To understand how we got to where we are, you need to look at both the residential and industrial land use patterns that developed in Detroit over time. In the 1800s, industrial land uses originally were located on small individual parcels along the railroads and down by the river and wherever a landowner pleased - often in close quarters with nicer residential areas. As a result, when Detroit exploded as a manufacturing center in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the new industrial area leapfrogged the outer residential areas and located along the railroad belt line. The areas beyond the manufacturing/railroad beltway were eventually developed as residential in the 1920s, although in some areas it took 20+ years before the subdivisions were completely built-out. Therefore, when the next wave of industrial expansion to the north took place beginning in the late 1930s, it followed the railroads that paralleled Woodward, Mound and Groesbeck into Oakland and Macomb Counties.
There was no interest in tearing down existing industrial buildings to build new ones in their place because a) it was cheaper to build a greenfield plant, b) sometimes, their existing buildings were needed to continue making products until the new replacement products coming out of the new plants were available, c) the existing building could then always be repurposed for something else like warehousing.
In regards to the Chrysler Stamping plant at Nine Mile and Mound Roads, it was just one part of a 140 acre manufacturing complex that Chrysler built alongside the Michigan Central rail line to stamp and subassemble truck bodies on the same site as the painting and final assembly of the completed trucks. Chrysler was attempting to emulate the Ford Rouge operations so they could remain competitive through better logistics and lower costs.
There was even a Jones and Laughlin steel mill at the northeast of Eight Mile and Mound Roads [[although I can't confirm that they ever supplied steel to the nearby Chysler stamping plant). Eventually Chrysler acquired that steel plant parcel for further expansion of their truck plant complex. Over time, the size of the Dodge truck complex in Warren Twp. grew from about 140 acres in 1937 to the approx. 195 acres it occupies today.
So, back in 1937, where do you suppose that within the Detroit city limits you could find or accumulate 140 acres of industrially-zoned land that had both rail access and the potential for expansion onto an additional 55 acres of adjacent land?
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