It really had little to do with who moved in - although to be sure people certainly wouldn't sell to certain types of people in certain places. Properties were

It really had little to do with who moved in - although to be sure people certainly wouldn't sell to certain types of people in certain places. Properties were rated by their quality and their potential of being renovated and kept up - that's what red lining actually was. I've read through red lining documents and they mentioned all types of ethnic groups on the side, but the main consideration was the quality of the properties and if the area would sustain or decline due to the ability of current and future owners to renovate the structures. Many properties in areas that were claimed to be "block busted" by revisionists were of low build quality to begin with were aging out and were unlikely to be revitalized by whoever lived there in the future. As I mentioned, because of the depression and WW2 there were not many new things being built and the existing stock in many of these areas was already low quality to begin with and had gone decades without much investment. Therefore the demand was low for these properties and lower class people were the market for them. So the neighborhood began to change and more crime was brought into these places which only accelerated the plummeting of values. People act like an area of affluent people living in high quality homes all ran for the hills as soon as a black family moved in and the prices plummeted. No, it was places like the south side of Chicago which were always working class and full of small, cramped living places. Building huge housing project towers in these areas didn't help either, nor did the highway systems that cut through these areas. But people got out because the living conditions sucked compared to what was available in the new suburbs being built. Not to mentioned, jobs were moving out of cities because business could expand to new locations that were safer and not cramped. Did race play role? Sure. As did class to a greater extent. But the narrative you hear and accepted as fact just doesn't reflect the total reality.