This is a story that has happened in many cities. It is more accurately described as "middle class flight", as all ethnic groups will flee a neighborhood when they no longer feel safe or they feel the schools aren't safe for their kids, or the quality of life -- late night wild noisy parties in the streets, public urination, streetfights, shootings --become too much to deal with, particularly by people not used to any of these things.
In my opinion, those who fled were unfairly labeled as racists or elitist for abandoning the old neighborhood. I believe they weren't the problem, rather, the fault lies with those who created the disturbances and trouble. I don't believe urban advocates recognized the issue.
Not long ago there was a PBS series on the history of New York City. The segment on the 1950s touched on this, but merely said people left for the suburbs and left behind decayed neighborhoods and schools. From what I've seen, I don't agree that such neighborhoods were decayed, rather, the decay started afterwards from poor maintenance. Secondly, that series didn't go into the reasons that people left for the suburbs.
It is true that some people want and can to move on and upward, they may have more money and could afford a suburban split level instead of a city rowhouse or apartment. But others are quite happy with their existing house and would stay for the rest of their life. There is one neighborhood in Phila (Rhawnhurst) that essentially evolved into a huge senior citizen camp for that reason.
Phone connection: That neighborhood was/is servied by PIlgrim and PIoneer. I think they came out of two different offices serving different sections, but I was always confused on which PI was which. As in most Phila CO's, each one had numerous exchange names rather than one name and lots of digits.
The problem was that those who fled usually had more money than their successors, which meant the tax base--critical to a city--declined as well as economic activity. For the phone company, that meant the loss of people using premium and profitable services (e.g. Touch Tone, Trimline, multiple extensions, long distance) to those with bare bones service or poor credit. In more recent years, the phone companies have been ordered by the PUCs to carry deadbeats they'd formally cut off for non payment. The rest of us have to make up that deficit.
Around that time there were tensions in New York City and NY Telephone hosted an open house a traffic unit in a C.O. in a lousy neighborhood. According to the New York Times, it was a successful event as the neighbors learned the challenges the operators face and felt more appreciated. The operators liked it too. They all brought in home made food to share.
In those years a number of Bell companies did different things to reach out to their communities. Open houses, using crews to rebuild playgrounds, putting up a basketball court in a parking lot, etc. It appears these were effective and reduced the number of attacks on crews.
Vandalism on pay phones remained a very serious problem and is to this day. But it wasn't just a city problem, in rural areas, open wire insulators were a favorite target of shooters but a major disruption of service.