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The decline of Detroit refers to the continuing major economic and demographic decline the city of Detroit has gone through in recent decades. The population of the city has fallen from a high of 1,850,000 in 1950 to 710,000 in 2010. Some of the highest crime rates in the United States are now occurring in Detroit, and huge areas of the city are in a state of severe urban decay.

Contributors to decline

The deindustrialization of Detroit has been a major factor in the population decline of the city. It is thought by some, such as economist Walter E. Williams, that the decline was sparked by race-based city policies which caused more affluent whites to leave the city (sometimes known as "White flight"), reducing the tax base, and leading to fewer employment opportunities and customers in the city.

1950s job losses

In the postwar period, the city had lost nearly 150,000 jobs to the suburbs. Factors were a combination of changes in technology, increased automation, consolidation of the auto industry, taxation policies, the need for different kinds of manufacturing space, and the construction of the highway system that eased transportation. Major companies like Packard, Hudson, and Studebaker, as well as hundreds of smaller companies, declined significantly or went out of business entirely. In the 1950s, the unemployment rate hovered near 10 percent.

1967 Detroit riot

The summer of 1967 saw five days of African American riots in Detroit. Over the period of five days, forty-three people died, of whom 33 were black and ten white. There were 467 injured: 182 civilians, 167 Detroit police officers, 83 Detroit firefighters, 17 National Guard troops, 16 State Police officers, 3 U.S. Army soldiers.

2,509 stores looted or burned, 388 families rendered homeless or displaced and 412 buildings burned or damaged enough to be demolished. Dollar losses from arson and looting ranged from $40 million to $80 million.

Economic and social fallout of the 1967 riots

After the riots, thousands of small businesses closed permanently or relocated to safer neighborhoods, and the affected district lay in ruins for decades.

Of the 1967 riots, politician Coleman Young, Detroit's first black mayor, wrote in 1994:

The heaviest casualty, however, was the city. Detroit's losses went a hell of a lot deeper than the immediate toll of lives and buildings. The riot put Detroit on the fast track to economic desolation, mugging the city and making off with incalculable value in jobs, earnings taxes, corporate taxes, retail dollars, sales taxes, mortgages, interest, property taxes, development dollars, investment dollars, tourism dollars, and plain damn money. The money was carried out in the pockets of the businesses and the white people who fled as fast as they could. The white exodus from Detroit had been prodigiously steady prior to the riot, totally twenty-two thousand in 1966, but afterwards it was frantic. In 1967, with less than half the year remaining after the summer explosion—the outward population migration reached sixty-seven thousand. In 1968 the figure hit eighty-thousand, followed by forty-six thousand in 1969.

According to the conservative economist Thomas Sowell (an African American, like Young):

Before the ghetto riot of 1967, Detroit's black population had the highest rate of home-ownership of any black urban population in the country, and their unemployment rate was just 3.4 percent. It was not despair that fueled the riot. It was the riot which marked the beginning of the decline of Detroit to its current state of despair. Detroit's population today is only half of what it once was, and its most productive people have been the ones who fled.

1970s and 1980s

The 1970 census showed that whites still made up a majority of Detroit's population. However, by the 1980 census, whites had fled at such a large rate that the city had gone from 55 percent white to only 34 percent white in a decade.

The departure of middle class whites left blacks in control of a city suffering from an inadequate tax base, too few jobs, and swollen welfare rolls. According to Chafets, "Among the nation’s major cities, Detroit was at or near the top of unemployment, poverty per capita, and infant mortality throughout the 1980s."

Detroit became notorious for violent crime in the 1970s and 1980s. Dozens of violent black street gangs gained control of the city's large drug trade, which began with the heroin epidemic of the 1970s and grew into the larger crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and early 1990s. There were numerous major criminal gangs that were founded in Detroit and dominated the drug trade at various times; most were short-lived. They included The Errol Flynns (east side), Nasty Flynns (later the NF Bangers) and Black Killers and the drug consortiums of the 1980s such as Young Boys Inc., Pony Down, Best Friends, Black Mafia Family and the Chambers Brothers. The Young Boys were innovative, opening franchises in other cities, using youth too young to be prosecuted, promoting brand names, and unleashing extreme brutality to frighten away rivals.

