White Flight from Racially Integrated Neighbourhoods in the 1970s: the Cleveland Experience

An econometric model of 1970-80 residential turnover rates for white households is estimated for census tracts in Cuyahoga County, Cleveland, Ohio. Results indicate that 1970 tract percentage black, coupled with its interaction with estimated segregationist sentiment for white residents, was the dominant explanatory variable, although the relationship was highly non-linear. Ceteris paribus, the maximum rate of racially motivated turnover by whites occurred in tracts that were at least 55 per cent black in 1970, regardless of whites' segregationist sentiments. However, tracts had negligible amounts of such turnover if they had below-average levels of segregationist sentiment and blacks did not represent a majority in the tract. Application of the results to the Schelling model indicated that white neighbourhood 'tipping-out' points varied from 98 per cent to 53 per cent white, within 1 standard deviation of the mean level of segregationist sentiment. Integration management policies conducted by the suburban Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights jurisdictions during the period did not succeed in dampening this pattern of white flight. On the contrary, ceteris paribus, Heights tracts had white turnover rates 16.6 percentage points greater.