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There are many books written about this subject, so explaining it in a post is not really going to cover it. Nonetheless, many posters have offered good reasons why Detroit went into such steep decline in the late 60's. And white flight was only one of those reasons, even if it was a very important one.
A big part of the problem was the scale of Detroit's riots after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Many blocks in the central part of the city were burned to the ground, the National Guard was called in, and it increased racial tensions in the city tremendously. With that kind of polarization, it is easy to see how race riots led many people to leave the city. It's hard for these of us who did not live through this period to understand how racially polarized American society was, and how racially divided its cities were. White families needed to feel like they were dominant in their neighbourhood, and many would eagerly move if they felt the area was becoming too mixed. After the race riots, things simply spiralled - Detroit took one blow after another, leading to most of its white population leaving and taking their tax dollars with them.
Here's a link to Wikipedia's article about Detroit's decline:
If you are interested in reading more about how the city went from being one of the largest and most powerful in the nation to being a symbol of all that went wrong in America's cities in the latter part of the last century, I would take a closer look at the bibliography at the bottom of the Wikipedia link I gave you for links and book titles. A Google search would also surely yield results on Amazon for books that discuss Detroit's decline specifically (like I said earlier, I'm sure there are many of them out there). One book that recently received a lot of attention was written by a former New York Times reporter who decamped to Detroit to work the beat for the Detroit News, and wrote a book about his experiences. It has a lot of contemporary anecdotes about his experiences working as a street-level reporter in Detroit mixed with historical information about how Detroit became so troubled a city. Here's a link the Times' review:
3. I'm a bit worried that Detroit is going to cease being functional. They could get away with the huge losses when the population was around 900,000 because that's still pretty big. The population has dropped to 700,000 now, and most likely continues to fall. I think that signs of this real distress are starting to show up. If the population got below 500,000, I wonder what things would be like for the entire region.
Yea, Detroit is teetering on bankruptcy right now. Hypothetically, all the things that actually make Detroit a major city worth visiting (or even living in) could be up for grabs in a possible bankruptcy.
It's like, Detroit could sell the Detroit Institute of Arts and survive (in reality, the debt is far higher than just the worth of the DIA alone), but of course the DIA gets something like 450,000 to 500,000 annual visitors a year. Would the short-term gain be worth the long-term loss? Would a Detroit without any cultural amenities really be any more attractive? Even if it meant solving the city's financial crisis and hopefully putting more money into city services? It's basically like watching a big city shrink into a small town (or worse, a Sun Belt city)(ba-dum-tssss).
As for the metropolitan region as a whole... it'll either affect it a little bit or affect it not at all. The concentration of wealth is already located in the northwestern suburbs and, on the surface, it seems like the suburbs could survive without the city. Of course, the problem that leaves is that Metro Detroit won't be able to offer a big city lifestyle (sorta true already). Yet in a seemingly suburban-driven country, how big of a problem is that really? It'd truly be an interesting dichotomy.
As whites were fleeing Mayor Coleman Young gladly gave them an extra shove. A race baitor and demagogue who appealed to the worst instincts and prejudices of his own supporters instead of trying to bridge gaps and an unwillingness to work across racial lines. That added to the other woes mentioned in the thread.
I have to second this. I also read this book and it is indeed excellent.
But I would also suggest to read Thomas' book together with The Orgins of the Urban Crisis by Thomas Sugrue. Sugrues book is another execellent discussion of the topic.
Detroit had bussing, yes, but so did Dayton and Cleveland, and they never were totally deserted by the white population to the extent Detroit was. I think the difference was that there where natural geographic boundaries within these Ohio cities (mainly rivers and river valleys) that resutetd in the racial expansion being channeled more, and white areas being more easily defined and defended..
Then, also, in Daytons case, the black expansion stopped or slowed in the city and went out to certain suburban areas....so now you'll find the racial composition mostly black on entire sides of the metro area, from the inner city ghetto, through the postwar suburbia, out into open country (with blacks owning small farms and bits of acerage).
Which resulted in Dayton still being about 1/2 white.
Now the white people who have remained in Dayton are a sort of blue collar to underclass population, which gives this city an odd distinction have having the central city still being a big, semi-abandoned poverty hole, but equal amounts of poor and working poor whites as blacks.
In Detroit not sure this happened. It might have been that way in that Springwells area along the river south & west of dowtown towards Dearborn and River Rouge, a white enclave.... but I think Sprignwells is the latino area now?
We've seen that white flight happened in a lot of US Cities, and it had its effects. Why were the effects so much bigger from white flight in Detroit?
My theory: People who can't afford to live there, leave. People who want to raise their children in a more family-friendly environment leave. That leaves the people on government handouts, very wealthy people, and 20 something year old singles who see their just got out of college job opportunities in large cities as the primary make up of large cities. I don't think it's a color thing anymore. If you think it is, I'd like to know the percentage of each race that leaves. In other words, I think a black middle class or black upper class family leave, too, so their dollars go further and their children have better enviroment in which to prosper.
I think it IS a race thing because Detroit is over 80% black, which is not only the highest for any major American city, but Detroit also happens to be squarely in the North, and not in the Deep South where black folks live much more randomly scattered. Detroit (metro) is also fairly diverse, so it's not like it's black or white or bust. There is a huge concentration of black poverty in Detroit for a good reason, and I think it's an excellent question and talking point.
I think it IS a race thing because Detroit is over 80% black, which is not only the highest for any major American city, but Detroit also happens to be squarely in the North, and not in the Deep South where black folks live much more randomly scattered. Detroit (metro) is also fairly diverse, so it's not like it's black or white or bust. There is a huge concentration of black poverty in Detroit for a good reason, and I think it's an excellent question and talking point.
Middle class Blacks have basically left Detroit in large numbers. A better question is this: Why aren't the poor leaving? This is a poverty problem as well. Blacks have always been poorer than anyone else in Detroit.
I think it IS a race thing because Detroit is over 80% black, which is not only the highest for any major American city, but Detroit also happens to be squarely in the North, and not in the Deep South where black folks live much more randomly scattered. Detroit (metro) is also fairly diverse, so it's not like it's black or white or bust. There is a huge concentration of black poverty in Detroit for a good reason, and I think it's an excellent question and talking point.
I bet you middle-high class blacks are leaving in droves......they want good schools and a good cost of living too.....
Middle class Blacks have basically left Detroit in large numbers. A better question is this: Why aren't the poor leaving? This is a poverty problem as well. Blacks have always been poorer than anyone else in Detroit.
One of two reasons:
1) They're too poor to move to a better neighborhood or suburb given that the price of real estate increases the farther from Detroit you go. Plus with the decentralization of jobs and lack of mass transit outside of the city, getting out of poverty is even more of a struggle than maybe compared to other metros.
2) There's no point in them moving because they might be elderly, retired, and/or have no desire to move or have a strong attachment to their place.
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