Black Flight in Austin

In the Texas capital, East Austin is losing its character as the center of the city's African-American life. Stepping in to the breach are suburbs. "In the Austin area from 1990 to 2000, the percentage of black suburbanites grew at about twice the rate of growth of white suburbanites," says an article in the American-Statesman. The once-rural Pflugerville saw its African-American population more than double in that time. Black-owned and –oriented businesses are following, from hair salons to nightclubs.

The drain on the quality of life in East Austin sounds very much like the losses suffered by cities when white residents left in the '40s, '50s and '60s—the phenomenon known as "white flight." But though the article suggests that the exodus is due to gentrification spurred by rising housing prices and taxes, it also makes clear that, whatever their culture, Austinites come to the suburbs for the same reasons: better schools and more space.