Several times during the 1970s and 1980s Detroit was named the arson capital of America, and repeatedly the murder capital of America. Often Detroit was listed by FBI crime statistics as the "most dangerous city in America" during this time. Crime rates in Detroit peaked in 1991 at more than 2,700 violent crimes per 100,000 people. Population decline left abandoned buildings that have become magnets for drugs, arson, and other crime.

Around Halloween, a traditional day for pranks in late October, Detroit youth went on a rampage called "Devil's Night" in the 1980s. A tradition of light-hearted minor vandalism, such as soaping windows, had emerged in the 1930s, but by the 1980s it had become, said Mayor Young, "a vision from hell."

The arson primarily took place in the inner city, but surrounding suburbs were often affected as well. The crimes became increasingly more destructive. Over 800 fires were set in the peak year 1984, overwhelming the city's fire department. Hundreds of vacant homes across the city were set ablaze by arsonists. The fires continued to happen but the number was sharply reduced by razing thousands of abandoned houses that often were used to sell drugs as well—5000 in 1989-90 alone. Every year the city mobilizes "Angel's Night," with tens of thousands of volunteers patrolling areas at high risk.

Problems

Population decline

Long a major population center, Detroit has been going through a major reduction in population; the city has lost about 60% of its population since the 1950s; only St. Louis, Missouri and Youngstown, Ohio have seen declines of 60% or more within the same time frame, with Youngstown often being compared to Detroit on a much smaller scale due to its own economic problems.

Detroit reached its population peak in the 1950 census at over 1.8 million people, and decreased in population with each subsequent census; as of the 2010 census, the city has just over 700,000 residents, adding up to a total loss of 60% of the population.

A major change in the racial composition of the city also occurred over that same period; from 1950 to 2010 the black/white percentage of population went from 16.2%/83.6% to 82.7%/10.6%. Approximately 1,400,000 of the 1,600,000 white people in Detroit after World War II have left the city, with many going to the suburbs.

Crime

Detroit has serious problems with crime; the crime rate is one of the highest in the United States, with a rate of 62.18 per 1,000 residents for property crimes, and 16.73 per 1,000 for violent crimes (compared to national figures of 32 per 1,000 for property crimes and 5 per 1,000 for violent crime in 2008). Nearly two-thirds of all murders in Michigan in 2008 occurred in Detroit. In 2012 Detroit was the most dangerous city in the United States for the fourth year in a row.

According to a 2007 analysis, Detroit officials noted that about 65 to 70 percent of homicides in the city were drug related. The rate of unsolved murders in the city is at roughly 70%. A Forbes report said that Detroit was the most dangerous city in the United States for the 4th year in a row, citing data from a 2010 survey by the FBI; their findings concluded that the city's metropolitan area had a significant rate of violent crimes: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.

Urban decay

A significant percentage of housing parcels in the city are vacant, with abandoned lots making up more than half of total residential lots in many large portions of the city. With at least 70,000 abandoned buildings, 31,000 empty houses, and 90,000 vacant lots, Detroit has become notorious for its urban blight.

Detroit has been described by some as a ghost town. Parts of the city are so thoroughly abandoned they have been described as looking like farmland or even completely wild.

To attempt to improve stability, there are hopes to concentrate Detroit's remaining population into certain areas to improve the delivery of essential city services which the city has had significant difficulty providing (policing, fire protection, schooling, trash removal, snow removal, lighting, etc).

The average price of homes sold in Detroit in 2012 was $7,500; 47 houses in Detroit were listed for $500 or less, with five properties listed for $1. Despite the extremely low price of Detroit properties, most of the properties have been on the market for more than a year as buyers balk at the boarded up, abandoned houses of Detroit. Detroit’s unpaid property taxes totaled $17.6 million in 2012.

Poor literacy levels

A 2011 report by the Detroit Regional Workforce Fund stated that 47 percent of Detroiters are "functionally illiterate." The Fund’s Director, Karen Tyler-Ruiz, explained how this manifested itself: "Not able to fill out basic forms, for getting a job - those types of basic everyday things. Reading a prescription; what’s on the bottle, how many you should take. Just your basic everyday tasks."

