White flight wasn't only because of fear of blacks. That was an issue, but suburbs were in style and offered other benefits. Most people left for other reasons if they could. This is that couldn't afford to leave were poor. Often enough they were black as well.
Remember even a tiny minority acting in a bad direction can make the whole that way. Don't descend too far into racism to explain a complex situation.
These are certainly multi-factor situations, as you say, but white flight isn't the only race-related contributor to deteriorating home prices in predominantly non-white neighborhoods.
For example, the impact of federal policies denying mortgage loans in non-white neighborhoods in the 1930s (aka redlining) are still detectable today. If your pool of buyers is lower (because of the lack of availability of a loan program) its reasonable to expect the prices would represent that, and if your prices are growing more slowly that non-redlined neighborhoods, its reasonable to expect prospective buyers could be concerned about investing in those homes.
We don't have to meander too far from the facts to see this as racism (assuming we take racism to mean the promotion of white dominance using institutional power).
No, that's simply false. White flight was about racism. Period. And it was not "a tiny minority acting in a bad direction," it was one of many ways Blacks were systematically oppressed at the time, see, e.g., red-lining, employment descrimination, and discriminatory policing. (To be clear, except traditional red-lining, all of this still happends.) White opposition to school integration was so mainstream, presidential candidate Joe Biden vocally opposed busing in the 1970's when he was a Deleware senator. You may remember Kamala Harris pointing this out in a Democratic primary debate. In Boston, white residents rioted in opposition to school desegregation.
For more evidence that white flight was motivated by racism and not something more innocuous, look at the story school enrollment numbers tell:
> Upon desegregation in 1957 in Baltimore, Maryland, the Clifton Park Junior High School had 2,023 white students and 34 black students; ten years later, it had twelve white students and 2,037 black students. In northwest Baltimore, Garrison Junior High School's student body declined from 2,504 whites and twelve blacks to 297 whites and 1,263 blacks in that period.[1]
Now look at this chart of Columbus City Schools enrollment over the past 100 years.[2] It looks like a church steeple with the peak at 1971. In the nine years leading up to 1971, enrollment increased 19%. In the nine years following 1971, enrollment fell 34%. What happened?
In 1972, the CCS school board adopted a pledge stating, "It shall be the goal and policy of the Columbus Public Schools to prepare every student for life in an integrated society by giving each student the opportunity of integrated educational experiences." In 1974, the board approved a program to transport students in a voluntary racial balance plan. In 1975, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund sued the school district, demanding desegregation. Finally, in 1979, the district implemented a busing plan to desegregate its schools after the district court ruled against it.[3] White families in the 1970's saw change coming and fled to the suburbs in response.
A tiny minority combined with many who have better things to do than care is enough to be explain that. Fear of racism in others is more powerful than the reality of racism.
Remember even a tiny minority acting in a bad direction can make the whole that way. Don't descend too far into racism to explain a complex situation.