Why is Detroit shrinking?

[iheartthed]

Those very same annexation powers enabled Detroit to expand unfettered until the Great Depression strangled its "growth machine", yet they weren't strong enough?

Detroit's annexation powers were never that strong and never distinct to Detroit [[i.e. any Michigan municipality with city status had the same powers as Detroit). Detroit stopped annexing because 1) all of the townships surrounding it incorporated to block annexing and 2) the city also never made annexation a mandatory agreement to extend its utility services. But Detroit has never had powers like Toronto...

[nain rouge]

Of your three examples, only the Tech Center housed jobs that were at one time located in Detroit.
[...]

Chrysler's Warren Stamping was part of the new greenfield manufacturing complex that was constructed in the late 1930s to stamp and assemble the increasingly popular Dodge trucks, since there were no similarly-sized parcels available with the right zoning and rail access in Hamtramck or Detroit. For much the same reasons, the GM Warren plant was originally located and built to manufacture artillery shellls for WW II. It was originally operated by Hudson Motor Car and later on, GM took over the plant to build those shells, along with Hydramatic transmissions and other automotive metal components.

OK, but that just reinforces the point I made earlier that disinvestment in Detroit began as early as the '30s and '40s. Just for curiosity's sake, I did put together a list of auto factories built/opened in Metro Detroit's suburbs during the '60s and '70s:


Ford
Michigan Casting Center/AutoAlliance International [[Flat Rock - 1972)
Romeo Engine Plant [[Romeo - 1973)
Van Dyke Transmission Plant [[Sterling Heights - 1968)


GM
Romulus Engine [[Romulus - 1976)
Livonia Engine [[Livonia - 1971)


Chrysler
Sterling Stamping [[Sterling Heights - 1965)

That alone represents at least about 8,000 factory jobs [[obviously, employment numbers at auto factories fluctuate over the years) that the Big 3 located in Detroit's suburbs during the '60s and '70s. And remember. that list doesn't even include the factories built in other states and countries, which would have made for a sizable addition to the list.

8,000 factory jobs in Detroit would've meant potentially thousands of new middle class homeowners spending most of their money in the city. Things like that make a difference.

Also, uf we were to add in the factories opened in the suburbs during the '50s and '80s, that list would again be much larger. Now granted, you couldn't have fit all those factories in Detroit, but it's still evidence of substantial disinvestment.

And yes, we know - basing your economy on auto factories is a risky and foolhardy bet. However, the fact remains that if corporate investors would've supported Detroit more instead of the suburbs [[the factories are just a part of this equation), and if white flight wouldn't have been quite so severe, Detroit would've been able to weather the storms of changing economics and demographics much better.

[Packman41]

And in 1981 GM built a new factory in an urban area - it is called Poletown.

With the support of CAY and using the powers of eminent domain they took 1400 homes, several chuches, bordered off a Jewish cemetery and generally destroyed the pre-existing neighborhood.

Now it is 30+ years later and we have the long term affects of those decisions. Currently, there are 43 square miles of vacant land in Detroit. How much vacant land would there be if GM had NOT built Poletown???

[nain rouge]

Now it is 30+ years later and we have the long term affects of those decisions. Currently, there are 43 square miles of vacant land in Detroit. How much vacant land would there be if GM had NOT built Poletown???

It's a shame, no doubt. But a vibrant city isn't static. How do you think they got all those skyscrapers up in Manhattan? Do you think it was all farmland before? Vibrant cities have a mixture of old and new buildings.

By 1980, Detroit was down about 700,000 people from its peak and had many abandoned industrial complexes. Not every development in the '70s would've needed to be as destructive as Poletown plant.

Also, your argument goes back to my original point about poor urban planning. When you insist on building a city mainly though horizontal means rather than vertical, those kinds of problems eventually arise.

[Detroitnerd]

Now it is 30+ years later and we have the long term affects of those decisions. Currently, there are 43 square miles of vacant land in Detroit. How much vacant land would there be if GM had NOT built Poletown???

Actually, it's more like 23 square miles of vacant land. It turned out the 40-plus calculation included Belle Isle, cemeteries, playgrounds, etc.

