those of blacks in the long run. As a result, integration is often a transitional phase in U.S. neighborhoods that brings forth further shifts in community life.

Racial Change: Stayers to Pioneers

The pioneers’ decisions to enter a predominantly white neighborhood are central to the story of Parkmont. Pioneers are distinct from the second wave because of two factors: population selection processes and timing. Regarding the first concept, it is well known that differential interneighborhood migration patterns exist across groups and that certain populations “self-select” into particular kinds of neighborhoods.7 In Parkmont, the pioneers were the people with knowledge of the community, financial means, and quasi-assimilationist values that are associated with the willingness or desire to move into a white neighborhood. Pioneers chose to move into a white community; this choice required both familial and economic resources and a particular set of attitudes.

Although Parkmont’s white leavers obviously did not recognize this, the pioneers contradict the popular image that equates neighborhood racial integration with decline. The whites who fled Parkmont can be seen as similar to those described in a study that asked white survey respondents why they would flee an integrated neighborhood.8 Many of those whites, instead of reporting racist attitudes toward all blacks as a group, focused on the negative features that they associated with racially mixed communities. Yet in the case of Parkmont, the amenities that whites most feared losing were often nearly identical to those that the pioneers were seeking.

Although large numbers of lower income residents can create conditions that lead to neighborhood decline, Parkmont’s incoming pioneers were not poor. They purchased their homes, often at relatively high prices, and had stable incomes and steady working-class jobs. This basic similarity in socioeconomic status and desired amenities between Parkmont’s whites and the black pioneers shows that racial change need not be equated with social distance or a lack of shared understanding between groups.9 This community represents a case where the incoming blacks in the 1990s were economically comparable to white residents, presenting no threat to future property values. In fact, many white stayers, judging the pioneers by their cars, jobs, and home improvement efforts, reported that they perceived them to have a better socioeconomic status than the white residents who had left.10

The timing of arrival also had a major impact on the ways in which pioneers were socialized into neighborhood life and on their sense of community history. Because they arrived in Parkmont when it still had a large presence of whites who were long-term residents, pioneers benefited from arriving in a place where residents were highly invested in the neighborhood. Elderly stayers, risking accusations of paternalism, socialized new residents into the role of a Parkmont homeowner. Because of their resources, values, and desire to live in Parkmont, the pioneers fit in well from the start. However, by their own admission, they were unfamiliar with neighborhoods that were low in crime, clean, quiet, and well maintained. Rather than feeling offended by nosy stayers, pioneers felt relieved to be in a place where they were welcomed and where people seemed invested in the future. This is what they had hoped for, and they internalized the values and behaviors that matched their own and seemed to predominate in Parkmont.

Parkmont’s transitions highlight a lesson about the cultural conflicts associated with “tipping points” of population change. Malcolm Gladwell (2000) popularized the idea of tipping points associated with rapid change, but tipping points (also known as threshold effects, contagion theories, and critical mass models) have long fascinated demographers who study segregation.11 In Parkmont, critical masses of whites rapidly fled, creating an ecological milieu of instability that triggered further change. These structural factors have limited pioneers’ abilities to realize their preferences.12 Although fair housing laws have attempted to eradicate discrimination and eliminate many of the forces that have historically contributed to segregation, many other factors remain in place such that racial integration and community stability frequently remain distant dreams for African Americans.

Population change in Parkmont was extremely rapid, as indicated by the census data presented in table 1 (see the appendix). This is important because rapid neighborhood change has long been viewed as a disorganizing force in communities.13 When populations turn over quickly, communities fail to socially integrate, and the process of learning and teaching neighborhood social codes is degraded.14 Like all new residents, pioneers struggled to establish themselves and gain a new sense of place identity. Why did they struggle? One reason may be that pioneers, though similar to their white predecessors in terms of income and education, were far less diverse than the original white population, which included residents with a range of ages and family structures. Pioneer households were mostly families with multiple children and adults who worked long hours. These new families had little of the leisure time and presence that is needed to foster neighborhood guardianship. Thus, as blacks replaced whites, Parkmont’s new population profile contained more working families, more children, and more single parent households, changes that left the community vulnerable.

