👩🏾‍⚖️ap us government review

White flight

Written by the Fiveable Content Team • Last updated August 2025
Verified for the 2027 exam
Verified for the 2027 examWritten by the Fiveable Content Team • Last updated August 2025

Definition

A mid‑20th‑century phenomenon in which large numbers of majority‑population households relocated from central cities to suburbs, accelerating residential segregation in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education and federal fair‑housing policies. This migration drained urban tax bases, weakened city services and public school funding, and reshaped local and metropolitan governance by concentrating poverty and altering political representation.

AP course connection

Topic 3.1: 3.10 Social Movements and Equal Protection

Unit 3