That translates into fewer resident employment and shopping opportunities. Unsafe schools compromise black education and create incentives for the best teachers and students to go elsewhere. Crime drives upwardly mobile residents out, and the neighborhood loses stabilizing influences. D.C. Nationally, for at least two decades, the black suburban migration rate has been higher than that of whites. As middle-class people and businesses leave, cities lose their tax base.
Experts love to blame crime on poverty.
After 1960, violent crime rates shot up. By 1993, the murder rate was 9.5 per 100,000, falling to 8.2 in 1995. Rather than poverty causing crime, one might more easily make the case that crime causes poverty. Survey polls show a high degree of black fear of crime. However, crime is an uncomfortable subject for black people.