Map of White Flight

[Danny]

The organized Jewish communities flighted quickly to Oak Park, Southfield, parts of Berkley, Bloomfield TWP, West Bloomfield TWP, parts of Commence TWP. parts of Farmington Hills from Detroit West Side and Northwest Side area from 1950s to 1980s. Some Jewish folks set up their small communities in Livonia's northern end before moving northward to Farmington Hills. There were 2 orginized Jewish communities in Southwest Detroit. One on Michigan Ave and W. Grand Blvd, the other in Del-Rey. Some moved further to Wyandotte. Others to Grosse Ille.

[Danny]

With the demise of Detroit's Purple Gang and legitimate businesses owned by Jews , they may have been the 1st to head to the suburbs . News or Free Press 2-3 part story about this possibly 5 years ago .

'' Many publications have taken a look at Detroit’s decline recently. They make important points. The 1967 riots caused “white flight” from the city. The unions and Big Three entered into contracts with expensive legacy costs. America shed its industrial base. Mayor Coleman Young left a Chicago-style legacy of corruption. Over a decade after Young’s departure corruption, incompetence, and unemployment have continued to blight Detroit. The ‘67 riots provide researchers with a convenient starting point for this decline. However, the population decline began a decade earlier. In the fifties, the government created the interstate highway system. Highways made America mobile and people left the cities for the suburbs. People left Detroit for greener pastures and took their money with them.

The Interstate Highway Act of 1956 created modern America and provided the hole in the dyke that led to Detroit‘s depopulation and decline. Detroit lobbied hard for a highway system to promote car ownership. Americans could only go so far without roads. The new system would open up the country. Americans could travel everywhere in their automobiles. This new freedom would mean more profits for the auto industry. Consumers would feel the need to purchase vehicles as status symbols and for the freedom of mobility the highways created.

Opening the nation to car travel also opened areas outside the major cities for settlement. People could go to work in the city and live in the suburbs or country. Americans did not have to live in apartments in crowded, dirty cities. Instead, they could live in homes they themselves owned in clean surroundings. There would be elbow room, privacy, and backyard barbeques. This especially appealed to those parents responsible for the baby boom. Many Detroiters and began moving to cleaner suburban pastures.

In 1950, Detroit’s population stood at 1.8 million. Over the course of the decade, it dropped 10%. On the other hand, the Metro Detroit Region which includes the suburbs surrounding the city grew by 25%. The middle class was abandoning the city a decade or so before the riots. These were auto workers benefiting from the Big Three’s halcyon days. High wages, good benefits, and a strong union made the Detroit area a great place to live. Workers took their wages to the suburbs and purchased homes. People could commute between homes in the suburbs and jobs in the city. Meanwhile, the tax base began to decline.

The 1967 riots accelerated the exodus. The riots pitted whites against blacks. African-Americans felt besieged by white racism and rebelled. In the aftermath, whites felt besieged by black racism. With highways available to evacuate the populace, whites began to flee the city. African Americans with the resources to move were barred from moving to the suburbs by de facto segregation. During the seventies, Detroit’s population declined by over 20%. By 1980, the destruction of Detroit was complete. Despite efforts at revitalization in the nineties, the process has accelerated in recent years.

Detroit’s demise did not begin with racial issues in the aftermath of the riots. It did not begin with economic stagnation or the shipping of jobs overseas. It did not begin because of bad deals cut between the UAW and G. M., Ford, and Chrysler. Instead, it began because people wanted their own homes on their own plots of land. The Interstate Highway System gave us Modern America. It created soccer moms, minivans, and the world of Leave it to Beaver. However, it also opened a Pandora’s Box which began the decline of America’s fourth largest city. ''

I agree with your comments. Plus the bad deal between automobile companies and its unions starts the race and class in Detroit. middle class whites vs. low income whites, Middle class blacks vs. low income blacks, middle income whites vs. low income blacks, middle income blacks vs low income whites made Detroit what it is today, an urban mess.

