Chocolate Core

Coming from a predominantly white neighborhood and highschool, I have been very interested with the idea that upperclass white people tend to stray from poorer, more diverse neighborhoods, to escape from possibility of living amongst black, Latino, and other ethnicities. (I say this sarcastically, but there is proof to back this idea.)

I was reading the book, "The Coming White Minority", written by Dale Maharidge, where he provides interesting statistics that explain, one of many theories discussed in the book, why white people, specifically in California, had moved away from diverse neighborhoods into more upper class gated communities. 

Maharidge offers a good example to explain what white flight is. He says that, "in the East and Great Lakes region, whites do not like living near blacks. Detroit is the epitome of this detatchment: it has a central urban black community living in wretched poverty surrounded by suburbs filled with whites who have fled." The best image he offers is: "it (Detroit) has a chocolate core surrounded by vanilla, as one study described it." 

It's interesting phenomenon that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It may be naive to hope one day everyone will live together and not care who their neighbor is, but it doesn't stop me from wishing for it.