The rapid "revitalization" of American cities

Don’t be fooled by the news out of Detroit: cities are cool again. One of the big takeaways from the 2010 census was that, after a century-long love affair with suburban subdivisions, affluent Americans are jumping back on the (worldwide) urbanizing bandwagon. For a new generation of hipsters, yuppies and retirees, city living is not only aesthetically and culturally preferable. It is an essential piece of a progressive lifestyle.

This sensibility springs from a degree of historical consciousness. “White flight”—a phenomenon propelled by the mingling currents of individual and institutional racism—devastated mid-20th-century cities. Thanks to a generation of excellent historical scholarship, we now know that religious identities introduced variations into this process:

• Jews and Protestants tended to evacuate at the first sign that African Americans might move into the vicinity. In 1950, Chicago’s Lawndale neighborhood boasted 48 synagogues. By the end of that decade all had left or dissolved. Events unfolded similarly in Atlanta’s Moreland Heights district, where white Protestant churches—long a staple—disappeared altogether during the rapid racial transition of the 1950s.