[EastsideAl]

Kiraly, that link doesn't seem to work. Could you please repost it?

Speaking purely anecdotally, there were for quite a while identifiable Italian residential and commercial districts in St. Clair Shores and East Detroit. Polish areas in Warren and Dearborn, and certainly Jewish area in Oak Park and Southfield and later West Bloomfield. And other smaller ethnic groups had their suburban areas too.

These areas all pretty much flowed directly out of their generational out-migration from the old ethnic areas in Detroit proper [[which themselves had been moving ever further out from the center over the years). But these neighborhoods have mostly dissipated now [[with the arguable exception of the Jewish area) and my sense is that Douglasm is correct above when he says that after a few generations the choice of residential area is really not connected much to ethnicity anymore. So I think it would be much harder from where we are now - a generation or two away from the migration - to track the "flight" out from Detroit by ethnicity.

It seems to me that if you look at the places around the Detroit that are currently strongly identifiable as ethnic neighborhoods, they are almost all those of more recent immigrants who arrived in those areas directly, like Middle Easterners in Dearborn, Southeast Asians in Madison Heights, and South Asians in Hamtramck and elsewhere.

[Danny]

If you all want to see more white flight in progress click into this link. and zoom close to Metro-Detroit area.

http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/map?hp

Light to dark blue areas represent Black communities.

Light to dark green areas represent White communities.

Light to dark yellow represent Hispanic communities.

Light to dark pink represent Asian communities.


Move your mouse pad to any community and you will see the change on population by the percentage of demographics. You see that all of Detroit from the River to 8 Mile Rd. is black coated with some Hispanics in the Southwest side and fewer Asians near Hamtramck. In Detroit's black community, any percentage of them are leaving that area. Because to lack of city services, poor schools, lack of businesses, violent crime, drugs, gangs and other mayhem. Whites dominance in Detroit is long gone since 1975. In the inner ring suburbs that boarder Detroit. White flight has begun and Black flight to the inner ring suburbs had increased in the last 30 years. Southfield, Oak Park, Lathrup Village, Royal Oak TWP. is the prime example of early white flight across the 8 Mile demarcation line. Next East Pointe now has a black community. White flight has begun there North of 8 Mile Rd. and Gratiot to Toepfer St and Kelly Rd. By 2030 East Pointe will be 60% black. Harper Woods is now over 50% black and getting quickly ghetto-ized every year. Warren experience black growth from 8 Mile Rd to I-696 FWY. By 2030 that area will lose more white middle class and the population will be 35%. Any areas around Dequindre to 10 Mile Rd, Mound Rd to 10 Mile Rd, Van Dyke Ave. to Center Line and including Groesbeck Rd will see black growth. Roseville will follow with black growth by 2040. Do you all see the white flight. It's not just happening in Detroit anymore.

[EastsideAl]

Also, Smirnoff's query about Wayne brings up to me something important that's often left out of these discussions. One of the largest, if the largest, white "groups" in the Detroit area is southern whites. They initially followed a migration path to the Detroit area that was almost identical to that of blacks, and often moved into quite homogeneous neighborhoods that could be nearly as solid as any white 'ethnic' community around the city.

When I was a kid, there certainly were areas in Detroit that were known for having a concentration of what my grandfather would have called "hillbillies" living there [[please excuse my use of what I know is felt by many to be a pejorative term). On the eastside the area around St. Jean and Jefferson and east into parts of Jefferson-Chalmers was one of these, as was the area out around Balduck Park. On the west side, the Cass Corridor, the area north of Tiger Stadium, parts of the southwest side, as well as, of course, Brightmoor.

Some older suburbs became well-known as destinations for these southern whites, like Hazel Park and Madison Heights to the east, and Taylor to the west, but with out-migration from the City of Detroit many other suburban areas became pretty heavily southern white, particularly downriver, in western Wayne County, and in Macomb County. As with everything else, I'm sure the concentration and identifyability of this population has eroded over time, but I would guess though that the homogeneity of this population may have actually declined a little less than that of later-generation white ethnics.

