What if...? (Detroit, Franklin, Coleman: movers, homes, neighborhoods)

[Remisc]

I was kept up all night last night, thinking about what Detroit may have been like if things would've gone better.

What if...

• ...the automobile industry hadn't collapsed?
• ...white flight hadn't taken such a toll?
• ...the city was able to stabilize its decline?
• ...Coleman Young was term-limited?
• ...the blight wasn't allowed to get this bad?
• ...the people mover was bigger?
• ...the freeways didn't divide the city so much?

What would Detroit be like today? Could it be a massive city like Chicago or Philadelphia?

Share your thoughts.

[canudigit]

Well, during its heyday in the mid-20th century, Detroit was, if I'm not mistaken, the fourth largest city in the U.S., so yeah, it could definitely be a massive city like Chicago or Philadelphia, if only...

IMHO, the two biggest factors that led to the decline of Detroit were the introduction of foreign-made vehicles into the U.S. market and white flight to the suburbs. I've known for years, basically since I was a kid back in the '70s and '80s, that Detroit essentially a black city with a ring of white suburbs and even now it will kind of shock me when I really stop and think about it how divided it is. It's like all the white people basically fled their stately, well-kept, urban neighborhoods and said, "Here. Take it. We're outta here!" and left the black people to take up the slack and try to fill thousands and thousands of homes with far fewer people than there were homes and with generally poor educational and occupational prospects. It's kind of bizarre, if you think about it, like something that people will someday look back upon as a freakish, sad, cultural phenomenon and write books and hold historical forums about.

I am old enough to remember that before the major influx of foreign-made vehicles that began as a trickle in the '70s and became a deluge during the '80s and after, the Big Three were, not to be irreverent but for lack of a better term, the Holy Trinity. Getting a job at Ford, GM, or Chrysler meant occupational and financial security and you were basically set for life. I think that the advent of foreign, particularly Japanese, cars into the U.S. market ultimately led to the Big Three being forced to build better vehicles, but at what price to Detroit, and ultimately the entire region?

[The Homogenizer]

I think all those hypotheticals would be moot if the wealthy of Detroit had assumed their American responsibility to educate the masses.

[Jwo85]

What if UofM's campus stayed in the city?

[zthatzmanz28]

So foreign cars killed Detroit? White-flight? (the city could not function without white folks?) Does anyone wonder WHY these events occurred in the first place? Why were foreign cars such a success? Why did folks flee from the city? Why was CY elected like he was Santy Claus? Why is blight such an issue?

If I shop at an independent grocery and suddenly a Sprawl-Mart opens down the street, I still have a CHOICE where I shop.
It isn't the Sprawl-Mart that is a threat to the grocer, it is my (and the community's) CHOICE that will determine if Sprawl-Mart will be competition for other businesses.

Folks had a choice to buy foreign cars.
They had the choice to flee a crumbling city.
They had a choice to elect competent leaders.
Folks decided to create blight.
Now folks do not want to choose to "correct" the problems their choices have created? Instead they turn to government and stick their hands out wanting a financial fix?
Detroit had the BEST education system in the world in the 1950s and early 1960s. It had the best infrastructure and was indeed the Paris of America. The ONLY reason for Detroit to have declined and continue dying is the spirit of COLEMAN is alive and well in politics and others.
White flight was not an overnight event. The city did not wake up one day and all the white folks were gone..it started in 1967 (probably earlier) and continued through the 1980s. For folks to leave their homes is a tramatic step. But when the home one has spent a life-time in is suddenly worth 10% of what is invested in it, the choice is easier. What happened to all the movers and shakers that lived in Virgina Park and Boston-Edison? Where are all the million-dollar African Americans (and others) living?

I believe that until he ran for mayor, even Bing lived outside the city?

Detroit is a victim of it's own demise, brought about by politicans who made MILLIONS from selling out the birthright of a once great city. Anyone really think Coleman could leave office with MILLIONS of dollars when his salary couldn't even account for fourth of his wealth he accumulated in office??
Coleman took the city's anger and ran with it. Perhaps the anger was directed at the STRESS program? Maybe it was economical? I do belive that of all the WHAT IFS....the one that probably set all this in motion was the dividing of the city with the freeways. The freeways were all placed and used as dividing lines that isolated neighbors from each other, and created walls that were stronger than any wall build along 8 mile and the division still exists today within the city as well as at the physical borders along the burbs. That is the problem with walls and borders. The destruction of Detroit's "black-bottom" was an overt attempt to destroy the cultural identity of the city's African Americans.

The folks on the outside choose not to care and the folks on the inside will not choose to change.

[Remisc]

Originally Posted by zthatzmanz28

I believe that until he ran for mayor, even Bing lived outside the city?

Yes. He lived in Franklin, if I'm not mistaken.

[The Homogenizer]

Originally Posted by zthatzmanz28

The ONLY reason for Detroit to have declined and continue dying is the spirit of COLEMAN is alive and well in politics and others.

What caused that spirit to come into existence and spread and continue to exist today?

[Coldjensens]

In the 1930s or so Detroit was considered one of, or THE, nicest City in the united States. It was often called the Paris of the West. In the 1940s through the 1960s Detroit grew bigger, but not necessarily nicer. It grew too fast, planning was not so great and the car companies encouraged people to move out and drive to the city. Thus, although it continued to grow, it was already in decline from a "niceness" point of view. Then a combination of white flight, flocking to suburbs with the encouragement of automakers, bad leadership, and the general exodus from urban living in the united states helped to seal its fate. THe demise of the auto industry really did nto have that big of an effect. Many people think that the Decay in detroit is is recent thing and related to the failure of the US auto industry. the media loves to play it up that way. Howeve the fact is that Detroit has been emptying out for decades. Much of it (like downtown) is actually nicer now than it was in the 1980s.

Perhaps a more compelling question than "What if. . . ?' is "What next. . .?"

Will Detroit be a pheonix or just a slowly decaying corpse?

[zthatzmanz28]

Originally Posted by The Homogenizer

What caused that spirit to come into existence and spread and continue to exist today?

Answer that and we may know what needs to be done to keep Detroit from extinction...

[The Homogenizer]

Originally Posted by zthatzmanz28

Answer that and we may know what needs to be done to keep Detroit from extinction...

Then, I believe you are committing the fallacy of questionable cause.