[Mikeg]

OK, but that just reinforces the point I made earlier that disinvestment in Detroit began as early as the '30s and '40s. Just for curiosity's sake, I did put together a list of auto factories built/opened in Metro Detroit's suburbs during the '60s and '70s:
[/COLOR]

Ford
Michigan Casting Center/AutoAlliance International [[Flat Rock - 1972)
Romeo Engine Plant [[Romeo - 1973)
Van Dyke Transmission Plant [[Sterling Heights - 1968)


GM
Romulus Engine [[Romulus - 1976)
Livonia Engine [[Livonia - 1971)


Chrysler
Sterling Stamping [[Sterling Heights - 1965)

That alone represents at least about 8,000 factory jobs [[obviously, employment numbers at auto factories fluctuate over the years) that the Big 3 located in Detroit's suburbs during the '60s and '70s. And remember. that list doesn't even include the factories built in other states and countries, which would have made for a sizable addition to the list.

8,000 factory jobs in Detroit would've meant potentially thousands of new middle class homeowners spending most of their money in the city. Things like that make a difference.

Also, uf we were to add in the factories opened in the suburbs during the '50s and '80s, that list would again be much larger. Now granted, you couldn't have fit all those factories in Detroit, but it's still evidence of substantial disinvestment.

And yes, we know - basing your economy on auto factories is a risky and foolhardy bet. However, the fact remains that if corporate investors would've supported Detroit more instead of the suburbs [[the factories are just a part of this equation), and if white flight wouldn't have been quite so severe, Detroit would've been able to weather the storms of changing economics and demographics much better.

If you want to make the argument that Detroit was disadvantaged by not being able to accommodate [[without resorting to eminent domain) a dominant industry that required increasingly larger amounts of land with rail access and zoned for heavy industry on which to build newer and more modern plants, then I can agree with you.

However, I think it is ludicrous to claim that their inability to situate newer and more modern plants within the limits of a city that has no suitable locations for them constitutes a lack of civic support [[aka "disinvestment").

Using that kind of logic, this definition of "disinvestment" could also lay claim to a company's jobs located within a city's boundary that become redundant due to productivity improvements. Is there a limit to what the accusation of "disinvestment" could not include?

While we're discussing "investment", why no mention of the hundreds of millions of dollars of federal program funds that have been "invested" within the City of Detroit over the same past half-century that Detroit has been shrinking? Could that be because it's the elephant in the corner of the room that created a culture of dependency within city hall and the DWSD that weakened and destroyed the bonds between them and those that traditionally supplied the revenue that filled their coffers?

[Detroitnerd]

SCENE: A smoky backroom in 1955.

BUSINESSMAN: Well, we've pretty much used the city up. Now what?

POLITICIAN: Let's leave. That's where you're building all the new stuff. Fuck the city.

BUSINESSMAN: But a lot of our customers still live there.

POLITICIAN: The squeeze that the city will be in is going to suck. Between blacks moving in and businesses moving out, they'll get the message. Some of the last holdouts will stay on for another 15 years, but then they'll have to go.

BUSINESSMAN: We can make a lot of money flipping houses down there on those fears.

POLITICIAN: Right!

BUSINESSMAN: But aren't you worried? You're not going to be able to run the machine down in Detroit long. As all those bumpkins move in and the jobs leave, those people are going to be too poor for you to squeeze any money out of them anymore.

POLITICIAN: Oh, that's fine. We'll let them elect a lot of stupid, corrupt leaders that can't help but turn it into a wasteland. Hahaha.

BUSINESSMAN: But won't they be left-wing leaders? Don't you think they'll represent a threat to OUR interests?

POLITICIAN: Oh, hell. Don't worry. They'll be left-wing, dumb, ineffective, just managing the ongoing disaster. And then WE get to score points by blaming the death of the city on them and their ideology!

BUSINESSMAN: Hahaha. Oh, boy. That's win-win!

POLITICIAN: Let me tell you. If you think we made a lot of money BUILDING this city over the last 40 years, you wait and see how much money we can make DESTROYING this city over the next 50!

BUSINESSMAN: I had better invest in some demolition companies right now. I can see this is going to be profitable.

<exuent omnes>

[nain rouge]

However, I think it is ludicrous to claim that their inability to situate newer and more modern plants within the limits of a city that has no suitable locations for them constitutes a lack of civic support [[aka "disinvestment").