And all of this, of course, totally ignores the phenomenon of "black flight," which has been ongoing for 30 years or more, and has represented, by far, the largest number of people moving from the city to the suburbs over the past couple of decades.

[gazhekwe]

There was migration within Detroit before there were so many new suburban places. My maternal grandparents went from the western border of Highland Park out to Brightmoor, all the while maintaining a number of rental houses on the near west side. What drove them from Leslie Street? The pending construction of the John C. Lodge, which now sits squarely upon their former property. My parents [[one Native, one not) bought in Brightmoor, post WWII, whereupon some neighbors took up a petition to rid their neighborhood of the scourge of color represented by my father. Petition was dropped without effect when it was learned he was not, after all, a Filipino. We later migrated to the UP to be near his family at Bay Mills. My husband's Polish maternal grandparents settled near Livernois and Grand River, where they lived til they died in the 1970s. Their children all headed west, beginning in the 1930s, to then rural Inkster, Garden City, west side of Detroit, and later, Westland and Canton. Descendants are spread far and wide, many remaining in Garden City and Canton, the rest are all over the country.

[Jimaz]

Kiraly, that link doesn't seem to work. Could you please repost it?...

It worked for me but it's a PDF file. Maybe that's the problem.

[Jaybiz]

Here's a good map, http://www.remappingdebate.org/photo...roit-1950-2010, I hope the link works, it's shows white flight each decade from 1950-2010. Also Washington Post has a great interactive map which you can tract the racial change almost block by block.
Another person posted that Italians moved to Clinton Twp, which they did but East Point, SCS, Warren had just as many Italians as anywhere. Also up until 1990's, Italians still had presence in the city, around 7 & Gratiot and 6-7 mile & Schoenherr.
This map helped me win a debate with my westside Jewish buddy who didn't believe my old neighborhood Kelly & Morang was mostly white up until the mid 90's. His debate was that I must of been one of the few white kids being that I'm only in my mid 30's and white flight happen long before my time. In fairness to him, his opinion was shaped by the west side bordering Oakland county which had total white flight long before the eastside, for whatever reason many white people on the east side didn't leave for the suburds until 90's.

[jjw]

While on the topic, does anyone know of current maps that show flight from the city by neighborhood regardless of race?

[poobert]

Here's a good map, http://www.remappingdebate.org/photo...roit-1950-2010, I hope the link works, it's shows white flight each decade from 1950-2010. Also Washington Post has a great interactive map which you can tract the racial change almost block by block.
Another person posted that Italians moved to Clinton Twp, which they did but East Point, SCS, Warren had just as many Italians as anywhere. Also up until 1990's, Italians still had presence in the city, around 7 & Gratiot and 6-7 mile & Schoenherr.
This map helped me win a debate with my westside Jewish buddy who didn't believe my old neighborhood Kelly & Morang was mostly white up until the mid 90's. His debate was that I must of been one of the few white kids being that I'm only in my mid 30's and white flight happen long before my time. In fairness to him, his opinion was shaped by the west side bordering Oakland county which had total white flight long before the eastside, for whatever reason many white people on the east side didn't leave for the suburds until 90's.

I'd venture that many of the eastside whites were working and middle class city workers who left when the residency requirement was lifted. The westside probably had more professionals who weren't tied by municipal requirements. Eastside whites tend to be disproportionately Catholic, and could send their kids to Catholic school and still live in Detroit.

[Shollin]

Here's a good map, http://www.remappingdebate.org/photo...roit-1950-2010, I hope the link works, it's shows white flight each decade from 1950-2010. Also Washington Post has a great interactive map which you can tract the racial change almost block by block.
Another person posted that Italians moved to Clinton Twp, which they did but East Point, SCS, Warren had just as many Italians as anywhere. Also up until 1990's, Italians still had presence in the city, around 7 & Gratiot and 6-7 mile & Schoenherr.
This map helped me win a debate with my westside Jewish buddy who didn't believe my old neighborhood Kelly & Morang was mostly white up until the mid 90's. His debate was that I must of been one of the few white kids being that I'm only in my mid 30's and white flight happen long before my time. In fairness to him, his opinion was shaped by the west side bordering Oakland county which had total white flight long before the eastside, for whatever reason many white people on the east side didn't leave for the suburds until 90's.

