Consequences of 1950s White Flight

Post War Suburbs Reflected Positive and Negative Experiences

Apr 1, 2009

The move from the inner city to the sprawling suburbs of the 1950s reflected the goals of achieving the American Dream but left minorities outside of the equation.

Significant changes occurred in American culture and society after World War II ended and servicemen began to return home, reclaim jobs, and begin the process of pursuing and living the American Dream. The move from inner cities to newly constructed suburbs – Levittowns such as those built by William Levitt in the late 1940s, provided the opportunity of homeownership yet it also came with a price. “White flight” produced de facto segregation in northern urban centers and left minorities, notably African Americans, out of the equation.

Mass Homeownership Changes American Society

The 1944 Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, often referred to as the “GI Bill of Rights,” included provisions enabling returning veterans to purchase affordable homes. The law guaranteed mortgage insurance and expanded the FHA, a New Deal agency created in 1934. Capitalizing on federal and local government’s subsidizing of suburbs, men like William Levitt enthusiastically developed suburban communities that were within easy access to city jobs.

Within a twenty year period, suburban homeownership rose from 36 million in 1950 to 70 million in 1970. The building boom affected all areas of the American economy as homeowners sought to fill their homes with furniture and the latest labor-saving kitchen devices such as the Hotpoint Range, an oven that allowed the housewife to barbecue, bake, grill, and deep fry. The operative word in 1950s TV commercials was “automatic.” Everything was automatic, from brewing coffee to popping one of Swanson’s newly invented “TV Dinners” into the oven.

Suburban living confined women to the enclosed community. This was the era of the “housewife” who cleaned, cooked, and nurtured the children. It was also a period known as the “baby boom” as Americans were having more children than in pre-war years. Every aspect of American culture, from education to popular entertainment, was geared toward supporting the notion that the American suburban family was the bulwark against the threat of world Communism.

Non-White Americans Excluded from the American Dream

White middle-class Americans could afford a Levittown home, paying $56 a month on a thirty-year, fixed rate mortgage as opposed to the average apartment monthly rent of $95.00. African-Americans, however, were frequently paid less than white workers and were unable to qualify for suburban mortgages. Consequently, minority Americans had little recourse but to live in the inner cities. As more government funding went to support a growing suburban culture, including the 1956 Interstate Highway Act that allocated $100 billion to construct 41,000 miles of highway, urban spending decreased. This affected inner cities negatively, resulting in the so-called “urban blight” that, in some cases, still exists today.

As suburbs grew with the construction of shopping centers and later enclosed shopping malls, traditional urban downtowns faltered. Fewer opportunities existed for the growing poor in the larger cities as well as fewer choices. Dollars spent for education favored white middle-class enclaves at the expense of urban schools. White flight may have sparked national prosperity and consumerism, but these affects were not felt as strongly in non-white communities.

Certain ethnic groups such as the Italians and Irish also resisted the initial move to suburban life. Content to live within their own urban neighborhoods (Little Italy in New York and the North End in Boston), ethnic communities valued their traditions, associations, and shared old world values. Attending their own churches, patronizing their ethnic shops, and fearful of inter-marriage outside of their particular groups, they shunned the suburbs as a threat to the cohesiveness of their traditional identities.

Ultimately, “white flight” helped grow the American economy while allowing millions of Americans the opportunity to pursue the American Dream. Yet it would take several decades for those left behind to realize those same goals.

Mark Hamilton Lytle, America’s Uncivil Wars: The Sixties Era From Elvis to the Fall of Richard Nixon, Oxford University Press, 2006).

Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (New York: Basic Books, 1988).

The copyright of the article Consequences of 1950s White Flight in Modern US History is owned by Michael Streich. Permission to republish Consequences of 1950s White Flight in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.