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Old 11-02-2017, 08:10 AM
 
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Originally Posted by mjlo View Post
What was left was a 4 million person metro area without an identifiable core. It became one of the least attractive major metros in the country as it had almost no character, or regional cohesion. By the 00's even the suburbs started to enter a state of decline. I think this was because of a weaker overall region. It does seem that over the last 10 years or so the regional governments have started to wake up and understand that they actually do need a healthy Detroit, and simply can't continue to pretend it doesn't exist.
The Detroit of the 1970’s, 1980’s and 1990’s certainly was not devoid of character.

Yes downtown was fading, but that does not mean the city didn’t have character.

In those decades of steep decline, the walkable commercial districts in the city were all still mostly intact, although blighted and increasingly empty. Now, so many storefronts and beautiful houses and apartment buildings have been demolished. Large neighborhood commercial districts like 7 Mile/Gratiot and Harper/Van Dyke have completely disappeared.

Detroit had a large bonafide Mexican neighborhood on the southwest side, but also had a large Chaldean neighborhood on the northeast side. East 7 Mile between Woodward and John R was full of Chaldean restaurants, bakeries, and other businesses. The Chaldeans have left and that neighborhood is empty.

Detroit had a small Hmong (refugees from Laos) community on the east side, that community is gone.

Greektown in Downtown was actually full of independent Greek restaurants, and not chain restaurants.

The Cass Corridor (Midtown) was dangerous yes, but it was far more intact and had many different characters and dive bars and music venues.

The pre-war fabric of downtown was so much more preserved even as of 2000. Besides one skyscraper, the only buildings that have been built in downtown in the past 25 years are parking garages. Parking garages don’t have character.

The Detroit area of the early-80’s still had two commuter rail lines (to Pontiac and Ann Arbor)

The city of Detroit of 1990 had 50% more people. Belle Isle still had a functioning zoo. Boblo Island was still a thing. 19- and 20-year olds regularly went across the river to Windsor to drink and party. A lot of us had Canadian girlfriends/boyfriends.

The only thing better about the metro than 25 years ago is that downtown and midtown are safer and have more restaurants and bars, and the suburban downtowns like Ferndale are more vibrant. Everything else is the worse or the same. The neighborhoods of Detroit and many inner ring suburbs have never looked worse.
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Old 11-02-2017, 09:00 AM
 
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Originally Posted by mjlo View Post
I would argue Michigan is one of the most segregated and racist states in the country.
It's arguable, but here's a counter argument. Let us use percentage of rural and small town African-American population (That is what you mean by segregated, right? We're not talking about Native American populations, who are de facto segregated.) as an imperfect proxy for how segregated a state is. That data can be found here (WARNING - PDF): http://www.ruralhome.org/storage/res...nicity-web.pdf

I've found the most pertinent data on page 10:



I've boxed Michigan's Midwest/Great Lakes States/Old Northwest comps, and have highlighted the states that have a greater percentage of rural White (Non-Hispanic) -- lower percentage of rural African-American than Michigan.

As it can be seen though this analysis, Indiana, Iowa, and Wisconsin are the more segregated comps of Michigan, with Ohio and Minnesota edging themselves out with a tenth of a percentage difference, and the Northeast states of Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont being clearly more segregated than Michigan using the rural population proxy. Of note as well is Pennsylvania, which is slightly higher in both rural White (Non-Hispanic) and rural African-American than Michigan.

This proxy does not account is the number of suburban African-Americans, a catagory Michigan is particularly strong in, and of which Michigan beats all of its comps except for Illinois: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-a...s-on-the-rise/

Taking this all into account, I'd say Michigan is number 2 in the in Midwest for AA integration, behind Illinois, and ahead of most of the Northeast states. Even New York and Massachusetts aren't that well integrated outside of their cities, not matter how much the people in those cities try to sell it the other way.