The area along Kelly up to 8 Mile had a large white population even up to 2000. The area was really popular in the 90's. I was looking for a house in that area in the 90's till I ended up in Harper Woods. There was a realtor on Kelly on the Detroit side about 4 blocks south of 8 Mile that I worked with that said more people were buying homes in the part of Detroit than the bordering Eastpointe and Harper Woods due to the low housing costs. Harper Woods was 85% white in 2000 and Eastpointe about 90% in 2000. In 2010 Harper Woods fell to 48% and Eastpointe to 68%. There was a huge change in the 2000's. As i recall city services were still adequate if not good in that area through the 90's. The only issue I remember was snow plowing. The residents used to pay a local plow to clear the streets. I also remember a lot of whites sent their kids to St Jude and also to high school at Lutheran High East. Things really changed fast in one decade.

[Bham1982]

I'd venture that many of the eastside whites were working and middle class city workers who left when the residency requirement was lifted. The westside probably had more professionals who weren't tied by municipal requirements. Eastside whites tend to be disproportionately Catholic, and could send their kids to Catholic school and still live in Detroit.

All probably true, and Westsiders had more financial resources [[speaking very generally, and really about NW, rather than Westside), so when white flight began, they had the means to "move on up".

And I never thought about it, but, yeah, the Eastside was more Catholic, and Westside was more WASP/Jewish, so it makes sense that the Catholic schools played a role in keeping some Eastside families in-place.

White flight was very complete on the NW side at an early date. Mumford was majority black by the late 60's, and Ford by the early 70's. I think Redford and Cody by the late 70's.

NW Detroit east of Evergreen was overwhelmingly black by the 80's. In contrast, NE Detroit remained overwhelmingly white in the 80's.

[Pickford-Bentler]

All probably true, and Westsiders had more financial resources [[speaking very generally, and really about NW, rather than Westside), so when white flight began, they had the means to "move on up".

And I never thought about it, but, yeah, the Eastside was more Catholic, and Westside was more WASP/Jewish, so it makes sense that the Catholic schools played a role in keeping some Eastside families in-place.

White flight was very complete on the NW side at an early date. Mumford was majority black by the late 60's, and Ford by the early 70's. I think Redford and Cody by the late 70's.

NW Detroit east of Evergreen was overwhelmingly black by the 80's. In contrast, NE Detroit remained overwhelmingly white in the 80's.

In 1984, I delivered the Detroit Free Press to try to get some extra fund to help pay my way through WSU. I had Vaughn from 8 Mile to 7 Mile and Heyden from 7 Mile to 6 Mile. There were three white homes on Vaughn and Heyden was about 60% black and 40% white. On Vaughn, close to 8 Mile the families put a lot of effort into keeping their lawns and homes perfect. Heyden, on the other hand, was hit and miss. Heyden also had a crack house that was unfortunately one of my customers. Till the day I die, I will not forget knocking on the door and collecting. It was one of those crackerbox starter homes that was being very well kept by the white landlord. When the door opened, I was face to face with a very large black man who was in a stupor. After looking around him, I saw that the home had about 20 stoned people of all races , From the kitchen, a very intelligent looking spry young black male walked around all the people and paid me. I quit that job ASAP. I figured putting a paper in the door [[expected service in those days) of a crack home at 5AM was not a safe occupation. My girlfriend went to Redford and I attended the 1977 prom with her. At that point in time, Redford still had a white majority. I believe it turned in the early 1980s. Henry Ford had black majority staring in the 1970s. IMO, the final push was the crack wars. Who would want to live in a battle zone, if they could escape. That applies to people of all colors.

