Detroit then and now: An infographic.

[AccraGhana]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Not if history is a guide. In the 50s and 60s the big three were making money hand over fist, the industry was booming, wahes skyrocketing, and they had complete command of the North American market. That, however, didn't stop the decline of Detroit.

This is why I noted in that post that people should not attempt to extrapolate based upon past trends. The VA Bill, Superhighways, cheap fuel and racism (manifesting as white flight) led to a massive suburbanization trend starting in the 50’s. Also, families were much larger, more people were married and most people coveted a large lot to raise their family. Things have changed dramatically since those days. Today fewer women are getting married, fewer women (percentage wise) are having children, gas prices are high and going higher, fewer people are as staunchly racist and all across the country empty nesters and young adults without kids are migrating from the suburbs to the cities.

Detroit's population peaked at about 1950 and has fallen constistently ever since including huge decline in the 50s and 60s.

Detroit’s population decline up until the last decade was totally the resultant of white flight. Today however, there are too few whites left in the city to radically destabilize the population as has been the case in previous decades. The African American population peaked circa 2002 at about 800,000. The 2010 census reported that there were only about 600,000 blacks in 2010. I strongly dispute the delta from 2000 to 2010, as noted in a previous thread. Essentially 200,000 blacks left in 7 or 8 years, when in the previous decade the population was increasing. I do not know what the actually numbers are, but I certainly do not agree with the delta. I would say that at the most, 150,000 should be the delta, but likely around 130,000. That said, the black decline that did manifest was mostly result of the housing bubble and fiasco of the previous decade. Without the housing bubble to drive black exodus to the suburbs and without enough whites remaining in the city to make a big difference, the population should stabilize…unless inner-ring suburbs that blacks moved to start experiencing massive white flight and home selling that depresses property values and creates opportunities for Detroiters to move in as renters or home owners.

Even if there is near full emploument that doesn't mean the city will begin to retore it's population growth or end the urban decay and violence. When people are employed in an area with dirt cheap housing they can live wherever they please. Downtown has to offer more than just a shorter commute to get people to move there. It requires a high quality of life where communities are stable, safe, attractive, offer good educational/health/social services. They want to live in places that make them be glad to be home again after a hard day's work..............Detroit does not offer any of these things.

Gentrification has been going on in rough neighborhoods in urban areas all across the country for a long time now. Harlem, Atlanta, DC, Chicago, New York and more have all experienced such. In fact, DC , once called “Chocolate City” may lose that label as gentrification is changing the demographic makeup of that city, which was plagued with crime and violence, poor schools and the like. When Detroit momentum really kicks in…….it’s really going to make a dramatic change. Right now people are not convinced yet that a turnaround is nigh but there are certain business leaders that are making moves that will eventually change that perception. People are kind of sitting on their hands waiting for sure signs before they invest. As every investor knows.....you make your money by being ahead of the curve or getting in on developing trends early....which is also probably the riskiest time because its not a sure thing.

The only thing offers is a good arts and entertainment scene but people can get that by driving downtown when they want to take in a show/game/concert etc. A new streetcar line will not be near enough to entice people to move back and stay in inner city Detroit with other the other infrastructure and liveability that I mentioned.

I can tell you know that people want the URBAN experience. Young people really desire density, public transit, walkable neighborhoods….and some even covet “Grit”. Many young people are attracted to a gritty looking environment as it contrasts greatly with their manicured boring suburban upbringing. I am not making these trends up. You can see it in Portland, Seattle, Boston, Chicago, Philly and many Southern cities trying to create density in their core, like Atlantic Station in Atlanta.

[hudkina]

The numbers are much lower than you might think. The number of city residents employed in suburban automotive jobs is relatively small.

[Chicago103]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

sort of off topic, but in the early part of Beverly Hills Cop there is some good footage of early 80s Detroit, including a badass victorian rowhouse strip behind a meadow. If you have netflix, it's worth watching the first 20 minutes of it just for that street footage (and the awesome car chase/smashup in the streets of Detroit).


http://bluraymedia.ign.com

I just watched Beverly Hills Cop before I read this post! Yeah the opening credits and chase sequence are pretty awesome, probably among the best for Detroit in cinema. Also as rough as Detroit looked in the early 80's I couldn't help but realize how much more vibrant it looked and must have been back then when it had close to 1.2 million people (1980 census pop.), they actually showed some decent street life albeit ghetto life, they even showed some working class/poor whites and made me wonder what kind of white ethnic enclaves still existed at that time. I think there was much less urban prairie back then and it was much more of a normal declining rust belt city, not saying much I know. I mean the city lost 41% of it's population just between 1980-2010. It is pretty sad for a city when you can look back to the early 80's as a relatively prosperous time .

[AccraGhana]

Originally Posted by hudkina

The numbers are much lower than you might think. The number of city residents employed in suburban automotive jobs is relatively small.