I agree that Detroit has one of the most egregious histories of segregation for an American city, but I also think that racial segregation is a proxy for class. In Detroit, it was the falling value of American labor which put middle-class whites against middle-class blacks, manifested itself as racism and segregation, and destroyed the urban center of the city. In NYC, Chicago, and Philly it was the upper class, white or otherwise, protecting their investments and segregating the lower classes, be them black or white or immigrant, and creating lower-class ghettos surrounding the protected upper-class's property/wealth. I think Grosse Pointe's preservation is pretty telling of the class vs race dynamics I'm pointing out here.
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why is detroit so dangerous and then all the sudden you go a street over to grosse pointe, and its safe and sound safe?-2017-11-02_9-24-56.jpg  

Last edited by michikawa; 11-02-2017 at 09:50 AM..
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Old 11-02-2017, 10:28 AM
 
Location: Brunswick (Gary) Indiana
128 posts, read 96,942 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mjlo View Post
One of the biggest myths about Detroit's decline is how it has to do with the decline of the auto industry.
I agree 100%. The tipping point in 1967 that you mention a few posts later came when the auto industry was going full speed ahead, as it would for quite awhile afterward.
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Old 11-02-2017, 10:29 AM
 
1,996 posts, read 3,130,634 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by michikawa View Post
It's arguable, but here's a counter argument. Let us use percentage of rural and small town African-American population (That is what you mean by segregated, right? We're not talking about Native American populations, who are de facto segregated.) as an imperfect proxy for how segregated a state is. That data can be found here (WARNING - PDF): http://www.ruralhome.org/storage/res...nicity-web.pdf

I've found the most pertinent data on page 10:



I've boxed Michigan's Midwest/Great Lakes States/Old Northwest comps, and have highlighted the states that have a greater percentage of rural White (Non-Hispanic) -- lower percentage of rural African-American than Michigan.

As it can be seen though this analysis, Indiana, Iowa, and Wisconsin are the more segregated comps of Michigan, with Ohio and Minnesota edging themselves out with a tenth of a percentage difference, and the Northeast states of Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont being clearly more segregated than Michigan using the rural population proxy. Of note as well is Pennsylvania, which is slightly higher in both rural White (Non-Hispanic) and rural African-American than Michigan.

This proxy does not account is the number of suburban African-Americans, a catagory Michigan is particularly strong in, and of which Michigan beats all of its comps except for Illinois: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-a...s-on-the-rise/

Taking this all into account, I'd say Michigan is number 2 in the in Midwest for AA integration, behind Illinois, and ahead of most of the Northeast states. Even New York and Massachusetts aren't that well integrated outside of their cities, not matter how much the people in those cities try to sell it the other way.

I agree that Detroit has one of the most egregious histories of segregation for an American city, but I also think that racial segregation is a proxy for class. In Detroit, it was the falling value of American labor which put middle-class whites against middle-class blacks, manifested itself as racism and segregation, and destroyed the urban center of the city. In NYC, Chicago, and Philly it was the upper class, white or otherwise, protecting their investments and segregating the lower classes, be them black or white or immigrant, and creating lower-class ghettos surrounding the protected upper-class's property/wealth. I think Grosse Pointe's preservation is pretty telling of the class vs race dynamics I'm pointing out here.
No.

Like I stated in a post in May 2017, between 1950 and 2000, Detroit's white population declined by 94% (from 1,5 million to less than 100,000). There are two or three suburbs of Detroit that have more white people than the entire city of Detroit (Warren and Sterling Heights). No city in America can claim such abandonment by Caucasians. No amount of "falling value of Labor" can explain this. Blacks weren't welcome in any 'burbs (except may Inkster)

The peak segregation in the Detroit area was probably around 1990. Since then the black population has fled the city, probably 250,000 since 2000. This makes the area appear less segregated, but the suburbs that blacks are moving to like Redford, Eastpointe, Warren, & Harper Woods are experiencing significant white flight today.
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Old 11-02-2017, 12:06 PM
 
