Integrating ecological, demographic, and criminological theory, the article examines the role of violent crime and socioeconomic disadvantage in triggering population decline in Chicago neighborhoods from 1970 to 1990. High initial levels of homicide and increases over time in the spatial proximity to homicide were associated with large losses in total population across 826 census tracts. However, there were sharp group differences in patterns for blacks and whites. Although both black and white populations declined in response to high initial levels of homicide and socioeconomic disadvantage, increases in neighborhood homicide, spatial proximity to homicide and socioeconomic disadvantage were associated with black population gain and white population loss. The article argues that taking violent crime and spatial processes into account resolves the apparent contradiction between Wilson's depopulation hypothesis and Massey's segregation hypothesis on the increasing concentration of urban poverty. Figures, tables, notes, references, appendix