[313WX]

The area along Kelly up to 8 Mile had a large white population even up to 2000. The area was really popular in the 90's. I was looking for a house in that area in the 90's till I ended up in Harper Woods. There was a realtor on Kelly on the Detroit side about 4 blocks south of 8 Mile that I worked with that said more people were buying homes in the part of Detroit than the bordering Eastpointe and Harper Woods due to the low housing costs. Harper Woods was 85% white in 2000 and Eastpointe about 90% in 2000. In 2010 Harper Woods fell to 48% and Eastpointe to 68%. There was a huge change in the 2000's. As i recall city services were still adequate if not good in that area through the 90's. The only issue I remember was snow plowing. The residents used to pay a local plow to clear the streets. I also remember a lot of whites sent their kids to St Jude and also to high school at Lutheran High East. Things really changed fast in one decade.

That whole part of NE Detroit you're mentioning was a victim of the lifting of the residency requirement.

The real estate bubble finished it off.

[Shollin]

That whole part of NE Detroit you're mentioning was a victim of the lifting of the residency requirement.

The real estate bubble finished it off.

The requirement was lifted in 99 and it seems like within 3 years it hit bottom. The only reason I bought in Harper Woods was the house was a foreclosure, which was somewhat rare in the early 90's, and it was in Grosse Pointe schools which allowed me to save on private schooling.

[Jaybiz]

The Catholic churchs & schools were an anchor for a lot of families on the east side, also many were city workers that had to live within the city because of the residency requirement but I think there is more to it than just that. I'm sure there were just as many white city workers who worked on the north west side yet they didn't seem to reside there, they probably lived in the Warrendale neighborhood which always reminded me of an east side neighborhood. Although the white east side resident was mostly blue collar there were professionals in the mix espeacially in East English Village, those people certainly could have moved out to nicer areas. Harper woods, although a suburb, felt like like an extention of the north east side with it's Catholic ethnic whites but there were difently more professionals, many lawyers and doctors. My point or better yet my opinion is that there was more of a sense of community, loyalty and identity tied into the nieghborhood that made people stay longer on the NE side as opposed to NW side. I dont believe that they were trapped there by economics, I'm sure some were but my family could have easily moved to a new suburb but didn't for a long time. Why did all that has change? I don't know, maybe that neighborhood pride doesn't exist anymore with the new generation but I do know crime changed a lot of landscape which caused people leave. It broke a lot of people's hearts to leave and I still know people who never got over it. I truly believe that without the high crime the east side today would be filled with generations of families who'd never dream of moving no matter how old or small some of the homes might be.

[IrishSpartan]

Do you happen to have a link for the Washington Post interactive map? The remappingdebate.org map is from Social Explorer.

A lot of the Italians, Germans, and Poles along Schoenherr [[Btwn 6 & 7 Mile) that remained during the 1980's were World War II generation or older. Some of the people just didn't want to move yet like their kids did in the 1970's to Sterling Heights. Others had not moved in the neighborhood until the late 1960's and were trying to put off moving again. I knew several people that moved twice within Detroit, and a few that did 3 times.

Here's a good map, http://www.remappingdebate.org/photo...roit-1950-2010, I hope the link works, it's shows white flight each decade from 1950-2010. Also Washington Post has a great interactive map which you can tract the racial change almost block by block.
Another person posted that Italians moved to Clinton Twp, which they did but East Point, SCS, Warren had just as many Italians as anywhere. Also up until 1990's, Italians still had presence in the city, around 7 & Gratiot and 6-7 mile & Schoenherr.
This map helped me win a debate with my westside Jewish buddy who didn't believe my old neighborhood Kelly & Morang was mostly white up until the mid 90's. His debate was that I must of been one of the few white kids being that I'm only in my mid 30's and white flight happen long before my time. In fairness to him, his opinion was shaped by the west side bordering Oakland county which had total white flight long before the eastside, for whatever reason many white people on the east side didn't leave for the suburds until 90's.

