Comparing the decline of Detroit to other Michigan industrial cities.

I've often wondered what Detroit was like from the early '70s on to the late '80s. The basic story is the the riots happened in 67, Young was elected mayor, and the city declined. Not enough attention is given to describing or documenting what the different neighborhoods were like during the transitional period from the 1960s to 1990s. Where all the photos and stories? It's like the city was just written off at the time.

In 1970, Detroit still had 1.5 million people. In 1980, 1.2 million continued to call it home. Detroit was a major American city at this time, no matter how you sliced. But then again, a lot of the city's old, time-honored institutions were being forsaken - the future was bleak. At the same time, though, more of those institutions were still around then we're ever likely to see again. It must have been a fascinating time.

To try and give my imagination a frame of reference, I've found myself trying to compare the different stages of Detroit to other Michigan industrial cities.

Flint, I'd guess, is what Detroit might've been like in the late '80s. Downtown is relatively intact but eerily devoid of pedestrians, and the immediate neighborhoods are old and in rough shape overall. Most industry has skipped town. However, if you drive a little further out, you'll find a bunch of middle class and working class neighborhoods that are in pretty good shape. The artistic institutions are in relatively good shape, too: the Flint Institute of Arts and Flint Symphony Orchestra are going strong. The disinvestment is not quite complete.

Kalamazoo, on the other hand, gives me a very early '70s Detroit vibe. The entire city is basically still together, and while a lot of industry has left, there's just as much industry that has stayed. Violent crime is a problem, but not enough to stop quite a few people from living close to the "inner city" or visiting downtown. There are still some new investments going on, too, and if you go to the outskirts of town, you'll find suburban-style developments that are doing pretty well.

I'd imagine that cities like Saginaw or Battle Creek fall somewhere in-between the early '70s and late '80s periods. Pontiac must be closer to what Detroit was like in the early '90s.

I don't know, I may be way off, and we all know that everything happened on a much larger scale in Detroit, changing the dynamics. Actual pictures and stories from the time period in question would help, of course.

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Originally Posted by nain rouge

I don't know, I may be way off, and we all know that everything happened on a much larger scale in Detroit, changing the dynamics.

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You're about 20 years off. Detroit started to decline in the early 1950s.

I don't think you can add Kalamazoo to your list. It is a college town with 75,000 residents and 25,000 students. WMU is rather highly acclaimed, and the city seems to be holding its' own, even in the current state climate. I think that Kalamazoo is more on the Grand Rapids model than the Detroit model... it appears to be heading in the right [[rather than wrong) direction.

Flint is in far worse shape than Detroit. I don't really know of any major stable neighborhoods in Flint. The North Side is worse than the South Side, but the whole city is in deep decline.

One major difference with Detroit is that, excepting Grand Blanc, basically all the Flint suburbs are in pretty significant decline. Mt. Morris Township [[just north of Flint) looks even worse than Flint proper. That might be the worst jurisdiction in the state.

Saginaw is in pretty bad shape too. I'd say, overall, it's in worse shape than Detroit, and almost as bad as Flint.

Kalamazoo, to me, is pretty thriving. Looks almost like an Ann Arbor-lite. I don't get the 70's Detroit reference.

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Originally Posted by Bham1982

Kalamazoo, to me, is pretty thriving. Looks almost like an Ann Arbor-lite. I don't get the 70's Detroit reference.

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Well, I'll admit that I'm a bit ignorant on what Detroit was like in the '70s and '80s. I'd imagine that with 1.5 million people in 1970, though, Detroit would've seemed fairly vibrant and occupied in comparison to any other time since. Or was it really that bad, overall, even then?

I just spent the weekend in Kalamazoo and talked to some locals at the bars and coffee shops in town, and from what I can tell, Kalamazoo isn't quite Ann Arbor-lite. Seems like everyone knows someone that was either murdered, witnessed a murder, or lived on a street that had a murder. The violent crime rate, statistically, is definitely above average by Michigan standards. And I saw quite a bit of open-air drug trading going on, too.

That's not to say that I have a bad opinion of Kalamazoo. I enjoyed my time there and would be willing to live there if the opportunity arose, and there are plenty of very safe neighborhoods on the outskirts of town [[although I'd locate closer to downtown). The neighborhoods in the inner city aren't terrible by any means [[in fact, I spent most of time walking through such neighborhoods), but there is a sketchy element lurking.

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Originally Posted by Gistok

I think that Kalamazoo is more on the Grand Rapids model than the Detroit model... it appears to be heading in the right [[rather than wrong) direction.

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I'm trying to compare the current state of Kalamazoo to the state of Detroit around 1970. While Kalamazoo does appear to have a somewhat promising future, that's not part of my comparison.

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Originally Posted by Bham1982

Flint is in far worse shape than Detroit. I don't really know of any major stable neighborhoods in Flint. The North Side is worse than the South Side, but the whole city is in deep decline.

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Yes, the inner city in Flint is in serious decline, although Carriage Town and a few other neighborhoods have small pockets of gentrification. However, I was surprised by some of the neighborhoods I saw heading towards Burton and near Kettering University. They seemed at least comparable in quality
to what I saw in Kalamazoo for the most part, or some of the better neighborhoods in Detroit.

Flint has some serious problems, of course, but people love to exaggerate the problems of any declining Michigan city. Trust me, it doesn't need any exaggeration. Reality is bad enough.

