Contrary to conventional wisdom, the decline in property values and neighborhood prestige was a by-product of the fear and tension itself, sociologists found. The decline often began, they noted, in barely perceptible ways, before the first colored buyer moved in. The instability of a white neighborhood under pressure from the very possibility of integration put the neighborhood into a kind of real estate purgatory.
economy issues didn't occur because of a black family moving in, but rather due to white families' fear
