It did happen in every other city. Most every central city in America has lost population, and grown poorer and less white, since WWII. It happened to a greater extent in Detroit than in a lot of other places, but that doesn't mean that the construction of expressways [[and, more to the point, the shift from rail-based public transit to private automobiles as the primary means of getting around town) didn't have a decentralizing effect on every city where it occurred. The main reason Detroit hasn't recovered, IMO, is that it has the misfortune of being run by short-sighted idiots, and of being located in a region and state that are run by short-sighted idiots. The demise of the auto industry hasn't helped either, though Detroit was in trouble long before the Big Three were.
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