Are we witnessing the end of White Flight?

Nuclear Bear

Nuclear Bear

1,000+ Posts
Pretty interesting article from the Wall Street Journal.

I wonder how these demographic changes will effect Dallas and Houston as well as some of the older high schools and communities in these two cities.

Will also be interesting to see if this changes voting patterns of different counties.

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it is already changing dallas. neighborhoods like lakewood and lower greenville have seen massive demographic changes in the elementary schools (especially Lee and Lipscomb). it is slowly making its way through the middle school (long) and will eventually do the same with woodrow wilson. this is mainly due to the young whites, with children, who have moved to these family friendly areas. however, in areas like uptown and downtown, the changes have not happened yet. mainly because the average citizen in these newly populated condos and highrises tend to not have children. i'm not sure when, or if, that is going to change.

but the overall number of whites living near downtown has to be higher than it has been in 30 years in Dallas.
 
It's very noticeable in DC. Huge portions of the city that used to be poor/minority housing areas are now full of nice condos and law firm offices.
 
I skimmed the article and it didn't seem to touch on what I think is a big driver in the move back to cities -- long commute times and high energy costs.

This trend also helps explain the drop in NYC crime rate.
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I think you already see that in Lakewood with the "Choose Woodrow" campaign. There are a couple of interesting dynamics behind that (and other similar) campaigns.

First, Lakewood is a fairly liberal neighborhood. So as a consequence, there is a strong feeling within the neighborhood that public schools should be supported. There's also the feeling that kids should go to the neighborhood public school rather than a private school to get a more egalitarian and diverse educational experience.

But along with that feel good liberal motivation is the dollars and cents motivation--good schools increase your property values. A Lakewood house that is worth $150/sq. ft. will be worth $250/sq. ft. if the family moving in can send their kids to public school rather than private school. But how are you going to accomplish that? By sending your kid to Bishop Lynch and hoping the DISD magically improves Woodrow? I don' think so. The only way Woodrow will improve is by Lakewood families sending their kids there and getting involved.

That's what they're doing, and it is improving. And as a result, we're getting closer to that $250 number than to the $150 number.
 
our parents escaped the city to give their kids/us a better life. suburbia was safe for raising your kids. now the kids are moving back to the city because they had enough of suburbia growing up. plus suburbia sucks.

and we realize that spending 5 hours a week in traffic is real ****** way to live.
 
Crash nailed it. I am loving inner loop H-town life, and I don't have kids. But if I ever do get married and pop out a couple rugrats, I'm not leaving. The 'burbs suck and are what's become so "cookie cutter" about America. I love living in a city of 4 mil and having a 7-10 minute commute. I love being within 5 minutes of the ballpark and a host of other activities. I love my neighborhood and all the cool things within it.
 
Not in SA. Probably ever. White flight is alive and well. North/east/west/central has every thing one needs w/o having to go anywhere else/ Boerne out 10 and Stone Oak out 281 are super desirable bc of schools and low crime.
 
interesting he brings the crime rate in NYC in this article. i think it's the opposite of the trend being a cause for crime dropping. the change in NYC is seen from crime dropping first. Once crime started to drop, people started moving back b/c they had a false sense of safeness and prices started going up as newer buildings and renovations started to rule the city housing market.
 
Actually, from what I've seen, they're taking DART in from the outer loop.

But the fact is that there remains plenty of lower middle class housing inside the loop in Dallas. The type of neighborhood you describe is alive and well around Love Field and on the east side of the Lake. You are surely correct that Lakewood Heights has changed from your days of romping around in pink and plaid rompers, but there are still those neighborhoods, and they're not even that far away.

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LL, well you're right, of course, in the sense that the thin-mustache life is still lived plenty in inner-east Dallas and hasn't been obliterated yet as it has in many parts of Austin. But the White Hordes are taking over, as sure as they like fancy strollers and Chinese babies.
 
Also, San Antonio has King William, Alamo Heights, Olmos Park, Monte Vista.. All central. All very white.
 
True, but of those, I would argue that only Monte Vista really demonstrates a reversal of white flight. White folks have always lived in King William and Alamo Heights. But Monte Vista was in a bad way there for a few decades.
 
The term is flight. With the exception of a few, no one is flocking to Monte Vista, King William, or Olmos Park. Why? Because those kids would attend SAISD schools - Some of the worst schools in America. I understand that alot of those in the nicest parts can afford private schools, but I would suspect the majority that settle in those areas are older. Alamo Heights is the exception, but mostly because iy has its own school district. (Some OP goes to AH, I think). The flight is out north, with growth everywhere. The expansion of 281; 281/1604, the new businesses popping up all along 281 and 1604 between Redland Rd out past Seaworld. LL, what I stated is very true and has been for the last 10-15 years and continues to be true with development out past Bulverde, Spring Branch and out to Blanco over to 16. This is by definition flight. And if you remember, SAHA tried to bring the inner city to the stone oak area and it was shot down. There is a very bright line bewtween the north and the rest of SA.
 
You can still get a nice starter home on Lakeshore drive:

HR2641259-9.jpg


Its only $995K.
The Link
 
I wouldn't call that a starter home. It's 5200 square feet. That house would be alot more in some other areas of the country.
 
Yeah, that house wasn't there when I was growing up in the 80's.

Actually, I'm pretty sure there was a dumpy rent house there with a bunch of hippies and dirty naked kids in it, and the local ice cream man lived across the street, IIRC, at 6262, which is a kick *** neighborhood amenity.
 
if your goal is to have your kids get into UT via the top 10% rule, that's one more reason to move back to DISD. helluva lot easier to finish in the top 10% at Woodrow or TJ or Bryan Adams (although probably not Hillcrest) than Plano or HP or Southlake Carroll, etc.
 
It is a nice area, LL.

I lived in a garage apartment there in in the mid 90's right out of school. Used to dream of owning one of those big beautiful old houses on Kings Highway.

I lived on Magnolia. It was up and coming then. I did have my car broken into once, but other than that, no worries.
 
It is all about the schools. Busing was one of the main causes of white flight. If a young professional has a kid in a nice neighborhood in Houston & sees him/ her shipped off to to elementary school in the ghetto, it'll be 'hello burbs'.
 
Jive Turkey- I agree with you and LL. I still love that neighborhood. If my wife's folks weren't so important to us I'd be back there.

More importantly, I bet that I had lived on the 6300 block of Lakeshore continuously since 1992 instead of moving to Austin, I would find the neighborhood improved in many respects.

However, it still makes me very sad to contemplate the fact that I'm probably the only kid (out of something like 20) that grew up on that part of the street in those years that could afford to move there today. And the people who have replaced them are a much more homogeneous lot.
 
The other side of the coin that only a few people have touched in is what happens to inner loop suburbs all over the country.

They have tore down a ton of apartment complex down Skillman in the Lake Highlands part of Dallas. Im guessing a lot of those people now live in Garland, Farmers Branch, Irving,...etc

A lot of it depends on schools but if this reverse flight continues I think you will see property values in inner loop communities (nationwide) sky rocket.
 
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