Well....given the poverty and unemployment rate in the city....the number employed in any industry is small. That having been said, auto employment feeds the retail industry, the housing industry, the finance industry, the insurance industry, the real estate industry...etc. The spinoff jobs created from good paying auto jobs in the region is great. Thus, a stabilized or growing local auto industry creates all kinds of secondary and tertiary employment in the area that impacts many of the working people of Detroit.

[JonathanGRR]

As others and I have addressed, the auto industry, while still important, is not nearly as important as you make it out to be. When the auto industry grows (as it is doing now), new plants and workers are not going to come to Detroit. Instead, you can see the auto companies investing in already existing plants elsewhere. The automobile industry is more decentralized than it was in the past. This decentralization means that Detroit remains the automobile primarily because the headquarters, not production, of the auto companies are there.

[Chicago103]

Opening credits
• Video Link
Truck chase
• Video Link

[AccraGhana]

Originally Posted by jonathan.jam

As others and I have addressed, the auto industry, while still important, is not nearly as important as you make it out to be. When the auto industry grows (as it is doing now), new plants and workers are not going to come to Detroit. Instead, you can see the auto companies investing in already existing plants elsewhere. The automobile industry is more decentralized than it was in the past. This decentralization means that Detroit remains the automobile primarily because the headquarters, not production, of the auto companies are there.

Its amazing that people say that the auto industry is not all that important......after what happened to Michigan the last decade. Michigan was hurt economically more than any other state precisely due to the major impact the collapsing auto industry has had in the state. Its not as important as it used to be because the last downturn eliminated tens of thousands of jobs in the state.....a turn around would restore a percentage of those jobs and increase the dependency once again.

What I should have said is that the auto industry impacts the fortunes of Detroit. This ideal that Detroiters don't commute is absurd. I know plenty of people who lived in the city and worked at suburban plants or part manufacturers. The majority of African Americans in the region STILL reside in the city of Detroit. They are not all unemployed and many, I dare say most, commute to the suburbs for work. So it really does not matter what area of the metropolitan area the jobs are located if Detroters have access to those jobs.

[animatedmartian]

Oh man, yea, it was a ghetto Detroit but it was a vibrant ghetto. One of my fears is that a Detroit revival will be kind of ... stale and suburbany. Sorta like how old time New Yorkers preferred Times Square when there were hookers and drug dealers.

Also judging by those locations, that chase in real life would have taken at least 10 minutes. Ah, movie magic.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by animatedmartian

Oh man, yea, it was a ghetto Detroit but it was a vibrant ghetto. One of my fears is that a Detroit revival will be kind of ... stale and suburbany. Sorta like how old time New Yorkers preferred Times Square when there were hookers and drug dealers.

Yeah, my fear is that a Detroit "revival" will scrub out that urban Detroit "authenticity". Detroit was ghetto but it wasn't too much different from what New York or Chicago were back then. What's stunning now is how much Detroit's trajectory has diverged away from the trajectories of NYC and Chicago since then.

[Steely Dan]

^ chicago is more like a combo of the other two. detroit-style decay on one side of town, NYC-style gentrification on the other (speaking in gross generalizations, of course).

no city displays both the positive and negative extremes of the american urban spectrum quite as vividly as chicago. a tale of two cities through and through.

[Centropolis]

haha, anyone notice those hoosiers drinking from the bag in the beverly hills cop opening sequence? the white urban redneck used to be a rustbelt staple.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

haha, anyone notice those hoosiers drinking from the bag in the beverly hills cop opening sequence?

except that the word "hoosier" means "a person from indiana" everywhere outside of st. louis. only you guys use the word to describe white trash urban rednecks.

[Chicago103]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

haha, anyone notice those hoosiers drinking from the bag in the beverly hills cop opening sequence? the white urban redneck used to be a rustbelt staple.

That is what I meant by "working class/poor whites" that I mentioned earlier. It makes me wonder what white enclaves still existed in Detroit in the 1980's. That is one thing that is also quite different about the New York City and Chicago of today, both of those cities still have plenty of middle class (or poorer) white neighborhoods, something virtually non-existant in Detroit today, there are yuppies and a small pocket near Hamtramk and maybe a few others. I mean I certainly don't mean this to come off the wrong way but Detroit is one of the least diverse cities in the country, it is just that instead of it being nearly all white it is nearly all black instead, more stable cities have a better mix of races. Chicago has tons of racial segregation but much of it is within city limits and thus the city as a whole is diverse, in the Detroit metro area the same segregation exists except pretty much the entire city is the black ghetto.

[dc_denizen]

My generally sense from reading these posts is that from the riots onwards until around 1990, it was de facto understood that Detroit was to be a black city; people including the leadership of Detroit were ok with racial concentration since it would remove the interracial bickering and source of trouble that lead to the riots. This system basically worked until around NAFTA, when the auto industry (with its concentration of black jobs) really started to be reduced as US auto manufacturers built factories in the South and Mexico, or far outside Detroit proper. This caused the city's crime rate and instability to grow leading to the situation we are in today with the black middle class getting out of Dodge.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Chicago103

That is what I meant by "working class/poor whites" that I mentioned earlier. It makes me wonder what white enclaves still existed in Detroit in the 1980's.