On May 6, 2011, Forbes reported that the Detroit Regional Workforce fund report "contains no research" and that it was unclear where the organization got the 47 percent statistic. The article also stated that the claim that 47% of Detroiters are functionally illiterate "has been a staple of white supremacist Web sites for at least a decade." The magazine went on to say that they believe the source of the 47% claim is based on a single estimate in one 1998 computerized extrapolation that is based on data from a 1993 national survey which "did not include statistics at the municipal level."

On April 25, 2012, in the Metro Times, Danny Devries, a data analyst at Data Driven Detroit (D3), said: "Dissecting the origin of this statistic is more about the poor data literacy of some of our news agencies than it is about Detroit's literacy rates,"

According to a recent detailed report by the Hudson-Webber Foundation, Detroit’s greater downtown—which includes the central business district, Corktown, Mies van der Rohe’s Lafayette Park, Wayne State University, and the Cass Corridor, with its cluster of arts and cultural institutions—is more affluent, more diverse, and more educated than the city as a whole. Within the district’s 7.2 square miles (18.6 sq km) live 36,550 people, resulting in a density exceeding 5,000 per square mile (1,955 per sq m). College-educated residents age 25 to 34 make up 8 percent of the population of greater downtown compared with just 1 percent for the city as a whole, 3 percent for the state of Michigan, and 4 percent for the nation. More than 42 percent of young adults in greater downtown are college educated, compared with 11 percent for the city, 29 percent for the state, and 31 percent for the nation.

City finances

On March 1, 2013, Governor Rick Snyder announced the state was taking over the financial control of the city from the local government. The state is requesting a review team to look over the financial state of the city and determine if an emergency manager is needed to take over control of city spending from city council.

On March 14, 2013, Michigan's Local Emergency Financial Assistance Loan Board (ELB) appointed an emergency financial manager, Kevyn Orr, effective on March 25, 2013. In mid-May 2013, Orr released his first report on Detroit’s finances since he took the job. The results were generally negative regarding Detroit’s financial health. The report said that Detroit is "clearly insolvent on a cash flow basis." The report said that Detroit will finish its current budget year with a $162 million cash-flow shortfall and that the projected budget deficit is expected to reach $386 million in less than two months. The report said that costs for retiree benefits are eating up a third of Detroit’s budget and that public services are suffering as Detroit's revenues and population shrink each year. The report wasn't intended to offer a complete blueprint for Orr's plans for fixing the crisis; more details about those plans are expected to emerge within a few months.

On July 18, 2013, Detroit filed for bankruptcy, the largest U.S. city ever to do so.

See also

• Shrinking cities in the United States
• Flint, Michigan
• RoboCop
• Detropia (2010 film about Detroit)

Unions:

• United Auto Workers
• Reuther's Treaty of Detroit
• Final Offer

References

1. Hardesty, Nicole (March 23, 2011). "Haunting Images Of Detroit's Decline (Photos)". The Huffington Post. Retrieved February 10, 2013.
2. Williams, Walter (December 18, 2012). "Detroit's Tragic Decline Is Largely Due To Its Own Race-Based Policies". Investor's Business Daily. Retrieved February 10, 2013.
3. ^ Sowell, Thomas (2011-03-29) Voting With Their Feet, LewRockwell.com
4. ^ Young, Coleman. Hard Stuff: The Autobiography of Mayor Coleman Young: p.179.
5. "Michigan State Insurance Commission estimate of December, 1967, quoted in the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders AKA Kerner Report". 1968-02-09. Archived from the original on June 5, 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-24. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
6. Sidney Fine, Violence in the Model City: The Cavanaugh Administration, Race Relations, and the Detroit Riot of 1967 (1989)
7. Heather Ann Thompson, "Rethinking the politics of white flight in the postwar city," Journal of Urban History (1999) 25#2 pp 163-98 online
8. Z’ev Chafets, "The Tragedy of Detroit," New York Times Magazine July 29, 1990, p 23, reprinted in Chafets, Devil's Night: And Other True Tales of Detroit (1991).
9. Carl S. Taylor (1993). Girls, gangs, women, and drugs. Michigan State University Press. p. 44.
10. Ron Chepesiuk (1999). The War on Drugs: An International Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 269.
11. Wayne University Center for Urban Studies, October 2005
12. Coleman Young and Lonnie Wheeler, Hard Stuff: The Autobiography of Mayor Coleman Young (1994) p 282
13. Nicholas Rogers (2002). Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night. Oxford University Press. pp. 98–102.
14. Zev Chafets, Devil's Night and Other True Tales of Detroit (1990) ch 1
15. Angelova, Kamelia (October 2, 2012). "Bleak Photos Capture The Fall Of Detroit". Business Insider. Retrieved February 10, 2013.
16. Downsizing Detroit: Youngstown 2010 may foreshadow Detroit circa 2020. MLive.com. Retrieved on 2010-12-23.
17. Seelye, Katherine Q. (March 22, 2011). "Detroit Census Confirms a Desertion Like No Other". The New York Times. Retrieved March 23, 2011.
18. "Derelict Detroit: Gloomy pictures chart the 25-year decline of America's Motor City". Daily Mail. October 1, 2012. Retrieved February 10, 2013.
19. Johnson, Richard (February 1, 2013). "Graphic: Detroit Then and Now". National Post. Retrieved April 1, 2013.
20. ^ Eagleton, Terry (July 2007). "Detroit Arcadia". Harpers.org. Retrieved April 1, 2013.
21. "Detroit crime rates and statistics". Neighborhood Scout. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
22. "Offenses Known to Law Enforcement by State by City, 2008". Fbi.gov. 2009. Retrieved 2013-02-06.
23. Fisher, Daniel (October 18, 2012). "Detroit Tops The 2012 List Of America's Most Dangerous Cities". Forbes. Retrieved April 1, 2013.
24. Shelton, Steve Malik (January 30, 2008). "Top cop urges vigilance against crime". Michigan Chronicle. Archived from the original on 2008-08-02. Retrieved March 31, 2013.
25. Huey, John (Sept. 24, 2009). "Assignment Detroit: Why Time Inc. Is in Motown". Time.com. Retrieved 2012-12-09. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
26. "Detroit is "Most Dangerous City in America" for fourth year in a row, Forbes report says". CBS News. October 22, 2012. Retrieved April 1, 2013.
27. "Detroit Residential Parcel Survey" (PDF). Detroit Residential Parcel Survey. February 2010. p. 26. Retrieved April 1, 2013.
28. Binelli, Mark (2012-11-09). "How Detroit Became the World Capital of Staring at Abandoned Old Buildings". The New York Times.
29. ^ Brook, Pete (2012-01-29). "Captivating Photos of Detroit Delve Deep to Reveal a Beautiful, Struggling City". Wired.
30. ^ Koremans, Sonja (January 22, 2013). "Homes still selling for $1 in Detroit". The Courier-Mail. Retrieved April 1, 2013.
31. ^ "Report: Nearly Half Of Detroiters Can't Read". CBS Detroit. May 4, 2011. Retrieved April 1, 2013.
32. Detroit Literacy Numbers Questionable - Forbes
33. Numbers games - Columns - Detroit Metro Times
34. http://urbanland.uli.org/Articles/2013/Apr/FloridaDividedCity
35. ^ "Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder takes over Detroit's finances amid financial emergency". CTV News. February 20, 2013. Retrieved April 1, 2013.
36. "Snyder confirms financial emergency in Detroit, turnaround expert Kevyn Orr appointed EFM". michigan.gov. March 14, 2013. Retrieved April 3, 2013.
37. ^ "Report by emergency manager says Detroit's finances are crumbling, future is bleak". Fox News. May 13, 2013. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
38. ^ Helms, Matt; Guillen, Joe (May 13, 2013). "Financial manager: Detroit 'dysfunctional, wasteful'". USA Today. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
39. "Detroit 'clearly insolvent', says emergency manager". BBC. May 13, 2013. Retrieved May 15, 2013.
40. "Detroit files for bankruptcy protection". USA Today. July 18, 2013. Retrieved July 18, 2013. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)

• Urban decay in the United States
• History of Detroit, Michigan
• Economy of Detroit, Michigan