Cultural Change: Pioneers to Second Wave

No sooner had the pioneers begun to gain a sense of neighborhood pride, identity, and social integration than the second wave arrived on their heels. This new group filled the large number of vacant homes left by older whites and pioneers fleeing Parkmont because of poor schools, the loss of racial integration, and various threats to neighborhood quality of life. In order for pioneers to be role models, the second wave of newcomers would have had to think of pioneers as respected leaders who were there to help others become a meaningful part of a stable, functioning community. Parkmont seemed so promising to the many pioneers who looked forward to becoming the heirs to a beloved and respectable neighborhood, but for too many of them, the instability resulting from white and black flight created inhospitable conditions for maintaining the desired quality of life.

Elderly whites in Parkmont were passing on the baton of community organization to a population of young, busy pioneer families with only a short history in the neighborhood. With younger whites fleeing and the stayers aging, Parkmont needed families and residents who could serve as authorities on neighborhood social norms. New residents need time to gain authority, knowledge, and networks, but the short period of time between the entry of the pioneers and the influx of the second wave blacks thwarted the ability of pioneers to become custodians of a unified community culture. Consider the difference between an elderly stayer who has been in the neighborhood for forty years communicating neighborhood norms to a pioneer and a pioneer who has been in the neighborhood for only a few years attempting to do the same thing to a second wave resident of approximately the same age.

These problems were further exacerbated by perceived differences in values and behaviors between pioneers and the second wave. Cultural values clearly emerged as an important source of division between Parkmont’s two groups of black residents. With such large numbers and with little meaningful or positive contact with stayers and pioneers, the second wave residents seemed to have their own subculture that did not conform to Parkmont’s community norms and more assimilationist values.15

It is true that the problems in Parkmont are far less serious than those in many urban black neighborhoods. Additionally, it might be expected that pioneers would have welcomed the chance to have neighbors who were racially, and presumably culturally, more similar to them, relative to whites. However, the input from pioneers in this study reveals that simply being black does not immunize residents from concerns about the disorderly behaviors of their neighbors. The second wave’s norms, values, and codes of behavior proved difficult for the pioneers to counter or overcome.

Making matters worse, when pioneers disapprove of second wave residents’ behaviors, they tend to make more holistic judgments about their values. Elijah Anderson (1999) described “decent and street” families and their standards of life in poor, high-crime areas. He showed the troublesome encounters that occur in communities where families have similar racial backgrounds but very different cultural orientations and public behaviors. I found evidence that a similar dynamic occurs in less marginal areas. In Parkmont, the second wave residents are looked down upon because of the ways in which they parent, neglect their homes, fail to participate in neighborhood life, and carry themselves in the public spaces within the community.

Unlike Anderson’s work, which suggests that residents share the same values but have developed different codes of behavior to survive the difficulties of the urban economy, Parkmont residents view behaviors as an extension of values. Parkmont is not just any neighborhood to the pioneers; it is the first place they have lived that feels like they have “made it,” and they are unwilling to let it slip away. They have invested a great deal of economic capital and energy in their dream of a peaceful community. To pioneers, the second wave residents who violate the codes of behavior have fundamentally different values. When second wave residents play loud music, litter, and let their children run the streets, they may not realize it but they are separating themselves from the pioneers. Unable to change the values of their newest neighbors, pioneers opt to pack up their belongings and flee. Thus, culturally diverse neighborhoods are not sustainable when the nature of the diversity is focused on differences in opinions about what a neighborhood is for.

Pioneers and stayers share a vision of community that goes beyond second wave residents’ individualistic, dwelling-centered orientations. Major cultural differences among groups about the core values of neighboring and citizenship are difficult to overcome. Incremental change, had it occurred, might have cushioned the impact of the second wave residents, allowing Parkmont to become established as a black community with a strong sense of identity, an active organization, and a longer history of social networks.

Social Disorder Affects Mobility Decisions

Neighborhood stability promotes collective efficacy, a shared sense of values, trust, and a willingness to intervene, which together deter serious crime.16 The case study of Parkmont suggests that similar mechanisms explain the influence of social disorder on neighborhood migration patterns. In Parkmont, lack of stability has interfered with the community’s ability to realize shared values and goals. Today, pioneers and second wave residents do not get along, and they believe that they each hold different values about appropriate community behaviors, participation in community problem solving, and what constitutes a serious local problem requiring intervention.17 Without solidarity toward shared goals in Parkmont, selective out-migration and decline have flourished.

