Why were the effects from white flight in Detroit so big?

[313Weather]

Originally Posted by green_mariner

I would suspect as much too. Some Blacks Michiganders have also headed for Minnesota.

Originally Posted by ram2

Many also moved to Chicago.

Perhaps, but I still doubt those numbers are very much.

Most of them simply relocated to the inner ring suburbs.

[green_mariner]

Originally Posted by Mr. Joshua

My wife is from Detroit and she said the riots were the tipping point for them.

Detroit had riots. So did Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Portland(yes, Portland), Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Tampa, Buffalo, DC, Omaha. Boston also had a riot.

There were riots all over the nation during that time. However, other cities are not in nearly as dire condition as Detroit.

[just_sayin']

Originally Posted by Sharks With Lasers

Interesting article.

A couple of other ideas that I've had had:

1. Detroit was highly transient. Since the population in 1900 was less than a sixth of its population in 1950, very few of the people living there were multigenerational Detroiters. They were there for work and not much else, so leaving wasn't seen as big of a deal. Places like Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis had much more of a long-term community present than Detroit did. Note: I think this could potentially affect places like Las Vegas in the future if a similar thing were to happen there.

This is a very interesting point you bring up. You are right, Detroit's "heyday" was much, much shorter than the rest of the pre-WWII industrial cities, which were already built-up by the 1920s. The 1920s was when Detroit was just starting to get there. People didn't have as strong "roots" by the 1950s/60s when suburbanization started so they just up and left. This strongly correlates to a retention of white population IMO. Pittsburgh was the earliest of the steel/auto cities to build up the bulk of it's population/infrastructure....and today is still overwhelmingly white. Most families in Pittsburgh city and suburbs have probably had ancestors there since the 1800s.

[ram2]

Originally Posted by just_sayin'

This is a very interesting point you bring up. You are right, Detroit's "heyday" was much, much shorter than the rest of the pre-WWII industrial cities, which were already built-up by the 1920s. The 1920s was when Detroit was just starting to get there. People didn't have as strong "roots" by the 1950s/60s when suburbanization started so they just up and left. This strongly correlates to a retention of white population IMO. Pittsburgh was the earliest of the steel/auto cities to build up the bulk of it's population/infrastructure....and today is still overwhelmingly white. Most families in Pittsburgh city and suburbs have probably had ancestors there since the 1800s.

Jobs for Detroit residents slowly started to dry up immediately after WW2 when factories which were running 24 hours per day to meet war demand suddenly shifted back to civilian production and only 1 or 2 shifts were then needed. Hence jobs slowly left and so did people.