The Emergence of the Crack Epidemic and City-to-Suburb Mobility Between and Within Ethno-Racial Groups

Violence often induces white flight to the suburbs and traps blacks in high-crime cities, shaping black-white suburbanization inequality. This study examines the emergence of the crack epidemic in the mid-1980s and city-to-suburb mobility between and within ethno-racial groups. Using the 1980 and 1990 IPUMS data, I compare the mean and dispersion of city-to-suburban mobility before and during the period of the crack epidemic in cities with high intensity of the epidemic relative to cities with low intensity. The results suggest that the crack epidemic increased black and Hispanic flight to the suburbs, but it did not increase white flight. Furthermore, the crack epidemic increased disparity in city-to-suburb mobility among blacks. I find that the source of this heterogeneity is middle-class black migrants who fled to the suburbs. Supporting evidence is consistent with the idea that the crack epidemic changed the location of business establishments from the inner-city to the suburbs, which results in greater economic returns to city-to-suburb migration among selective demographic groups who were heavily affected by the crack epidemic but had resources to migrate. Given the historically lower rates of suburbanization among blacks and Hispanics, the results suggest that the crack epidemic decreased suburbanization inequality between minorities and whites but increased suburbanization inequality among blacks.