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| By the mid '60s Detroit's dreams were already disintegrating into rubble. |
The United States, the self-proclaimed greatest nation on earth, has a problem, and that problem is Detroit. American mythology is thrown into question by a city like Detroit: segregated, demoralized, bankrupt. Just a half century ago a mostly white workforce was earning possibly the highest average pay in the nation. In today's black Detroit more than a third of Detroiters are living below the poverty line.
At the core of Detroit's fall is the cancer of racism. Read what Emilio DeGrazia had to say in his piece published in the Twin Cities Daily Planet: Our American nightmare.
"Nobody wants to hear anyone explain Detroit’s problems in terms of race. If black Detroiters fail, it’s all their own fault, and they’re just playing out their victim roles when they ask for help. If they can’t succeed at the American Dream, they’re not good enough.
"The American Dream has a tragic flaw that has made a nightmare of Detroit. Central to this American Dream narrative we are routinely fed at school, at work, and through the media is that America is the land of boundless opportunity. We keep repeating the myth that everyone can succeed here if they work hard enough. That they can do it on their own. That losers are losers because they’re little engines that didn’t try hard enough.
"Tell that silly tale . . . to an unemployed father whose unemployed son wanders the streets, angry and depressed. . . . Tell it to the thousands of Detroiters who don’t go to doctors because they have no health insurance . . .
"Tell them with a straight face that they’ll succeed if they try harder . . . That we all should be hard-working little engines is a nice idea, necessary for teachers and parents to repeat as they try to inspire individuals to live up to their potential . . . But it is not a credible groundwork for public discourse or public policy."
Yes, Detroit is a failed black city. But why is it black and why has it failed?
The answer to the first question is simple: White flight. Whites fled the inner city as blacks burst out of the traditional black ghetto districts.
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| Black neighbourhoods are blue. Note overlap with Detroit city boundaries. |
Examine the map of the Detroit region done by Eric Fischer. The blue represents black residents. Note how the black neighborhoods stop abruptly at the border between Detroit and its surrounding suburbs. The sharp division along Eight Mile Avenue didn't just happen but reflects a historic separation reminiscent of past South Africa apartheid.
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| The wall separating black and white neighborhoods still stands. |
The black neighborhoods were redlined, getting a bank mortgage was difficult if not impossible for the residents. A wall was built in north Detroit to make it clear to the banks and others that the suburb was serious about enforcing segregation. This kept the suburb free of blacks and free of redlining.
No one stated the position of white suburbanites better than Orville Hubbard who was the mayor of Dearborn from 1942 until 1978. The rotund bigot said: "Housing the Negroes is Detroit's problem. When you remove garbage from your backyard, you don't dump it in your neighbor's."
"I'm not a racist," Hubbard once protested, "but I just hate those black bastards." Blacks did not make a decision to "keep to themselves" as some argue. Blacks were refused admittance to suburbia. Blacks were trapped in the Detroit ghettos of Black Bottom and Paradise Valley where they had been kept contained for a hundred years.
Media pundits often refer to the 1967 riot as the fuse that ignited white flight. The riot of 1943 is rarely mentioned. Nor is the riot of 1863. Nor the riots in between. But then the previous riots tended to be white riots, not black ones.
In truth, white flight kicked into high gear in 1950. At that time integration was becoming the goal; de facto segregation was to be the reality.
De facto racial segregation in the U.S.during the '50s and '60s was enforced not by Jim Crow laws as in the past but by tradition and by using market forces to halt the movement of blacks into all white neighborhoods.
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| Littlefield Street in Detroit. |
White flight is not something new that came into being after the riots in '67. White flight was well underway when I was a young boy in the '50s. At that time Detroit's population peaked at 1.85 million. By 1960, a decade later, the population had fallen to 1.67 million despite, or more likely because, approximately 200,000 blacks had migrated to Detroit from the South. According to a Rutgers website, the percentage of whites in the population fell about 23 percent in those ten years.
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| I walked by these in the '60s while studying in Detroit. |
After the 1967 riot whites went into full flight mode. 80,000 to 100,000 white residents fled the city annually in the years immediately following the riot.
I saw the results of the race to the city exits unfold on Littlefield St. near Outer Drive. A white, '40s neighborhood flipped from totally white to almost totally black in just a few short years following the '67 riot.
I knew an accountant living on Littlefield. He and his wife bought their home new and it was in this home that they had raised their family. It was a good place to live. When the first blacks moved in housing values dipped. My friends did not move but many of their neighbors were frightened. They rushed to be first to put a "For Sale" sign on their lawns. House prices plummeted.
This was a financial disaster not just for the whites who remained but for the first blacks who had moved into the neighborhood. With home values plummeting, homes became rental units, often divided in order to hold more than one family. Today there are almost no whites in the area and the original block-busting blacks have also deserted the neighborhood. It is a story with no winners.