As the neighborhood resegregated, Parkmont’s black residents began to move. Pioneers knew that whites would not replace black leavers, but hoped that the second wave residents would have stable incomes and similar values.18 It might have been expected that pioneers would just learn to live with what they perceived to be a decline in the quality of life in Parkmont. After all, the police and the general public tend to accept social and physical disorder as part of their image of what goes on in black neighborhoods,19 and they may see disorder as a minor problem for a black neighborhood. Quality of life issues in neighborhoods are often dismissed or viewed as a low priority in cities, and some researchers are skeptical about the role of social and physical disorder in neighborhood decline. Even when problems with incivilities are addressed, efforts to deal with these problems are often mocked. For example, police departments in many cities have been criticized for enacting quality of life policing. Detractors think “broken windows” policing is based on a set of classist assumptions and values, and they dismiss it as a mere fad that places undue emphasis on incivilities.20 However, quality of life was a key factor in pioneers’ original decisions to move to Parkmont, which is why it is so hard for them to change their expectations.

Practically speaking, many pioneers have been reluctant to leave Parkmont because they find it to be a convenient and affordable community. When pioneers explained their rationales for moving away from Parkmont, they repeatedly emphasized that newer residents’ values, behaviors, and intraracial hostilities about neighborhood life were the driving “push factors.” Although pioneers were willing to tolerate white flight, and almost all had figured out ways around the poorly performing neighborhood school, they drew the line when it came to infringements on basic quality of residential life. These conditions have been a disappointment to many pioneers who once viewed their move to Parkmont as a major life milestone. The incivilities that have accompanied the second wave residents’ in-migration are an affront to the life that the pioneers sought out and to which they have become accustomed, one that they characterized as a quiet, safe, clean, well maintained, pleasant environment with stable property values.

The pioneers who want to move on are simply unwilling to wait for the further decline that they once witnessed in their previous neighborhoods—extreme violence and declining property values—to take control of the their living situation. Thus, although black residents in other parts of the city might perceive the changes in Parkmont as trivial, pioneers perceive a fundamental and inescapable social distance from second wave blacks, and they view the increased social and physical disorder as a serious threat. With a rising sense of residential dissatisfaction and an increasing feeling of estrangement from neighbors, pioneers watch their peers pack their moving trucks, and they make plans to do the same.

Policy Implications of Continuous Neighborhood Change

To the extent that metropolitan areas continue to change, the neighborhoods within them also will transform. Assuming that a substantial degree of stability is positive and necessary for communities to thrive, how can neighborhoods maintain stability? What happens when new arrivals do not appear to share the same values as those who settled at an earlier time? How can groups be persuaded to stay when they feel threatened by newcomers? The people of Parkmont have created a life for themselves in a community that was recently abandoned by whites. The racial change was not merely cosmetic but was accompanied by changes in neighborhood family structure, social networks, and values. I conclude by considering the policy implications that arise from my in-depth interviews in Parkmont.

In general, researchers who are interested in community stability often focus on extremely distressed neighborhoods,21 but stability is important for all neighborhoods, and it is a key factor in nurturing a sense of community identity.22 Community identity promotes involvement and personal investment, but when the residents of a neighborhood are constantly changing, their community identities also continue to shift.23 In general, Parkmont has a high rate of home ownership, which has been shown to promote longer lengths of residence and better property maintenance.24 However, pioneers’ preferences about neighborhood quality, combined with the fragility of black home ownership, which often necessitates two incomes, a stable high-paying job, and highly competitive mortgage packages, created conditions in which housing turnover occurred more frequently than expected. Thus, given the strong role that home ownership plays in civic engagement, careful policy efforts to prevent foreclosure are important. In light of the foreclosure crisis that first became widely apparent in 2007 and that has disproportionately affected black communities in the United States, policies that assist borrowers at the earliest signs of trouble could benefit entire neighborhoods and could prevent the neighborhood distress caused by widespread foreclosure for years to come.

