What Killed Detroit (Dearborn, Hart, Coleman: real estate, housing, rent)

[and the]

The idea that "The Riot" killed Detroit is BS. There were riots all over the country at different times. There were draft riots, race riots, "I want a new TV" riots....

People tend to segregate themselves. During the civil rights era and even before that, when restrictive real estate covenants were found to be unconstitutional, when voting restrictions were removed, and in general, when blacks were empowered to live wherever they wanted, they DID move wherever they wanted.

Lots of real estate agents of all races and religions took advantage of that and started block busting. White people left, AS WAS, AND IS, THEIR RIGHT.

White flight would have happened with or without "the riot". It's just a handy excuse for white people to use as to why they left.

And just because you were white and "flew" doesn't mean you are now, or were then, a racist.

In my opinion, when Henry Ford started the $5.00 day and began recruiting people of very different backgrounds to come to Detroit from all over the world, let alone the US, and then mixed them all together within a period of only a couple decades, the die was cast. People like to live among others who look like them, act like them, eat like them, value the same things as them and go to the same church as them. There is nothing racist about this. It's only human (and animal) nature.

[pirate_lafitte]

Human nature is sad. White flight would have happened with or without the riots. I agree with that. It happened in Atlanta(how ironic, the city too busy to hate. whatever.). The only difference is that Detroit has a bad economy and Atlanta has a booming economy, so ATL can slide its problems under the rug. As for white flight in Detroit, it happened because when blacks started moving to Detroit, many whites didn't want them around, so many left and when blacks were able to make it to the suburbs, the cycle continued.

[michiganirish]

Coleman A. Young killed Detroit. That man had the opportunity to show every racist in the country that a major American city run by a black mayor with a majority of black citzens could maintain it's status as a world class city.

Unfortunately, Young was the black counter-part of a white supremacist well, I should say a suedo white supremacist. He kept the citzens of Detroit so wrapped up in the blame game that they didn't notice that the only interests he was serving was his own.

The police department became corrupt, the school system dropped below standand and so on and so on.

Detroit was a grand city, it is now only a decaying shell.

[Briolat21]

Umm.. no ... The black influx to Detroit started pretty close to the turn of the century. There were plenty of manual labor jobs and a lot of people (black and white) could just walk into a plant and get a job. So the real white exodus from Detroit did not start with the Black influx... They coexisted (with tension admittedly) through the 20's, 30's and 40's.. into the '50's.. into the '60's..

however there was a lot of tension in the '60's as has been mentioned. And the beginning of some economic upheavals. For whatever reasons -- white people began to leave the city en masse in the later 60's and 70's (you don't want to blame the riots fine -- go talk to a 60 year old life from Chicago and ask them what they know about Detroit -- they'll tell you the riots..)

Was redlining going on? Of course..

But I think clearly white flight (and yes, they had every right to leave the city) -- has had a large negative impact in Detroit..

[and the]

Umm.. no ... The black influx to Detroit started pretty close to the turn of the century. There were plenty of manual labor jobs and a lot of people (black and white) could just walk into a plant and get a job. So the real white exodus from Detroit did not start with the Black influx... They coexisted (with tension admittedly) through the 20's, 30's and 40's.. into the '50's.. into the '60's..

Ummmm....yes. In 1830, Detroit's black population was 5.6%
1840: 2.1
1850: 2.8
1860: 3.0
1870: 2.8
1880: 2.4
1890: 1.7
1900: 1.4
1910: 1.2 (Ford began paying $5.00 a day in 1914)
1920: 4.1
1930: 7.6
1940: 9.1
1950: 16.1
1960: 28.9
1970: 44.5
1980: 63.0
1990: 76.0
2000: 81.6

These numbers are from the census numbers taken for the corresponding decade. And are from "Detroit Across Three Centuries" by Richard Bak. Where are you getting your numbers? Ummmm, oral history?