95 posts, read 118,651 times
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Originally Posted by usroute10 View Post
... between 1950 and 2000, Detroit's white population declined by 94% (from 1,5 million to less than 100,000). There are two or three suburbs of Detroit that have more white people than the entire city of Detroit (Warren and Sterling Heights). No city in America can claim such abandonment by Caucasians. No amount of "falling value of Labor" can explain this. Blacks weren't welcome in any 'burbs (except may Inkster).
Redlining was federal policy and not exclusive to Detroit. The middle classes of NYC, Chicago, and Philly all had a mass exodus in the same period. The only different between them and Detroit was that Detroit was majority middle-class owned and lacked strong pro-white politicians like Mayor Daley of Chicago. Without the upper class protecting it's property/wealth, or a political class supporting the white working/middle class, both of whom kept the wealthy and middle-class whites living in the other mentioned American cities, the whites of Detroit, with the help of mass automobile ownership, picked up shop and moved outside of town, thus creating the Pointes, Oakland County, and Macomb County as we know them.

Cities require tax flow and wealth to maintain services and amenities. Detroit lost 50% of its population, and there was no way the middle-class blacks, whose families a generation or two ago had zero wealth, could afford to maintain the city as it was. The blacks that did live in the city from 1950-1990 are really the champions which kept it alive, but the recession of the 1990s/2000s killed the income flow for the families/institutions remaining.

Redling ended as official policy in 1977, but racial divide in metro Detroit was already well established, and there was as much desire for middle-class blacks in the city to move suburbs as there was for middle-class whites to move to the city, hence it was status quo till the 1990s when the bottom dropped out in the region. Lower-class blacks could not afford to move out out the city to the burbs or want to deal with the BS/racism associated with finding employment in a rural area/small town -- hence my argument why looking at small town/rural black populations is a good metric to determine how segregated a state is. Michigan is also above two-thirds of states as far as reporting percentages of "more than one race" in small towns, beating all of the states of the American South.

=============

I'm not really sure what you're arguing with me about, but I see racial argument as a proxy for class. In the American South (SC, GA, AL, MS), lower-class whites and lower-class blacks have about as much wealth and political clout as one another, but the upper class in those states use racism to keep the lower-class whites pitted against blacks, because if the lower-class whites feel that they are superior to someone, they will not challenge the hegemony that the upper-class whites have in those states. They vote against their interests because they want to feel superior to someone else.

In the rust belt, racism is used by the white middle-class as a way to divvy the wealth gained from organized labor disproportionately. As the amount of wealth to be gained from labor lessened in the years following the first and second great migrations, racism was used as a way to justify wealth's continued inequitable distribution, even though it had been more equiable during the wars/initial auto boom. People really don't like having privileges taken away that they once had, and racist squabbles over who gets the largest piece of pie happened in Detroit in '43 as well as '67.

Redlining, a creation of middle-class white bureaucrats and politicians in the 1930s, limited the availability of real estate property, traditionally the most important vehicle for wealth accumulation in the United States, to minorities, effectively cutting them out of an entire segment of wealth generation. This pleased their rust belt constituents, because they had more money than black/minorities -- hence feeling superior to them -- causing them to reelect thier middle-class white bureaucrats and politicians and perpetuating racism as a means to preserve class distinctions.

=============

I'm not trying to simplify racism in America, and redlining is just one of the multiplicity of policies that have been screwing over the black/minority population of the United States since the times of Jim Crow, other non-limiting examples would be the war on povery, the war on drugs, and the criminal justice system in general. Redlining is particularly egregious though, as it denys citizens of property rights - a fundemental protection in our Republic. I will argue though, that as blacks/minorities gain a greater proportion of wealth, there will be less racism and segregation, as one of its primary rationalizations will be moot.