Is what you say true, though? Let me quote an article written by respected historian Thomas Sugrue:

"Between 1947 and 1963, a period of unprecedented national economic prosperity, Detroit lost 134,000 manufacturing jobs. This is not the '70s. This is not when there is any competition from Germany and Japan and Korea for automobiles. These are jobs that were picking up and moving to other parts of the country, or these were jobs that were being replaced by machines.

Workers who had come to Detroit during World War II, seeking opportunities, found their choices seriously constrained. The workers who suffered the worst were African Americans, and they suffered because of seniority. African Americans, because they didn't get their foot into the door until the 1940s, were the first to be fired. So, when companies began moving out of Detroit, the burden was borne disproportionately by black Detroiters.

So, in the midst of the 1950s, 15.9 percent of blacks were unemployed, but only 6 percent of whites were unemployed, so we're talking about black unemployment two and a half times the rate of white unemployment."

Somehow, the city lost 134,000 in a 16 year period, and yet no space was opened up for new, modern factories, nor were there any opportunities to retrofit existing factories instead of relocating? Is that what you're saying? If so, I want proof, because I've never heard "Detroit had no room for modern factories" used seriously as an argument for why the city lost its industrial base.

[nain rouge]

Detroitnerd: Your script is funny, but it let's not forget how much "businessmen" hated the unions in Detroit, in addition to the issues with black labor. Granted, many unions followed workers into the suburbs, but the concentration and sheer number of unions in Detroit was intense and allowed for unparalleled synergy.

[Detroitnerd]

Detroitnerd: Your script is funny, but it let's not forget how much "businessmen" hated the unions in Detroit, in addition to the issues with black labor. Granted, many unions followed workers into the suburbs, but the concentration and sheer number of unions in Detroit was intense and allowed for unparalleled synergy.

Yes, you're right. And neighborhoods like Hastings Street were notable sources of political power. Ironically, the court rulings that outlawed racial covenants in housing aided in the spatial deconcentration of Hastings Street, and ended the era where Detroit's blacks of all incomes lived together, which had created a strong political bloc.

[Hermod]

Somehow, the city lost 134,000 in a 16 year period, and yet no space was opened up for new, modern factories, nor were there any opportunities to retrofit existing factories instead of relocating? Is that what you're saying? If so, I want proof, because I've never heard "Detroit had no room for modern factories" used seriously as an argument for why the city lost its industrial base.

1. During that time period, the loss of people wasn't creating vacant houses, it was just reducing the density of people per house as the tenements emptied out and married couples living with their parents purchased homes of their own.

2. When a company moved out of a factory, it did not create a space for a factory because the empty building was functionally obsolete. It was cheaper and easier to buy land past 8 Mile than it was to tear down the empty factory and rebuild.


In 1952, the place where my father worked moved out of separate facilities on Milwaukee and on Russell and built a facility out on Sherwood between 8 and 9 Mile. The old facilities which they had occupied since 1929 were just to inefficient to continue operating.

One of the big post war changes in industry was in using forklifts in the aisles to deliver raw material to the machines and to move finished product to packing and shipping. You couldn't do this in a two story factory, you needed the extra land to put everything on one floor.

[Detroitnerd]

Oh, Grampa, let me relight your pipe so you can tell me again how what happened wasn't tragic at all -- but made perfect free market sense!

[Mikeg]

Is what you say true, though? Let me quote an article written by respected historian Thomas Sugrue:

"Between 1947 and 1963, a period of unprecedented national economic prosperity, Detroit lost 134,000 manufacturing jobs. This is not the '70s. This is not when there is any competition from Germany and Japan and Korea for automobiles. These are jobs that were picking up and moving to other parts of the country, or these were jobs that were being replaced by machines.

Workers who had come to Detroit during World War II, seeking opportunities, found their choices seriously constrained. The workers who suffered the worst were African Americans, and they suffered because of seniority. African Americans, because they didn't get their foot into the door until the 1940s, were the first to be fired. So, when companies began moving out of Detroit, the burden was borne disproportionately by black Detroiters.

So, in the midst of the 1950s, 15.9 percent of blacks were unemployed, but only 6 percent of whites were unemployed, so we're talking about black unemployment two and a half times the rate of white unemployment."

Somehow, the city lost 134,000 in a 16 year period, and yet no space was opened up for new, modern factories, nor were there any opportunities to retrofit existing factories instead of relocating? Is that what you're saying? If so, I want proof, because I've never heard "Detroit had no room for modern factories" used seriously as an argument for why the city lost its industrial base.