For more on this, read A House Divided in Washington Monthly by Thomas J. Sugrue. The University of Pennsylvania professor explains why middle-class blacks have far less wealth than whites at the same income level. He finds the answer in real estate and history.
At this point it is important to note that even though racism accentuated Detroit's fall, Detroit was already a city in trouble. Like so many other cities with rich, prosperous pasts, Detroit was taken down by:
- outsourcing
- obsolete technologies
- bad business decisions
- business mergers
- automation
- offshoring
The pundits tell good stories but for one problem; the stories aren't true. The so called bailout of Detroit prevented the closure of numerous auto plants across the United States; It did not save the City of Detroit — nor was that the intention. Car building and Motown have not been close for years. The marriage was dissolved decades ago.
Ford, one of the Big Three, hasn't built a car in Detroit since 1910 when production of the Model T moved to Highland Park to avoid paying Detroit's high city taxes. Interesting fact: It was Highland Park where Ford introduced the moving assembly line — that's right, the moving assembly line was not a Motor City first.
Most of the car companies that gave Detroit its well known moniker, companies like Packard, Hudson, Essex, Hupmobile or even the Abbott Motor Car Company, are gone. The remaining Big Three have dispersed across the States, Canada, Mexico and the world. Very few cars are made today within the border of Detroit.
Consider Packard: When Packard closed its Detroit operation in 1957 it closed an industrial complex occupying 3.5 million square feet of space spread out among 47 buildings. At its peak the plant employed over 40,000 workers on a site spanning 35 acres. That plant, possible the largest abandoned factory in the world, has now stood almost empty for more than half a century.
Detroit may be called the Motor City today but once it was The Stove Capital of the World. The Detroit Stove Works, was the largest stove plant in the world consisting of 23 buildings in 1948. It closed in 1957.
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| Detroit was once The Stove Capital of the World, not Motor City. |
Detroit could just as well have been known for rail cars. At one point it was the largest maker of rail cars in the country. The first refrigerator car was produced in Detroit, an invention of Detroiter William Davis.
Are you still not convinced Detroit made a lot more than automobiles? Think beer, think Stroh's, Pfeiffer, Goebel, Schmidt. Think of medical research, think Parke-Davis, once America's oldest and largest drug maker. Think tobacco products, think Globe Tobacco, J. Mazer, Central Cigar Co., John J. Bagley & Co. Tobacco, Lilies Cigar Co., General Cigar Co. . . Think soft drinks, think Faygo, Vernor's. Think appliances, think Eureka vacuums. The list just goes on and on.
Back to the list detailing how communities commonly lose employers: outsourcing, obsolete technologies, business mergers, automation, offshoring and just plain bad business decisions. These companies, big Detroit employers, all fell victim to one or more items in that list. Take Parke-Davis, it was acquired by Warner-Lambert in 1970 and soon the move to Ann Arbour was underway. Over time the 26 building medical research campus was but a memory.
Many cities have suffered far less that Detroit from the loss of the communities traditional businesses. The ones that have suffered the most, like Detroit, almost invariably also have race problems. Without white flight and de facto segregation, the Paris of the Midwest might have built on it heritage. Instead, Detroit was forced to desert its past to embrace a questionable future.
A bit of background for those who are interested
The ghetto known as Black Bottom earned its nickname during the early days of Detroit. French farmers staked out the area because of its rich, black, loamy soil, which was excellent for farming. The district became known as Black Bottom. When Blacks migrating North in the 1900s were herded into the neighborhood, the name took on a new connotation.
Not to glamorize either Black Bottom or Paradise Valley, it must be said that the black ghettos in Detroit were moderately successful. With many of the residents holding jobs, admittedly menial, in local factories or working as railroad porters or other such jobs, the black businesses were profitable.
At night the ghetto came alive with cocktail lounges, dance halls, show bars and restaurants all featuring sultry singers and jazz and blues artists. Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Fats Waller, Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong among others appeared in Detroit black clubs.
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Outside the ghetto, Detroit blacks encountered open discrimination on
the factory floor and even in the union hall. White homeowners formed
citizen groups enforcing invisible residential color lines and in one
case a not so invisible line.
A half mile long concrete wall was built in 1941 to separate black and white neighborhoods on the northern border of Detroit — a concrete color bar.
The wall is just one example of Detroit's historical divisions. In the 1950s and '60s, as more and more employment moved from the actual city of Detroit to the suburbs, the majority of white families followed but discriminatory practices blocked that option for black families. As a result, Detroit got poorer and blacker, while the suburbs got richer and whiter.