At the same time, noneconomic factors are also a neglected, but important, part of instability in places like Parkmont. Many pioneers cited the lack of institutions that cater to the needs of working black families as a problem for retaining and attracting quality residents, and research on other communities supports this claim.25 The synagogue and Jewish Community Center are key institutions for those Parkmont residents who are members, but they are no longer adequate or ideal. Parkmont’s black families need their own churches, youth recreation centers, and activities to feel at home.26

Arguably, the most broken institution in Parkmont is the school, which most residents find to be a disgrace. There are many benefits of attending a neighborhood school, but across the city neighborhood schools are rarely seen as the best option for students. Despite the pioneers’ hope, Parkmont proved to be no different in this regard. Though it is not poor and remains relatively safe from the very worst crime that occurs on a daily basis in many black neighborhoods in the city, Parkmont has not been the panacea for black families fleeing urban problems, and many families cited the school as a major source of their dissatisfaction with the neighborhood. As the demographic composition of the school changed, the more academically successful students selected out of Lombard and into college-preparatory magnet schools. Today, the kinds of parents who are concerned and informed about local educational opportunities are unlikely to locate to Parkmont if they are aware of the quality of its neighborhood school.

A stable business district would also do much to encourage a sense of place for residents. Parkmont’s “strip” is a block in search of an identity. After catering to Jews and Italians, then facing abandonment and disinvestment, it is in need of a diverse set of restaurants, stores, and services that cater to black families as well as nearby whites, but that are not perceived as downscale or “ghetto.” Almost all residents who arrive in Parkmont like the idea of being able to walk anywhere to get the things they need, but they want more of a choice than Popeye’s, Chinese take-out, and hair-braiding salons. They want a streetscape that looks attractive and reasonably upscale, feels safe, and attracts a mix of people.

One way to reverse the pattern of selective out-migration of businesses and residents might be for neighborhood town watches to improve their organization, focus on a range of issues, and become inclusive of all blocks. Remaining pioneers are concerned about declining property values and addressing these concerns could prevent their departure from Parkmont. Neighborhood organizations could also focus on incivilities and properties that residents consider to be public nuisances. Homes in need of repair, renovation, and cleanup often have a detrimental effect on the morale of residents and threaten the health and viability of the entire neighborhood. Neighborhoods that fail to visibly demonstrate a sense of pride are likely to have difficulty retaining and attracting high-quality residents.

Pioneers explained that they are especially concerned about social disorder, a problem that goes beyond worries about property values to encompass concerns about whether Parkmont provides a positive socialization experience for their children. Research suggests that pioneers’ concerns are legitimate. Disorder is linked to fear of crime and withdrawal from the community.27 It also has far-reaching negative effects on many dimensions of residents’ attachment to their neighborhoods, such as sentiments or feelings about the community, evaluations of its quality, residents’ neighboring behaviors, and their efforts to solve problems.28 Thus, preventing disorder is a major priority for neighborhoods undergoing rapid change. To assuage residents’ fears and build the solidarity that is needed to maintain organization, disorder and incivilities must be taken seriously by community members, police, and the research community. Even though Parkmont’s cultural divides are partially manifestations of structural issues, the causes of the behaviors matter very little to pioneers, and they have a low tolerance for excuses. What matters to them is changing the behaviors that interfere with their peace.

How can differences be managed? In addition to attracting newcomers who already share pioneers’ values, pioneers must step up and reach out to educate incoming residents about commitment to citizenship in Parkmont, including social norms, rules, and policies, and involvement in schools and neighborhood organizations. All of this teaching and organizing require a great deal of effort from pioneers, many of whom work long hours and have many obligations outside of their community. Neighborhood organizations and block captains can play a key role in socializing and mentoring new residents without appearing to be oppressive bullies. For instance, as is common in condominiums and developments with homeowner associations, city neighborhoods like Parkmont can maintain a handbook of community rules, residents can encourage one another to get involved in the process of developing these local rules, and block captains can help residents resolve problems through mediation.

The Future

When I was growing up, starting in fifth grade I would take public transportation deeper into the city to attend a magnet school, and while riding the buses and trains I would watch people get on and off at the “black stops” and the “white stops.” In this way, I received an early education about the fact of black-white neighborhood racial segregation; it was a daily part of my early experience of city life. When I would ask adults why blacks lived in separate neighborhoods from whites, the answer was always the same: people like to live with their own groups—it’s just more comfortable. Sometimes, the “clannishness” explanation would also include a mention of the fact that blacks live where they can afford to live—the black areas. Even today, when I discuss my research with strangers, acquaintances, family, friends, students, and colleagues from other fields, the assumption is that blacks live in urban segregated black neighborhoods because they prefer it or else they simply cannot afford integrated communities. However, the story of Parkmont is a much more complicated narrative of what people want out of their communities and what it is like when their neighborhoods change around them.