You were discussing Detroit's over-dependence on auto manufacturing and it's a fact that multi-story automobile component and assembly plant designs were already obsolete prior to WWII. Vertical auto plants were much more expensive to operate compared to single-story plants.

Sugrure was discussing manufacturing jobs in general, which would also include the employees in the many thousands of small "job shops" that served not only the auto industry, but many other companies across the USA. Also there were four economic recessions during that same 16 year period, plus numerous auto product redesigns/retoolings during the same time span. When sales dropped due to a recession, the auto plant assembly lines would be slowed down and excess manpower would be laid off according to the UAW seniority rules. When sales picked up, the line rates would be restored but not everyone would be called back because of productivity improvements implemented in the interim and/or product and tooling redesigns that were simpler to build than the previous model. Similar productivity improvements in small batch lot processing and newer, more efficient machine tools also caused employment losses in the job shops. The recessions were [[and still are) an opportunity to "wring" manpower out of the process as the economy recovered.

[Hermod]

Yes, you're right. And neighborhoods like Hastings Street were notable sources of political power. Ironically, the court rulings that outlawed racial covenants in housing aided in the spatial deconcentration of Hastings Street, and ended the era where Detroit's blacks of all incomes lived together, which had created a strong political bloc.

Greatly diluted by the effects of "at-large voting" for the city council members. A concentrated voting bloc is only as strong as its numbers in those cases. How long did it take for Detroit to have a black councilman?

[Detroitnerd]

Greatly diluted by the effects of "at-large voting" for the city council members. A concentrated voting bloc is only as strong as its numbers in those cases. How long did it take for Detroit to have a black councilman?

There's little doubt about the political implications for blacks of at-large voting for council, instituted in 1918, right after the first batch of Southern blacks moved north. But the kind of political power that comes from a neighborhood where the poorest hooker or dice-thrower knew the most respected surgeon, undertaker or lawyer was something that deconcentration definitely did away with. And when all blacks lived together [[with the exception of a few black "villages" on the west and north sides), it definitely meant that upper class African-Americans had a vested interest in improving their lot as a group. [[Not so much when the leaders of Detroit's black community get to live ensconced in Palmer Park...)

[Hermod]

Nerd is right. We don't need no stinking cars in Detroit, just mass transit.

Attachment 13269

[Detroitnerd]

Nerd is right. We don't need no stinking cars in Detroit, just mass transit.

Well, that's pretty amusing, at least for playing escalatio on the reductio ad absurdum.

Needless to say, you well know that I've said cars are great for point-to-point transportation, for ambulances, for emergency vehicles, for small trucks. But when you place the entire burden of all transportation on vehicles, they can't do their job well. And when you try to remake the city for car-only transport, you wind up with something that doesn't resemble a functioning city anymore.

[canuck]

Detroitnerd, you've outdone yourself with your screenplay and all your stuff before and after on this thread ! High five to you my friend.

I like how this thread has highlighted the political alliance or strengthening of an african-american electorate of all classes, and the dissolution of it.

This, to me is a repeated offense. I suppose that even if Young had managed to do a perfect number on a pan-african american congress in Detroit, the outcome would always be an us vs them debate. Where and when in history can you find a semblance of cohesion between an urban, suburban; black and white electorate that could move a city forward. I mean, San Francisco has become progressively less black as it has gentrified. Chicago has issues that are similar to Detroit's and knows it but does not do all that better in the crime stats.

For Coleman Young who must indeed have been an angry bitter man at times, there were few friends in power outside the pale of Detroit to save the day.
This was not a Ralph Lauren conjured-up world of the Kennedys playing touch football in Hyannis. Detroit may have been a dream place to a lot of late arrival black southerners, and a nightmare to those who were left out of the straight and narrow world of manufacturing jobs.

OK, Coleman Young was an angry guy, preaching to a narrow parish, grabbing hold of power in a mighty city, but beyond 8 mile, another bunch of dukes, barons and princes were lording over more money and suburban/country estates. Where were his friends then? Did you ever hear the tone of private conversations in Nixon's oval office? Black power then equated to the black fist of the Black Panthers, and that is about it. So I think that Detroit's demise as the core city cannot be blamed solely on a series of corrupt inbred administrations because the ghetto needs two parts to exist.