If you were black, Detroit could be a downright nasty place. Citizen vigilantes burned crosses on the lawns of blacks, at certain times the Klu Klux Klan found a following and financial and municipal powers redlined entire neighborhoods. Detroit was an example of apartheid in action.
From: The Second Great Migration
A half mile long concrete wall was built in 1941 to separate black and white neighborhoods on the northern border of Detroit — a concrete color bar.
The wall is just one example of Detroit's historical divisions. In the 1950s and '60s, as more and more employment moved from the actual city of Detroit to the suburbs, the majority of white families followed but discriminatory practices blocked that option for black families. As a result, Detroit got poorer and blacker, while the suburbs got richer and whiter.
If you were black, Detroit could be a downright nasty place. Citizen vigilantes burned crosses on the lawns of blacks, at certain times the Klu Klux Klan found a following and financial and municipal powers redlined entire neighborhoods. Detroit was an example of apartheid in action.
"In a very brief time, the now-familiar image of a black inner-city core surrounded by a white suburban ring emerged as the dominant pattern of American life. Thus did the "ghetto" become dominant in scholarly and creative literature by the 1960s. The term "inner city" became a virtual synonym for black people."
Sites consulted in writing this post:
A Life Beyond Imagination
American Axle
Anarchy at the Algiers
At Detroit Net
Automobile in American Life and Society
Autos troubles, race at root of Detroit collapse
Before the Riot
Big Maceo
Blackbottom - great diagram and more
Blackbottom
Black History
Black History in Detroit: Sojourner Truth Housing Project Riots
BluesReviews - best using Google and translating from Italian
Bob-Lo
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Chrysler Corp. Factories
Counter-Planning on the Shop floor
Detroit's Black Bottom and Paradise Valley Neighborhoods
Detroit: Blood that never dried
Defunct Car Companies
Detroit: Creative Economy
Detroit’s History of Housing and Race
Detroit Industrial Sites
Detroit Stories
Detroit: The Left’s Model for Success
Detroit: Disappearing City
Economy - Metro Detroit Area
Economic Undertow
1863 Riot
GM Poletown hiring will bring extra revenue for city
Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record
Historic John R Brownstones
How Did Detroit Become Motor City?
How highways and riots shaped Detroit and Chicago
How the Democrats Destroyed Detroit
Impact of the Detroit Riot of 1967
James D. Griffioen
Jobs aren't there (scientists)
Julie Fournier Site
Kercheval: It will become you
Ladera Heights California
Ladera Heights LA United States of America
Latino Gangs Launch Attacks on Black Families in Compton to Drive Them Out of the City
League of Revolutionary Black Workers: A Historical Study
Mark Bourrie: The beginning of Detroit’s end
Mass Incarceration and Postwar American History
More About Detroit
Motor City is Burning
Motor City Garage
Motor City Revived as Detroit Withers to Motown Shadow
My Hometown: What Detroit's Demise Says About America
Narratives from the riot of 1863
New York NY Age 1943-1945 - Fulton History
1943 - A race riot there will be
1943 Detroit race riots
Not Now Silly: The Detroit Riots
Office and Commercial Space in Detroit
Orville Hubbard -- the ghost who still haunts Dearborn
Our American nightmare: Detroi
Paradise Lost
Paradise Valley
Parke Davis (Detroit)
Race 2 Equity
Regional Economy - Detroit Metro Area
Research Report
Rise and Fall of Jim Crow
Rotary Multiforms Inc.
Russell Industrial Complex
Rutgers: The Detroit Riots of 1967
Second Great Migration
Sojourner Truth Housing Project Detroit
Southern Poverty Law Center
Summer of '43
Sweet Juniper
Today's Detroit Has Little To Do With 1967
Tumblr Detroit Image
Urban Renewal in Detroit
We saved the automakers. How come that didn’t save Detroit?
White Flight and Detroit
Whose Detroit? A City's Upheaval Whose Detroit
World Famous Stonehouse Bar
Lastly I found some interesting comments made by someone going by the online name of DemandSider. The comment was concerning the buyout of the Big Three.
DemandSider
Germany: The German state (GOVERNMENT) of Lower Saxony owns 20% of the stock (they also own Porsche)
Japan: You don’t think the GOVERNMENT of a city named TOYOTA CITY (yes, corporate headquarters) fights like hell to ensure the company’s survival???
