Quote Originally Posted by woodwardboy View Post
The purpose of this tread was to point out the historical significance of a city that had over 1.8 million residents and is about to show a loss of 1 million residents after 60 years.
Also, as you have mentioned reasons why Detroits population dropped; namely racism.
Were Detroits whites anymore racisist than whites in Chicago or Cleveland? Why did Detroits whites leave in bibilical proportions? The same level of southern blacks that poured into Detroit, also poured into Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, St. Louis, but Detroit got stuck with a black population of 85% today.. why?
All the major northern cities had race riots in the 60s/70s.. Detroit was not alone.
Why then did not Detroits whites stand and fight for their neighborhoods and businesses?
Never in the history of man have so many people just abandoned their possessions so williingly.
Understand that Detroit is over 300 years old. It is an old ass city. That said, it is cheaper to build anew than to restore. A number of those business owners who once had businesses within the city limits understood that they would save a lot of money by simply relocating their operations outside the city where there was plenty of land and no taxes. Take AAA and KMart for example. Rather than build a new building in downtown for their headquarters both decided to build suburban fortresses. This was done over and over by many more businesses as they fled Detroit.

What about the people? Well the people wanted new development and it appears that Detroit was skipped over for place like Novi and Northville and Chesterfield Township and Washington Township. New homes, new malls were being built every day yet in Detroit entire neighborhoods disappeared only to return to nature. If Whites and suburban living Blacks wanted to live in Detroit proper, the development would have happened. It would have been demanded but the people wanted to live that sprawl lifestyle that Brooks talks about all the time.

So the question is why did they leave? Can't really say why they left. I suppose a number of things came into play which brought about the decline of Detroit.