How many blacks lived in the City of Detroit around the panic of 1893? And where did they live? There were relatively few blacks in the city compared to the post Henry Ford era and those that were here were concentrated in a few neighborhoods. White's didn't start leaving in droves until later, after blacks started moving into their neighborhoods, I'd say post WWII and especially after many Jewish neighborhoods moved to Southfield almost en masse, a lot closer to the 60's than the 20's. As blacks gained more rights to live wherever they wanted, they did move wherever they wanted, and so did many whites. It had a lot less to do with the riot than people would like to think and a lot more to do with a tendency to self-segregate than many would like to admit.

So, Ummmm, where is your turn of the century "black influx"? An "influx" implies an INCREASE in population in this case, not a DECREASE.

If you take an objective look, I believe you'll find that any significant black "influx" started with Ford's $5.00 day in 1914.

[pirate_lafitte]

Originally Posted by and the

Ummmm....yes. In 1830, Detroit's black population was 5.6%
1840: 2.1
1850: 2.8
1860: 3.0
1870: 2.8
1880: 2.4
1890: 1.7
1900: 1.4
1910: 1.2 (Ford began paying $5.00 a day in 1914)
1920: 4.1
1930: 7.6
1940: 9.1
1950: 16.1
1960: 28.9
1970: 44.5
1980: 63.0
1990: 76.0
2000: 81.6

These numbers are from the census numbers taken for the corresponding decade. And are from "Detroit Across Three Centuries" by Richard Bak. Where are you getting your numbers? Ummmm, oral history?

How many blacks lived in the City of Detroit around the panic of 1893? And where did they live? There were relatively few blacks in the city compared to the post Henry Ford era and those that were here were concentrated in a few neighborhoods. White's didn't start leaving in droves until later, after blacks started moving into their neighborhoods, I'd say post WWII and especially after many Jewish neighborhoods moved to Southfield almost en masse, a lot closer to the 60's than the 20's. As blacks gained more rights to live wherever they wanted, they did move wherever they wanted, and so did many whites. It had a lot less to do with the riot than people would like to think and a lot more to do with a tendency to self-segregate than many would like to admit.

So, Ummmm, where is your turn of the century "black influx"? An "influx" implies an INCREASE in population in this case, not a DECREASE.

If you take an objective look, I believe you'll find that any significant black "influx" started with Ford's $5.00 day in 1914.

Agreed. Blacks started going to Detroit(as well as Chicago,Cleveland, Gary, Milwaukee, Racine, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, etc.) because of blue collar jobs(jobs that don't require anyone to have a college degree). While many black professionals went to the North, blacks who worked in labor were going to the North for more freedom and opportunity and for what they saw as the "promised land". Many found opportunities but there was still discrimination and bigotry in the North. There were no "whites only" signs or "colored waiting room" in most northern cities, but there was still bigotry. Laws eventually changed and blacks were able to live where ever they pleased(by law), and so was eveeryone else. As soon as blacks started moving into white neighborhoods, many whites started leaving. I believe is Detroit wasn't a heavily blue-collar economy, the city would not have suffered so badly.

[Cato the Elder]

As mentioned, I think it was a collective effect that reached critical mass in Detroit for whatever reason. I also believe white flight played a major role, though perhaps not THE role. I lived in Philadelphia for almost 10 years and IIRC, it's something like 40% white, 40% black, 20% other. It's not very mixed either, yet the city is much healthier overall than Detroit. Areas like West Philadelphia and North Philadelphia are almost all Black while places like Chestnut Hill and the Northeast are predominantly white. Philly's a blue-collar town like Detroit with tensions yet it turned around. Ultimately, I think Detroit shows the dangers of having too little variety in voices, whether black, white, or whatever, and too much of one voice in one political/social system (in this case Detroit proper since there is little to no political fate shared with the burbs like there is in places like London). Though they do not mix very well, I think having a city with various ethnicities, ages, socio-economic status creates a system of checks and balances that results in some headaches, but an overall healthier system where it's ultimately better for each individual.

[former detroiter]

Originally Posted by usroute10

What killed detroit?