Last edited by michikawa; 11-02-2017 at 12:47 PM..
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Old 11-02-2017, 12:16 PM
 
Location: Grosse Ile Michigan
30,702 posts, read 79,364,238 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mjlo View Post
I would argue Michigan is one of the most segregated and racist states in the country.
I thought this, but recently I have encountered people from Atlanta, Boston, and a couple of other places I do not remember, who said the same thing about their area. I also learned from my Daughters Masters and PhD psychological studies that the tendency to segregate is inherent in people. Hence many places segregate by race, culture and/or nationality because that is what the segregated people preferred. Hispanics cluster in Mexicantown, not entirely because they are unable to go elsewhere and be safe, but because they prefer to be in an enclave of people who are like them. Balck people are inherently the same way. ven if there were no prejudice, most people would simply prefer to be with people of their own identified type. Detroit is obviously highly racially segregated as 80+ % of the residents are black. However Santa Ana California where our family used to live, is also segregated and is 80++ % Hispanic. While Hispanic is not a race (although some would argue that) they certainly are an oppressed and prejudiced cultural group (in fact many would argue that in California they are subject to more oppression and prejudice than Black in California are today. I do not have enough knowledge to have an opinion on this, but it is a very prevalent belief that i have heard hundreds of times).
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Old 11-02-2017, 01:06 PM
 
13,806 posts, read 9,638,887 times
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Originally Posted by Coldjensens View Post
I thought this, but recently I have encountered people from Atlanta, Boston, and a couple of other places I do not remember, who said the same thing about their area. I also learned from my Daughters Masters and PhD psychological studies that the tendency to segregate is inherent in people. Hence many places segregate by race, culture and/or nationality because that is what the segregated people preferred. Hispanics cluster in Mexicantown, not entirely because they are unable to go elsewhere and be safe, but because they prefer to be in an enclave of people who are like them. Balck people are inherently the same way. ven if there were no prejudice, most people would simply prefer to be with people of their own identified type. Detroit is obviously highly racially segregated as 80+ % of the residents are black. However Santa Ana California where our family used to live, is also segregated and is 80++ % Hispanic. While Hispanic is not a race (although some would argue that) they certainly are an oppressed and prejudiced cultural group (in fact many would argue that in California they are subject to more oppression and prejudice than Black in California are today. I do not have enough knowledge to have an opinion on this, but it is a very prevalent belief that i have heard hundreds of times).
There is agreement and disagreement with this. A city does not go from being over 90% white to over 80% black unless one race shows a willingness and propensity to integrate.....while the other does not. White flight has been traditionally triggered by.....INTEGRATION. Integration, be definition, is showing the propensity to not want to self segregate and with people doing things to intimidate and keep your from integrating.....you cannot really say that people are self segregating, notwithstanding that it is a natural human propensity to do so. After 300 plus years in this land......we should be similar enough culturally where we are essentially the same. However, unnatural segregation incubates and preserves differences so that we then tend to want to be around like people. Well.....we would all be more alike if we did not segregate.

Last edited by Indentured Servant; 11-02-2017 at 01:30 PM..
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Old 11-02-2017, 01:30 PM
 
Location: Michigan
93 posts, read 125,714 times
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"Redling ended as official policy in 1977, but racial divide in metro Detroit was already well established, and there was as much desire for middle-class blacks in the city to move suburbs as there was for middle-class whites to move to the city, hence it was status quo till the 1990s when the bottom dropped out in the region. Lower-class blacks could not afford to move out out the city to the burbs or want to deal with the BS/racism associated with finding employment in a rural area/small town -- hence my argument why looking at small town/rural black populations is a good metric to determine how segregated a state is. Michigan is also above two-thirds of states as far as reporting percentages of "more than one race" in small towns, beating all of the states of the American South."

@Michikawa,
You make a lot of good points. I think you understand the dynamics of Detroit very well. I don't think that I could explain things nearly as well you, but I would like to add the following to the discussion:

The "White flight", starting in the '60s, was so fast and so furious - basically because of the use of automobiles and Michigan's advanced transportation infrastructure - that it did indeed leave a serious leadership void in the Detroit proper city government. This void was filled by Detroit's first Black mayor, Coleman A. Young. Things went from bad to worse as Young set up shop as an "Us vs Them"-type politician. Young did little in the way of reconciliation between the city of Detroit and the burgeoning suburbs. Young had a "Look at ME!" quality, and an attitude toward the "White flight" as "Thanks for coming out, but WE'LL take it from here..." persona.