There still are many white rednecks in Southwest Detroit, especially south of Michigan Ave. They dominated that part of Detroit until maybe the mid-90's or so.

Since then, Mexicans have become the predominant group, but there is still a large minority of poor whites. Some blocks are probably still mostly white, especially heading towards the city limits (adjacent to Dearborn and Melvindale).

[hudkina]

You'll be hard-pressed to find them even in Southwest Detroit. That area is completely dominated by Hispanics. Detroit's poor white population can be found in places like Redford, Lincoln Park, Hazel Park, etc. Granted, they have been "tamed" by a generation of living in a relatively clean, safe suburb with fairly good schools.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by hudkina

You'll be hard-pressed to find them even in Southwest Detroit. That area is completely dominated by Hispanics.

I'm too lazy to look up census tract data, but there are definitely lots of white families down there, even today. I would guess that most of those blocks are around 20%-40% white.

We have a close family friend (a Mexican family) down that ways, and I've explored all around there. Lots of "old white man" bars, extended families living in small homes, and the like. I'm talking in particular about the Springwells area, hard by the Woodmere cemetary.

[ChiSoxRox]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I'm too lazy to look up census tract data, but there are definitely lots of white families down there, even today. I would guess that most of those blocks are around 20%-40% white.

We have a close family friend (a Mexican family) down that ways, and I've explored all around there. Lots of "old white man" bars, extended families living in small homes, and the like. I'm talking in particular about the Springwells area, hard by the Woodmere cemetary.

The New York Times maps are perfect for this. Go to View More Maps and select the White Population one (shades of green) and zoom in on Detroit.

Two Census tracts right by Dearborn are in the mid 40s, while the southwest fringe around Springwells and the Delray area are around 20%-25% white. But except for right by Michigan Avenue, the white population is vaporizing, with drops of 40% to 50% since 2000 all across the area.

[animatedmartian]

Southwest Detroit is an interesting area. I've never really been over that way and very rarely had been south of Michigan Avenue. It's like a whole different city to me; there's not many vacant houses, there's actual street life, and there's building signs in different languages. Like woah, an actual city exists here.

[AccraGhana]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

My generally sense from reading these posts is that from the riots onwards until around 1990, it was de facto understood that Detroit was to be a black city; people including the leadership of Detroit were ok with racial concentration since it would remove the interracial bickering and source of trouble that lead to the riots. This system basically worked until around NAFTA, when the auto industry (with its concentration of black jobs) really started to be reduced as US auto manufacturers built factories in the South and Mexico, or far outside Detroit proper. This caused the city's crime rate and instability to grow leading to the situation we are in today with the black middle class getting out of Dodge.

I don’t think I quite follow what you mean when you say that the city leaders were ok with racial concentration and that the city was destined to become a black city. LA had the Watts riot and did not become a black city following that. In fact, even though the Detroit riots happened the year prior, many American cities erupted in riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr and they were not destined to become black cities. Furthermore, it was blacks who were attempting INTEGRATION and fighting against segregation and in favor of busing while many whites were in opposition to such. Thus, I do not think that it is accurate to say that blacks were ok with racial concentration, as much as it was simply something that leadership was resigned to the fact they could not control it. If some whites did not want to live around blacks and they could afford to move black leadership had no choice but to accept it if no laws against discrimination was being broken.

Actually, the 90’s were fairly good for the State of Michigan and Detroit. The state recovered its population loss from the 80’s…..and then some…..reaching just about 10 million residents (actually the state surpassed 10 million in about 2001) and the black population of the city of Detroit increased by about 20,000 during the 90’s. So I do not accept the “NAFTA” theory of decline.

The black Decline in Detroit was mirrored in many cities, including Chicago and Cleveland to name a few. In other words, many cities experienced abnormal changes in its black population in the decade of the 2000’s. Thus, one has to seek a NATIONAL causation and not attempt to find a local causation. When patterns are broken then one has to ask “what changed”. The answer to that question is HOUSING POLICY, MORTGAGE RATES, and LENDING STANDARDS which created a shifting outward from the core as everyone sought to move up in home and move further out and nearly everyone could get financing to do so.

In order for people in homes, say the inner-ring suburbs, to move out further into bigger homes and better communities, they first needed to sell their homes. These homes and better schools were seen as a step up for many black inner-city residents who could now purchase such homes for the first time due to easy credit and the fact that many people in the suburbs were so desperate to sell their homes that traditional racial resistance waned. Hence, it’s my belief that the housing bubble the last decade is the primary culprit of black population decline in many cities and not crime.