[kathy2trips]

This is a great thread; definitely a keeper for the archives. LOVE that Ferndale shot BTW! Ah, the old days!

[nain rouge]

You were discussing Detroit's over-dependence on auto manufacturing and it's a fact that multi-story automobile component and assembly plant designs were already obsolete prior to WWII. Vertical auto plants were much more expensive to operate compared to single-story plants.

Fair enough, but I was referring to the downfalls of building Detroit as a "urban suburb city" [[outside of the Midtown area) more than anything. When you quickly pack a large city full of single-family homes, it can become somewhat inflexible to future development. I believe there should have been a greater mixture of residential spaces. That said, I don't think the problem of space was insurmountable. Detroit was a humongous city.


And yes, as far as factories go, of course you must choose the most economically efficient design, even if it takes more space. But when I drive by Chrysler's Warren Stamping Plant - which I believe Hermod is referring to - I don't see how it couldn't have fit in Detroit. According to Chrysler, the Warren Stamping Plant only takes up 78 acres, which is 0.12 square miles [[if my math is correct). So, you're telling me there was no room within Detroit's 138 square miles of land for such a factory? Or is it that factory owners wanted to get out of Detroit for other reasons?

2. When a company moved out of a factory, it did not create a space for a factory because the empty building was functionally obsolete. It was cheaper and easier to buy land past 8 Mile than it was to tear down the empty factory and rebuild.

Oh, poor auto companies. GM could afford to build a gigantic man-made lake and do all kinds of landscaping for its Tech Center in Warren, but tearing down a building or two now and then would've bankrupted the company. Please. And I'm sure Detroit would've been happy to tear down factories for GM if meant the city would get new factories.

[DetroitPlanner]

And in 1981 GM built a new factory in an urban area - it is called Poletown.

With the support of CAY and using the powers of eminent domain they took 1400 homes, several chuches, bordered off a Jewish cemetery and generally destroyed the pre-existing neighborhood.

Now it is 30+ years later and we have the long term affects of those decisions. Currently, there are 43 square miles of vacant land in Detroit. How much vacant land would there be if GM had NOT built Poletown???

The reason it needed so much land was that architects starting with Kahn were pushing for single floor assembly lines.

All of this is a red herring anyways. It matters very little where these factories are located because they are all within greater Detroit. Every year those crafty engineers are figuring out ways to build things using less employees using less parts. Fewer employees, fewer parts, more competition from Europe, Pacific Rim, Mexico, and off-continent transplants down south have deindustrialized the area.

Nain, stamping plants are located where they are because they are noisy nusainces. Detroit did not have the industrial space available when this was built, no less the ability to build a buffer of less intense land uses such as light industrial, office or retail between it and the residential areas.

[nain rouge]

Nain, stamping plants are located where they are because they are noisy nusainces. Detroit did not have the industrial space available when this was built, no less the ability to build a buffer of less intense land uses such as light industrial, office or retail between it and the residential areas.

Look at Google Maps. Parts of Sherwood are lined with houses, and the plant is the middle of a gigantic suburban area. Detroit was an industrial town. People were not shocked to see noisy factories within the city limits.

It matters very little where these factories are located because they are all within greater Detroit.

It was just a coincidence that the most of the suburbs the new factories were located were over 90% white and would remain so for decades.

[Hermod]

The reason it needed so much land was that architects starting with Kahn were pushing for single floor assembly lines.

It isn't architects, it is industrial and mechanical engineers who design and layout the production floor. The architect just makes the fascia of the building look pretty

It is easier to move stuff around with forklifts in a single floor plant than it is with freight elevators in a multifloor plant.

[nain rouge]

Also, I just want to restate that the factories were just part of the equation. Somehow the suburbs [[with a much greater overall population than Detroit) managed to do fairly well for decades after the riots. I'd argue it's because the suburbs saw more investment than Detroit. Now that you've all spent all this time arguing away the factories, let's you argue away the skyscrapers in Troy and Southfield, the state and federal tax dollars spent on infrastructural development for the suburbs, white flight, and etc.

[Hermod]

There's little doubt about the political implications for blacks of at-large voting for council, instituted in 1918, right after the first batch of Southern blacks moved north.

At-large voting was one of those great progressive ideas [[get rid of the ward bosses) that had unintended consequences. Of course eugenics was also a great progressive idea.