It truly was a "Black Day in July".

Until recently, there was a prevailing attitude in Greater Detroit of: "Be careful what you wish for...", although, with the residents of Detroit putting the past behind them and voting in a White mayor in Mike Duggan a few years back, and Duggan's obvious desire and ability to work with both the citizens of Detroit AND the business interests of Greater Detroit, things are REALLY starting to look uP. The City of Detroit and its suburbs have a long way to go, but for the first time since 1967 there is light at the end of the tunnel. I think most everybody is ready to work together for a better day.

Last edited by SunnyJoe; 11-02-2017 at 01:46 PM..
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Old 11-02-2017, 01:43 PM
 
13,806 posts, read 9,638,887 times
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Originally Posted by SunnyJoe View Post
"Redling ended as official policy in 1977, but racial divide in metro Detroit was already well established, and there was as much desire for middle-class blacks in the city to move suburbs as there was for middle-class whites to move to the city, hence it was status quo till the 1990s when the bottom dropped out in the region. Lower-class blacks could not afford to move out out the city to the burbs or want to deal with the BS/racism associated with finding employment in a rural area/small town -- hence my argument why looking at small town/rural black populations is a good metric to determine how segregated a state is. Michigan is also above two-thirds of states as far as reporting percentages of "more than one race" in small towns, beating all of the states of the American South."

@Michikawa,
You make a lot of good points. I think you understand the dynamics of Detroit very well. I don't think that I could explain things nearly as well you, but I would like to add the following to the discussion:
The "white flight", starting in the '60s, was so fast and so furious - basically because of the use of automobiles and Michigan's advanced transportation infrastructure - that it did indeed leave a serious leadership void in the Detroit proper city government. This void was filled by Detroit's first Black mayor, Coleman A. Young. Things went from bad to worse as Young set up shop as an "Us vs Them"-type politician. Young did little in the way of reconciliation between the city of Detroit and the burgeoning suburbs. Young had a "Look at ME!" quality, and an attitude toward the "White flight" as "Thanks for coming out, but we'll take it from here..." persona.

There is still a prevailing attitude in Greater Detroit of: "Be careful what you wish for...", although, with the residents of Detroit putting the past behind them and voting in a White mayor in Mike Duggan a few years back, and Duggan's obvious desire and ability to work with both the citizens of Detroit AND the business interests of Greater Detroit, things are REALLY starting to look uP. The City of Detroit and its suburbs have a long way to go, but for the first time since 1967 there is light at the end of the tunnel. I think most everybody is ready to work together for a better day.
It just tickles me how people like to place blame more on how victims of racism REACT to the racism as opposed to really putting the blame where it belongs....ON THE RACISM. Its Coleman Young fault for creating an us vs them mentality? Uhhhh...no. That was well established after 300 years. Calling society on it is what makes people call it "divisive and us vs them". Its Coleman Young fault that he was not more into reconciliation? I mean....why reconcile with racism? Uhhhhh....no. Its Coleman Youngs fault that he did not get on his knees and plead with white people to stay in the city? Uhhhhh....no, that would be having no self respect. And again.....the critical point of white flight being "The riots".....in other words......blacks just behaving badly. Uhhhhhhh....no again.

All the analysis seems to avoid dealing with or putting any blame on what blacks were reacting to.
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Old 11-02-2017, 02:02 PM
 
95 posts, read 118,651 times
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Originally Posted by Indentured Servant View Post
It just tickles me how people like to place blame more on how victims of racism REACT to the racism as opposed to really putting the blame where it belongs....ON THE RACISM.

There's an emotional reaction to racism, but there's also realpolitik aspect as well. To become wealthy, i.e. gain influence in society, one has to either suckle from the teat of wealth, or use the State to extract wealth from the wealthy. Any student of history can tell you what the forcible extraction of wealth has done abroad, or how America has reacted to its concept internally.
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