[marshamusic]

Also, Smirnoff's query about Wayne brings up to me something important that's often left out of these discussions. One of the largest, if the largest, white "groups" in the Detroit area is southern whites. They initially followed a migration path to the Detroit area that was almost identical to that of blacks, and often moved into quite homogeneous neighborhoods that could be nearly as solid as any white 'ethnic' community around the city.

When I was a kid, there certainly were areas in Detroit that were known for having a concentration of what my grandfather would have called "hillbillies" living there [[please excuse my use of what I know is felt by many to be a pejorative term). On the eastside the area around St. Jean and Jefferson and east into parts of Jefferson-Chalmers was one of these, as was the area out around Balduck Park. On the west side, the Cass Corridor, the area north of Tiger Stadium, parts of the southwest side, as well as, of course, Brightmoor.

Some older suburbs became well-known as destinations for these southern whites, like Hazel Park and Madison Heights to the east, and Taylor to the west, but with out-migration from the City of Detroit many other suburban areas became pretty heavily southern white, particularly downriver, in western Wayne County, and in Macomb County. As with everything else, I'm sure the concentration and identifyability of this population has eroded over time, but I would guess though that the homogeneity of this population may have actually declined a little less than that of later-generation white ethnics.

And all of this, of course, totally ignores the phenomenon of "black flight," which has been ongoing for 30 years or more, and has represented, by far, the largest number of people moving from the city to the suburbs over the past couple of decades.

Yes, and don't forget the whites of Delray.

[Zacha341]

Along with the economy and casino gambling.... IMO

That whole part of NE Detroit you're mentioning was a victim of the lifting of the residency requirement.

The real estate bubble finished it off.

[Honky Tonk]

Yes, and don't forget the whites of Delray.

Delray WAS Hungarian.

[Jaybiz]

This is the washington post link http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...n/census/2010/. If you type in the zip code on the search box you can really get a detailed look at the demographic changes. Your right about Schoenherr [[Btwn 6 & 7 Mile) with the Italians. There was one last wave that few people know about that took place in 80's, I knew of several families that moved here from Sicily in the mid 1980's and they ended up btwn 6 & 7 mile Schoenherr area actually more toward 6 mile. They had to be the last young Italian families to move into the city. What happen was that they were basically lied to by Italians who lived in America and that had property for sale or for rent in that neighborhood. They sent money in advance and thought they were moving to a nice American nieghborhood that was populated by other Italians that had come before them and then they showed up to something much different. There was no money to leave or for private schools so they stuck it out for a few years before having the means to move out. They never stayed for more than a few years, I have a two friends who are barely 30 years old and they both lived and went to school there, they said it was rough, a lot of fighting everyday.

[Shollin]

Along with the economy and casino gambling.... IMO

I'll bite. How did gambling hurt the neighborhood?

[Smirnoff]

I'll bite. How did gambling hurt the neighborhood?

It ran the local #'s guys right out of town.....

[maverick1]

Also, Smirnoff's query about Wayne brings up to me something important that's often left out of these discussions. One of the largest, if the largest, white "groups" in the Detroit area is southern whites. They initially followed a migration path to the Detroit area that was almost identical to that of blacks, and often moved into quite homogeneous neighborhoods that could be nearly as solid as any white 'ethnic' community around the city.

You make a very good point. I didn't realize how many Southern Whites moved to Detroit until I worked Downriver. When people think "Great Migration" they usually associate it with African-Americans but I get the impression that more Southern Whites moved to Detroit than any other group. I want to read and investigate this more to see if it's true. I think this may have something to do with the politics of the area too.

[dtowncitylover]

You make a very good point. I didn't realize how many Southern Whites moved to Detroit until I worked Downriver. When people think "Great Migration" they usually associate it with African-Americans but I get the impression that more Southern Whites moved to Detroit than any other group. I want to read and investigate this more to see if it's true. I think this may have something to do with the politics of the area too.

And many of these still have connections with their "native" states, usually Kentucky or Tennessee from what I've observed, even though they've never lived there. Dixie Highway has a deeper meaning than just being the highway to and from the south.