As property values within these communities plummeted, the middle class, mostly white residents of target areas evacuated en masse. This is a phenomenon known as white flight. The introduction of non-white residents into a traditionally white area, in this case, inner city neighborhoods, caused the rapid evacuation of whites, usually to the suburbs. In this way, the common social trope of white suburbia and the racially diverse inner city came to be. It is currently estimated that over 70% of blacks operating in a given metropolitan area live in the city center. Comparatively, only 30% of whites operating within that same city live in the inner city. White flight was driven in part by the process of blockbusting. White property owners, fearful of minority groups, sold their homes to real estate agents at a low price, often due to the tactics of the real estate companies themselves. Agents would then encourage that the vacant properties be bought by black families seeking respite from the overcrowded neighborhoods in which they were sequestered. When one black family moved in, the white neighbors would immediately sell their homes to the waiting real estate companies, who would in turn sell to more black people at a significant markup.