Ideally, neighborhood change occurs slowly with a core group of respected residents and organizations that manage residents’ concerns and deal with any problems that arise. However, as long as whites equate racial change with decline, and as long as housing markets are flooded with vacancies that invite residents with different codes of community life, rapid changes will continue to destabilize communities and that ideal will remain unrealized. After lifetimes of struggle for equal access to housing and neighborhoods, housing laws have eradicated legal forms of discrimination. Still, the long-anticipated access to neighborhoods where blacks and whites coexist, attend school together, and work together to maintain a shared community vision usually has proved elusive.

Ultimately, integrated, stable communities with a high quality of life can exist only when long-time residents stay and newcomers with similar values enter. How that can be achieved in a society that views racial change as a threat to safety and property and in cities with selective out-migration of whites and middle-class blacks, poor schools, and declining tax bases remains almost as unclear as it was when white flight took hold in cities during the 1950s.

For many decades, Parkmont represented a close-knit, white, working-class urban community. Today, it represents a relatively good black urban community. In the 1990s, pioneers arrived in a white but integrating neighborhood with dreams of a peaceful residential life where the streets were safe and quiet, neighbors shared values about home ownership, family, and community norms, and properties retained their value. Though pioneers were surprised by how quickly most of their white neighbors fled, they thought that population stability would set in and a sort of equilibrium would take place. After all, the pioneers had bonded with the older white stayers and had no reason to think that the second wave of incoming blacks would not share their goals and conform to the environment that awaited them.

Instead, the flood of housing sales in Parkmont and the low cost of mortgages in the 1990s and early 2000s allowed a wider range of people to come into the area. Unfortunately, the shortcomings of the new residents were felt most sharply by the black pioneer families, so it is not surprising that many remember the period of integration as a high point and view the second wave with disdain. In general, the second wave did not come searching for integration and had little contact with white old-timers. With black pioneers so busy with work and family, second wavers also failed to benefit from meaningful contact with the black residents. Simultaneously, institutions such as the school, library, synagogue, businesses, the civic association, and local newspaper became destabilized. Instead of equilibrium and unity in this newly black neighborhood, black flight erupted. Dissatisfied pioneers began to leave Parkmont in search of the amenities they wanted when they first arrived: integration, better schools, and neighbors who share their values. Today, the housing market has slowed, yet the black population in Parkmont has continued to churn. The cultural divide between the remaining pioneers and second wave residents has become more obvious and tense.

These findings represent a continuation of an important tradition of research on neighborhood racial transitions. Sociologists have long been interested in the causes of neighborhood racial and ethnic change, and the major findings from the classic invasion-succession, filtering, and life cycle models of neighborhood transition have provided great strides in accumulating knowledge about the causes of neighborhood population turnover.29 At the same time, few studies have illuminated the longer-term, dynamic cultural environments of neighborhoods in the aftermath of white flight. This study adds to the traditional white-flight research by offering data about what happens to people who stay behind, how they make residential decisions, the ways they interact with newcomers, and the culture of such communities as they continue to change. To the extent that neighborhoods where elderly white stayers and black working-class pioneers coexist are commonplace in many cities, understanding them as cultural sites is important for shedding light on the social experience of white flight for the groups left to coexist and for understanding the subtle ways that such areas continue to change.

Neighborhood change can take many forms. The typical model of white-flight communities where angry stayers are pitifully left behind is an outdated generalization that attempts to dismiss and oversimplify the complicated nature of race relations in the wake of white flight. Similarly inaccurate is the assumption that white neighborhoods that become black will be characterized by a transcendent racial unity that negates important differences among blacks in terms of family structure and class composition, timing of arrival, residential preferences, parenting styles, and attitudes about the responsibilities, values, and behaviors that constitute a decent and peaceful community setting. As I have shown throughout the book, being white in a changing neighborhood does not mean having no choice and living in fear. Similarly, being black in a black-flight neighborhood does not translate into passive acceptance of change in the name of racial solidarity or leveled standards for community life. Just like other Americans, whites and blacks are diverse in terms of their values, behaviors, tolerance, life experiences, and aspirations.