Reverse White Flight?

I'm going to be chewing on this article from the Wall Street Journal for a few days. "The End of White Flight" reports on the return of middle-class whites to the urban centers of America, after a half-century of flight to the suburbs.

What interests me most, of course, were the cultural conflicts reported in the story, such as white parent demands the PTA stop selling ice cream (for diabetes). More importantly, the churches:

Old inner-city white churches are reviving after years of decline, while black churches are following their parishioners out to the burbs. One black church in Washington D.C. is looking to hire a white intern to reach the new neighbors.

Obviously this is anecdotal. But I must point out: 99% of interracial outreach by the American church is done by black churches. That's how, 11 years ago, I became a member of my (majority-black) church.

There's another element here: As African Americans flee the cities, the poorest of the poor African Americans are left behind, and what was a race matter becomes a class matter.

Elsewehere I've seen predictions of exurbs becoming the ghettos of the future, as gas prices make living way out of town decreasingly desireable.

[Photo Credit: Flickr User Boyznberry]