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota,_Aichi
South Korea: There are almost 300 state-run companies, institutions and quasi-sovereign enterprises as of the first half of 2013.” (Including steel and banking)
http://www.asianewsnet.net/S-Korea-to-overhaul-monitoring-of-state-enterprise-48977.html
China: (Get a load of this; Small government my arse! And, yes, ALL major car manufacturers in China are GOVERNMENT owned. Wall Street brands simply “partner” with them)
Home > useful links > Central SOEs
1 China National Nuclear Corporation
2 China Nuclear Engineering Group Corporation
3 China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation
4 China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation
5 Aviation Industry Corporation of China
6 China State Shipbuilding Corporation
7 China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation
8 China North Industries Group Corporation
9 China South Industries Group Corporation
10 China Electronics Technology Group Corporation
11 China National Petroleum Corporation
12 China Petrochemical Corporation
13 China National Offshore Oil Corporation
14 State Grid Corporation of China
15 China Southern Power Grid Co., Ltd.
16 China Huaneng Group
17 China Datang Corporation
18 China Huadian Corporation
19 China Guodian Corporation
20 China Power Investment Corporation
21 China Three Gorges Corporation
22 Shenhua Group Corporation Limited
23 China Telecommunications Corporation
24 China United Network Communications Group Co., Ltd.
25 China Mobile Communications Corporation
26 China Electronics Corporation
27 China FAW Group Corporation
28 Dongfeng Motor Corporation
29 China First Heavy Industries
30 China National Erzhong Group Co.
31 Harbin Electric Corporation
32 Dongfang Electric Corporation
33 Anshan Iron and Steel Group Corporation
34 Baosteel Group Corporation
35 Wuhan Iron and Steel (Group) Corporation
36 Aluminum Corporation of China
37 China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company
38 China Shipping (Group) Company
39 China National Aviation Holding Company
40 China Eastern Air Holding Company
41 China Southern Air Holding Company
42 Sinochem Group
43 COFCO Limited
44 China Minmetals Corporation
45 China General Technology (Group) Holding, Limited
46 China State Construction Engineering Corporation
47 China Grain Reserves Corporation
48 State Development & Investment Corp.
49 China Merchants Group
50 China Resources
51 China National Travel Service (HK) Group Corporation [China Travel Service (Holdings) Hong Kong Limited]
52 State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation Ltd.
53 Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd.
54 China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group
55 China International Engineering Consulting Corporation
56 China Huafu Trade & Development Group Corp.
57 China Chengtong Holdings Group Ltd.
58 China National Coal Group Corp.
59 China Coal Technology & Engineering Group Corp.
60 China National Machinery Industry Corporation
61 China Academy of Machinery Science & Technology
62 Sinosteel Corporation
63 China Metallurgical Group Corporation
64 China Iron & Steel Research Institute Group
65 China National Chemical Corporation
66 China National Chemical Engineering Group Corporation
67 Sinolight Corporation
68 China National Arts & Crafts (Group) Corporation
69 China National Salt Industry Corporation
70 Huacheng Investment & Management Co., Ltd.
71 China Hengtian Group Co., Ltd.
72 China National Materials Group Corporation Ltd.
73 China National Building Materials Group Corporation
74 China Nonferrous Metal Mining (Group) Co., Ltd.
75 General Research Institute for Nonferrous Metals
76 Beijing General Research Institute of Mining & Metallurgy
77 China International Intellectech Corporation
78 China Academy of Building Research
79 China North Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry (Group) Corporation
80 China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corporation Limited
81 China Railway Signal & Communication Corporation
82 China Railway Group Limited
83 China Railway Construction Corporation Limited
84 China Communications Construction Company Limited
85 Potevio Company Limited
86 China Academy of Telecommunication and Technology
87 China National Agricultural Development Group Co., Ltd.
88 Chinatex Corporation
89 Sinotrans & CSC Holdings Co., Ltd.
90 China National Silk Import & Export Corporation
91 China Forestry Group Corporation
92 China National Pharmaceutical Group Corporation
93 CITS Group Corporation
94 China Poly Group Corporation
95 Zhuhai ZhenRong Company
96 China Architecture Design & Research Group
97 China Metallurgical Geology Bureau
98 China National Administration of Coal Geology
99 Xinxing Cathay International Group Co., Ltd.
100 China Travelsky Holding Company
101 China National Aviation Fuel Group Corporation
102 China Aviation Supplies Holding Company
103 Power Construction Corporation of China
104 China Energy Engineering Group Co., Ltd
105 China National Gold Group Corporation
106 China National Cotton Reserves Corporation
107 China Printing (Group) Corporation
108 China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Corporation Ltd.
109 China Hualu Group Co., Ltd.
110 Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell Co., Ltd.
111 IRICO Group Corporation
112 Wuhan Research Institute of Post and Telecommunications
113 OCT Group
114 Nam Kwong (Group) Company Limited
115 China XD Group
116 China Railway Materials Commercial Corp.
117 China Reform Holdings Corporation Ltd.
" . . . by the way. What do you think of BMW and Lexus and all Korean cars imported from South Korea? They ALL use union labor. They all also run trade surpluses with China. Weird, huh?"