Quote Originally Posted by nain rouge View Post
If deindustrialization was the true reason for Detroit's fall, you would've seen the suburbs fall as well. But Metro Detroit's economic base wasn't destroyed. The wealth just moved to new locations outside the city limits.
Thanks, nain, for bringing this up. The fact of the matter is that, even after 30 years of auto industry shrinkage, the population of metro Detroit [[including St Clair, Lapeer, Livingston, and Washtenaw counties in addition to the traditional big three counties), is up 40% from 1950, which is pretty comparable to metro Philadelphia's 43% growth. By contrast, Detroit proper is at 39% of its 1950 population, while Philly seems to have stabilized at around 73-74%.

I think your posts have outlined a pretty good diagnosis of what went wrong in Detroit that didn't go wrong in, e.g., Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Boston, among the top ten cities of 1950.