[Clampdown69]

By all accounts - Flint and Saginaw are more dangerous than Detroit and since they are small cities of no particular note (like Youngstown OH or Niagara Falls, NY) they are probably not going to experience any kind of comeback unlike Motown which is making some progress (I've been out to the Detroit area a bunch of times a friend of mine from HS works at the border bridge and lives in the town of Romulus).

However looking at demographics it seems that they haven't gone through the level of white flight that was experiended in Detroit, I mean there has definitely been white flight and the white % drops every census but it's still a substantial percentage (forgot the numbers but more than 1/3 each). Why? Is it because the crime is concentrated in certain areas moreso than Detroit which has "pockets of safety" as opposed to "pockets of danger" like in other places.

For instance the first street view I did in flint on the south side of the city I saw a large white lady sitting on a chair on her lawn which demonstrates to me that it is safe enough for Her to do that contrary to sensational news which makes it like Flint is worse than Kabul or something.

I'm not one of those people who likes to be a voyeur at the misery and poverty of others, Im just curious.

Thanks

[Indentured Servant]

Originally Posted by Clampdown69

By all accounts - Flint and Saginaw are more dangerous than Detroit and since they are small cities of no particular note (like Youngstown OH or Niagara Falls, NY) they are probably not going to experience any kind of comeback unlike Motown which is making some progress (I've been out to the Detroit area a bunch of times a friend of mine from HS works at the border bridge and lives in the town of Romulus).

However looking at demographics it seems that they haven't gone through the level of white flight that was experiended in Detroit, I mean there has definitely been white flight and the white % drops every census but it's still a substantial percentage (forgot the numbers but more than 1/3 each). Why? Is it because the crime is concentrated in certain areas moreso than Detroit which has "pockets of safety" as opposed to "pockets of danger" like in other places.

For instance the first street view I did in flint on the south side of the city I saw a large white lady sitting on a chair on her lawn which demonstrates to me that it is safe enough for Her to do that contrary to sensational news which makes it like Flint is worse than Kabul or something.

I'm not one of those people who likes to be a voyeur at the misery and poverty of others, Im just curious.

Thanks

Probably because they did not have racial rebellion (some call riots) on the level of Detroit.

[animatedmartian]

Easy. Detroit was a big city and the other cities were small towns. Crime is not the sole reason for white flight.

[Clampdown69]

Originally Posted by Indentured Servant

Probably because they did not have racial rebellion (some call riots) on the level of Detroit.

Well neither did the south Bronx or Brownsville in Brooklyn which went from completely Jewish to completely black in like 5 years. Riots add fuel to the fire but people leave when its dangerous. Most white flight in my experience is really just fleeing crime and poverty. Flint is the murder capital but yet its still had a somewhat stable white population

[Indentured Servant]

Originally Posted by Clampdown69

Well neither did the south Bronx or Brownsville in Brooklyn which went from completely Jewish to completely black in like 5 years. Riots add fuel to the fire but people leave when its dangerous. Most white flight in my experience is really just fleeing crime and poverty. Flint is the murder capital but yet its still had a somewhat stable white population

Just because people go to the hospital......it does not mean that its triggered by the same illness. The reason there was flight in the Bronx proves or disproves nothing as it relates to Saginaw, Flint and Detroit.

Secondly, I do not agree with the crime motive either. Southfield, MI, is probably about 80% black in 2015. It has never had a high crime rate any where on the scale of Saginaw, Flint and Detroit, yet, it morphed from majority white to majority black over the decades. Crime was not an issue there.

As it relates to Detroit, racial rebellion was part of the evolution and transformation of the city. Whether that it the case with other cities transition is not germane. It was true for Detroit and pretty much true for cities that had rebellions. Some cities drew the line of segregation within the city, like Chicago, and hence maintained a considerable white population. Detroit is rather unique in that the lines in the sand were drew between the city and the suburbs. Detroit is an anomaly because no major city has gone from majority white to majority black in the way that Detroit has. It's an aberration, while the patterns of Flint and Saginaw are more the norm.

[reppin_the_847]

Originally Posted by Indentured Servant

Secondly, I do not agree with the crime motive either. Southfield, MI, is probably about 80% black in 2015. It has never had a high crime rate any where on the scale of Saginaw, Flint and Detroit, yet, it morphed from majority white to majority black over the decades. Crime was not an issue there.

