Nine reasons why Detroit failed

[beachboy]

Cities do provide some protection in exchange for what they extort.
But to think government planners and do-gooders can create stable neighborhoods is outrageous.
The people who invest in the neighborhoods do.

Ain't that the truth!

As someone who greatly enjoyed and cared about the city, might I share a few thoughts about why Detroit failed? Let's start with a question --- were residents unwilling to invest in their neighborhoods, or was there progressively less ability to do so? Or both?

To try to answer this question, can we consider four processes - the first two, consequences of growth; the last two, results of management: [[1) Infusion, [[2) Perfusion, [[3) Diffusion, and [[4) Confusion ...

Infusion and Perfusion - As the article said, Detroit was a medium-sized Great Lakes port before auto wealth - produced by inventiveness and hard work - infused and perfused the D. This created a wealth gradient that over-drove subsequent processes, masking underlying negative trends. It happened rather quickly - over less than 30 years [[1900-1930) ... the greatest burst of mass wealth creation in our nation's history.

This period of infusion and perfusion has been called Detroit's "golden age". Then the Great Depression hit, and four to eight years of misery followed. After a slow, unsteady recovery, WW2 provided an excuse for great infusion and perfusion of tax money, falsely recharging the D's economic gradient with confiscated wealth. Also, "foreign" labor from the South was infused into, and perfused, the D - tensing up a pre-existing racial gradient. ... sorta like winding up a time bomb...

Diffusion - After WW2, industrial reorganization for domestic production caused migration of technology to the private sector, also migration of people to non-defense workplace clusters that were more distributed geographically. As the article pointed out, the concentrated population [[ref. above), tired of a city infused and perfused with air and water pollution [[natural consequences of industrial production), left the grimy D to claim their American Dream by the slice in suburbia. And, for a little while [[1945 to 1960-something), it worked ... sort of ...

Absent of major natural disasters, the big game-changer in an economy tends to be useful new technology. IMHO, the "beginning of the end" for Detroit came with the infusion of "advanced technology" into auto manufacturing and its dependent sectors, thereby leading to greater automation and increased "productivity". Consequent job losses [[a kind of diffusion of labor) were initially masked somewhat by domestic market growth fueled by the Baby Boomers [[itself, a type of population infusion and diffusion).

Confusion - As Detroit's single-crop economy settled on its laurels, a confused management watched as product quality and [[predictably) market share declined. A confused federal government lowered trade barriers, and the nation was increasingly flooded with artificially cheap imports, further decreasing market share. A confused industrial management cartel struggled to recognize and subvert, then belatedly adapt to, a profusion of social, technological, market, and global economic changes.

A not-so-confused population sensed that their dreams were diffusing [[read: eroding) ... driven by social and economic fears and tensions [[a form of confusion that infused and perfused Detroit society), violence increased. Confused city, county, and state management bureaucracies dithered and wobbled from one trendy slapstick routine to another, stabbing at replays of the "capital infusion" process - floundering with [[increasingly scarce) public money to slap band-aids on the "problems of Detroit". Some of the fixes worked, albeit temporarily; most flopped with a dull, expensive thud while tax revenues further decreased due to more population diffusion.

Emblematic of the template for confusion was the mostly-corrupt Mayor Jerry Cavanaugh's and mostly-well-meaning Gov. George Romney's dithering in late July 1967 as long-simmering economic and racial pressure-gradients [[ref. above) erupted into riots that for various reasons were beyond the scope of local police to control [[not the fault of the police, IMO). State troopers, then the National Guard, were called in, but to insufficient effect. Requesting federal aid, Romney was told by then US Attorney General Ramsey Clark that Federal troops would be supplied only if Gov. Romney would declare a state of "civil insurrection" [[influence of confused interpretations of Posse Comitatus law). Romney, a businessman, would not yield because he feared the effects on insurance payments [[confusion motivated by his fear of the "act of war" escape clause). To his credit, Romney persisted in requesting Federal help. Almost two days after the riot started, President Lyndon Johnson imposed a state of emergency on the D, castigating Romney repeatedly for his indecision. Elements of the 82nd and 101st Army Airborne Divisions, waiting outside the city, entered Detroit, marking what I call the "middle of the end" for the D.

Similar denial, dithering, clabbering about, theft and slapstick attempts at "solutions" cluttered the following years, as the denoument of Detroit's tragedy played out. I lived over 100 miles north of the D - reading, listening, inwardly digesting as many details as I could obtain about the slow-moving catastrophe. For a while, industrial wealth production in the D was sufficient to mask many of the underlying decay until, like the bones of an ageing animal, failure poked through the thinning fat.

Is this the "end of the end", or is worse yet to come?

I'm truly sorry if this ramble has offended anyone. Detroit is a collection of memories that still matters a lot to me. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to share a few of my simple thoughts about it...