Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. the first black family to move into a formerly all-white inner city area; thus blockbusting n. and adj.

1958		US News & World Report 5 Dec. 84: Latest problem for cities in North: ‘blockbusting.’ [...] Baltimore case study of blockbusting method of moving Negro families into white neighborhoods.
1959		Race Relations Law Reporter 4 798: The Negro's need for an alternative to blockbusting as a way of securing housing must be met just as the legitimate interests of white neighborhoods on the edge of Negro expansion areas must be protected.
1961		N. Glazer (ed.) Studies in Housing & Minority Groups 106: The limitation contained in this rule is no great restraint because of the effective techniques for ‘block-busting’ which have been developed by Negroes (use of white dummies and other devices). The real estate men still assert they would not handle a transaction which inaugurated a new Negro invasion.
1972		Goggin & Seidel Politics American Style 176: The block-busting real-estate men show homes in integrated districts such as Springfield Gardens only to prospective Negro buyers.
1986		Mother Jones June 8: Blockbusting— driving white owners out by bringing blacks in and spreading door-to-door panic about falling property values.
1998		Port Whitman Times n.p.: The blacks have an unmistakable sign popping right out of their collars and sleeves. It says ‘here we are, in your neighborhood!’ And in the old blockbusting cliche, up go the white folks ‘For Sale’ signs.
2002		proU.net ‘Real Estate Gloss.’ 🌐 blockbusting: An illegal and discriminatory practice whereby one person induces another to enter into a real estate transaction from which the first person may benefit financially by representing that a change may occur in the neighborhood with respect to race, sex, religion, color, handicap familial status or ancestry of the occupants, a change possibly resulting in the lowering of the property values, a decline in the quality of schools or an increase in the crime rate. Also called panic selling or panic peddling.
2012		G. Pelecanos (con. 1972) What It Was Blockbuster realtors who had preyed on the fears of whites in post-riot D.C.:

2. the first white family to move back into an inner city area, driving out the poor minority tenants and starting the process of gentrification.

1971		R. Forman Black Ghettos, White Ghettos, and Slums 86: As blacks tend to be handicapped in obtaining larger amounts of capital, most of the large-scale blockbusters are white.
1978		F. Busch Mutual Friend (1994) 25: The rest [of the residents] were new, had followed us as if we were blockbusters.