Southfield's large corporate presence for sure has a role in ensuring that the area remains relatively safe. Think about it. These corporations add to the inner-ring Oakland County town's taxbase & surely enable the area to afford security that many parts of inner-city Detroit cannot.

[Giesela]

Maybe they just didn't have either the money to move or any other place to go they could afford. Or maybe it was an age and timing thing? Older people on fixed incomes tend to stay in place. It seems to me that many blue collar neighborhoods have a timing cycle. Gets built, young families move in, people get old living in the same house, die, new young families move in. IDK, just throwing out ideas.

[usroute10]

I think it is just Detroit specific, like Indentured Servant stated. No LARGE city in the US ever got above 80% black except Detroit. Even cities that were notorious for crime (like always being in the top 10 in violent crime) - Philadelphia, Washington DC, Baltimore, St. Louis, Cleveland, Atlanta, Miami, New Orleans, Oakland etc - never got more than 2/3's black.

Philly was never majority black and St Louis and Cleveland are barely 50%. DC and Atlanta and New Orleans are now becoming more white.

[Clampdown69]

Originally Posted by usroute10

I think it is just Detroit specific, like Indentured Servant stated. No LARGE city in the US ever got above 80% black except Detroit. Even cities that were notorious for crime (like always being in the top 10 in violent crime) - Philadelphia, Washington DC, Baltimore, St. Louis, Cleveland, Atlanta, Miami, New Orleans, Oakland etc - never got more than 2/3's black.

Philly was never majority black and St Louis and Cleveland are barely 50%. DC and Atlanta and New Orleans are now becoming more white.

I think the reason for that is because all of those cities always had pockets of safety during the worst times. Even "safe" neighborhoods in Detroit like by WSU and Indian Village are not that safe. In Philly while West and North Philly were horrible, NE, South and Center City were still decent and stable. In the Lou, South City was still liveable, Oakland always had safe and upper class Rockridge.


Baltimore is wierd, it's bad areas are equal to Detroit, I think the fact that unlike Detroit which only has Wayne State, the fact that a really prestigious college like Johns Hopkins is there led to there always being a presence of highly educated rich people who demanded decent neighborhoods, it's no coincidence that the only white areas in B'more still intact are the ones that were close to JHU. Hampden had similar demographics to Pigtown, working class/blue collar "white ethnic" areas but pig town was on the south side surrounded by blight and nothing notable, while Hampden was close enough to JHU that if it went south then the campus would be affected so it was highly policed which kept whites from fleeing.


DC and ATL are getting more white because they are getting safer and white people aren't afraid they are gonna get shot there anymore like back 20 years ago.

[usroute10]

Originally Posted by Clampdown69

Baltimore is wierd, it's bad areas are equal to Detroit, I think the fact that unlike Detroit which only has Wayne State, the fact that a really prestigious college like Johns Hopkins is there led to there always being a presence of highly educated rich people who demanded decent neighborhoods, it's no coincidence that the only white areas in B'more still intact are the ones that were close to JHU. Hampden had similar demographics to Pigtown, working class/blue collar "white ethnic" areas but pig town was on the south side surrounded by blight and nothing notable, while Hampden was close enough to JHU that if it went south then the campus would be affected so it was highly policed which kept whites from fleeing.


DC and ATL are getting more white because they are getting safer and white people aren't afraid they are gonna get shot there anymore like back 20 years ago.

You bring up a good point, that if a prestigious university had existed in Detroit, then more highly educated, relatively well-to-do people would have lived and stayed in the neighborhoods surrounding the university. Unfortunately, the University of Michigan was founded in Detroit, but moved in the 1840's to Ann Arbor when that town offered the University a ton of land to move there.

The University of Michigan was located smack dab in the middle of downtown Detroit. Very few large, prestigious universities are located in the downtowns of large cities (U of M usually ranks amongst the top 5 public universities with Virginia, North Carolina, UC-Berkeley, and UCLA). It's fascinating to think how U of M would have evolved if it had stayed in downtown Detroit, and what impact it would have had on the development and decline of the city.