Black Flight? The Emergence of Crack Cocaine and Black Suburbanization

Although Black people historically faced barriers to residing in the suburbs, Black suburbanization doubled from the 1970s to 2010s. Research highlights the role of positive shocks for such a rapid increase. This study provides an alternative theory and investigates Black suburbanization in the wake of a race- and location-specific negative shock. It exploits the outbreak of the crack epidemic, which affected inner-city Black people in the mid-1980s and early-1990s. The crack epidemic triggered positive externalities—race-specific coordination—that facilitated Black flight to the suburbs in the long run. The findings from a triple-differences design indicate that crack exposure increased the likelihood of Black people residing in the suburbs. Whether Black people moved to the suburbs in response to crack exposure depended not only on their socioeconomic status but also on the suburbanization of other Black people and social cohesion among inner-city Black migrants to the suburb. The effects of crack exposure are cumulative and persistent. Black suburbanization continues to be higher in crack-affected areas than in non-crack-affected areas two decades after the advent of crack cocaine. Crack exposure accounts for nearly 1 million Black people being suburbanized.