- cheap land in the suburbs, which made building in the suburbs attractive

- closing factories/businesses in the city, and only building new factories in the suburbs

- increase in violent crime (mostly by blacks, that's just how it is!)

- Federal Housing Administration's blatantly racist home lending policies
(up until the 1960's, the FHA actively sought to create ONE-RACE NEIGHBORHOODS)

- insurance redlining, which denied residents home equity loans if they lived in certain neighborhoods

- "steering" by real estate professionals of one race to particular neighborhoods

- interstate highway construction
1. the freeways made it very easy and convenient to live far from the city core. If people only had Grand River or Michigan Avenue to get to/from downtown instead of I-94 or I-96, then the explosion of suburban growth that occurred in the 1950's to 80's would not have occurred.

2. the freeways ripped neighborhoods in half, and completely detroyed others (the Black Bottom). Look at how wide I-96 is! How many homes were destroyed!

- city income tax

- Coleman Young's sometimes adversial stance against whites and Detroit suburbs

- significant decline in public school system

- WHITE RACISM - white folks don't want to live next to black folks, unless they are the SUPER-DUPER majority.

- lack of rapid mass transit system

- THE 1967 RIOTS (of course)

think you pretty much hit those points right on.
i lived in the Cass Corridor area from '58 to '65, then near Belle Isle, and finally near Joy Road and Livernois till '79 (when i moved to the east coast), and it was not one thing but several factors that led to the downfall of Detroit.... ACTUALLY, the city had been going down since the depression!!! It came back slightly after WW2, but not really... the boom time was in the '20s and it was downhill after the stock market crash. The riots were just the nail in the coffin... and, because of other things that have been outlined, the city never had the kind of options that say Chicago did/has.
I'm glad i'm from there, but it would be like death to go back for more than a few days.
Sorry, but if you've lived somewhere else, you'd get a feeling what what that's about.

[Chinolala]

The slow decline of GM and loss of auto based manufacturing jobs. Has anyone see the movie "Roger and Me"? Very depressing movie about this topic.

[simlifgal]

I think the riots had more to do with detroits decline than your giving them credit for. In a large part because of the aftermath. True, there have been riots in major cities all over the country, but for the most part there was a government in place with enough sense to attempt to band aide the wound so to speak. what was done to clean up the area? to help the victims of the riots? to help those who felt victimized before the riots? and the suburbs did not help. white people fleeing the riots were greeted by idiots like mayor hubbard in dearborn. this only encouraged fears and drove more people out of the city. Of course white people didnt WANT to live there anymore. how many of you here want to live somewhere where you may be shot because you have the wrong skin color?

and even today, there has been little done to mend those racial fences. detroit is not white-friendly. there is a strong ebb of racial hatered and fear that is unfounded and should have been stopped long ago. other cities have many racially prominent areas, but here in detroit we just cant seem to live next to eachother in harmony.


while I think that is the strongest reason for detroits fall, I think there are many reasons for its failure to rise again. taxes are awful in the city, crime is higher than the police force can respond to. lack of public transit, despite previous arguments is a problem on both sides. not every family can afford more than one car, but could afford a train pass or something similar. I have turned down many jobs simply because at the time my husband and I had one car and I had no reliable method of getting to or from work. detroit leaves eyesores to deteriate because it has one of the most corrupt governments and we continually see this government re-elected in the form of new people. detroit dosent have an adequete system in place to care for the mentally ill or the homless. detroit ignores the things our city has to offer. belle isle, the train station, motown museum. these things should be celebrated and enjoyed by all. but instead they are unsafe and for the most part uncared for. in a city that birthed motown I really have never understood why this wasnt set up more to draw tourist in. it would. i dont know, im rambling now i think. I just get very frustrated with the city and the residence both in the city and the suburbs. everyone needs to stop pointing (and giving) the finger and roll up there sleeves! the city is our responsibility, and that is made more obvious by the mayor and city councils inability to overcome the major barriers. and the suburbs are effected by this! its not just a matter of avoiding downtown, but think about what your giving up! Detroit should be amazing. i have hope for its future...