White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism — When Segregation Changed Form

Crisis in Perception · Sep 25, 2026 · 43m

What happens when an older political arrangement becomes unsustainable but the incentives and conflicts underneath it remain?

Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.

Using White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism by Kevin M. Kruse as our lens, this episode investigates his argument that white flight from Atlanta was more than population movement. It also helped transform the language and institutional strategies surrounding race, public space, property, and political power.

Kruse traces a shift from explicit defenses of segregation…