I lived in NE Detroit up through the late 80's. I lived by 8 Mile and Schoenherr and it was a very nice neighborhood. It was still majority white, although the black population was slowly rising. It was mostly middle class. There was still a law in place that required city employees to live in the city so the neighborhood was filled with cops, firefighters, and city employees. It also became popular with other middle class families as a lot of people were choosing this area over nearby Harper Woods and Eastpointe due to property being cheaper just because it was a Detroit address. There were no vacant homes and very little crime. The areas down by 7 and Schoenherr were increasingly getting worse however. We had neighborhood associations and neighborhood watches. I rented a duplex at the time and finally decided to buy a house. That area was strongly considered but ultimately I settled on Harper Woods because of the schools. The elementary school at that time wasn't bad but Denby was starting to get a bad rap. I remember city services to be pretty good. Trash pickup was prompt and all the street lights worked. It seemed things really went south in the last 10 years in that neighborhood. I think a lot has to do with the lifting of the residency requirement on city workers. My house was next door to where officer Huff had got shot and killed a few years ago by a drug dealing squatter in a vacant house. That was just unheard of. I know people talk about the downtown development and midtown, but it just seems like Detroit was in better shape in the 70's and 80's. Those neighborhoods around St Johns and along Mack used to be really nice areas. 8 Mile from Kelly over to Schoenherr used to be nice.

I got nothing to say:cool:

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Originally Posted by Shollin

I lived in NE Detroit up through the late 80's. I lived by 8 Mile and Schoenherr and it was a very nice neighborhood. It was still majority white, although the black population was slowly rising. It was mostly middle class. There was still a law in place that required city employees to live in the city so the neighborhood was filled with cops, firefighters, and city employees. It also became popular with other middle class families as a lot of people were choosing this area over nearby Harper Woods and Eastpointe due to property being cheaper just because it was a Detroit address. There were no vacant homes and very little crime. The areas down by 7 and Schoenherr were increasingly getting worse however. We had neighborhood associations and neighborhood watches. I rented a duplex at the time and finally decided to buy a house. That area was strongly considered but ultimately I settled on Harper Woods because of the schools. The elementary school at that time wasn't bad but Denby was starting to get a bad rap. I remember city services to be pretty good. Trash pickup was prompt and all the street lights worked. It seemed things really went south in the last 10 years in that neighborhood. I think a lot has to do with the lifting of the residency requirement on city workers. My house was next door to where officer Huff had got shot and killed a few years ago by a drug dealing squatter in a vacant house. That was just unheard of. I know people talk about the downtown development and midtown, but it just seems like Detroit was in better shape in the 70's and 80's. Those neighborhoods around St Johns and along Mack used to be really nice areas. 8 Mile from Kelly over to Schoenherr used to be nice.

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Yeah, everything you said is true.

While the mortgage added insult to injury, I do believe the lifting of the residency requirement really destroyed NE Detroit.

In addition to how nice the area was, it also had plenty of retail that's long gone now.

My mother was corporate counsel for the City, we lived at Lannoo and Mack in what is today called "Cornerstone Village." It really is a great neighborhood and still is today. My parents moved us out of there in '94 after the residency requirements got lifted. Although we still continued to go to school at St. Clare on Mack that whole area[[of the NE side) west of 94 has changed dramatically since the mid-90's.

The mortgage crisis was somewhat of the last nail in the coffin for fringe areas like Morningside, etc.

To even say that you know of no stable neighborhoods in Flint shows you have no clue about my city and shouldn't comment about it. Obviously you have never heard of the College Cultural [[Woodlawn Park) Neighborhood which is thehome to the Flint Institute of Arts, Main Library, Whiting Auditorium, Longway Planetarium, Bower Theater, Sloan Museum, Flint Public Library, Flint Institute of Music, Mott college, several large mansions which would rival those in any city and a nice mix of middle to uper middle class households. There is also a great neighborhood right near the Michigan School for the Deaf which is rather small but has some really nice houses. And just a little further up Miller Rd alongside the Swartz Creek Golf course there is a great neighborhood with a mix of upper middle class homes and large mansions.

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Originally Posted by Bham1982

Flint is in far worse shape than Detroit. I don't really know of any major stable neighborhoods in Flint. The North Side is worse than the South Side, but the whole city is in deep decline.

One major difference with Detroit is that, excepting Grand Blanc, basically all the Flint suburbs are in pretty significant decline. Mt. Morris Township [[just north of Flint) looks even worse than Flint proper. That might be the worst jurisdiction in the state.

Saginaw is in pretty bad shape too. I'd say, overall, it's in worse shape than Detroit, and almost as bad as Flint.

Kalamazoo, to me, is pretty thriving. Looks almost like an Ann Arbor-lite. I don't get the 70's Detroit reference.

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Originally Posted by gumby

To even say that you know of no stable neighborhoods in Flint shows you have no clue about my city and shouldn't comment about it. .

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Or perhaps, more accurately, confirms your hometown biases.

I know all these neighborhoods except for the golf course one, and I wouldn't call them healthy neighborhoods. Perhaps relative to the rest of Flint, but not compared to regular U.S. standards of healthy neighborhoods [[i.e. strong and rising property values, growing population, etc.)

I have to agree with Bham on this. Flint and the area surrounding it are in a major state of decline. Yes there are positive places, but the area continues to slide downward. The same is true for Saginaw.

I would also add Battle Creek, Jackson, and Muskegon to the list. On a much smaller scale there are dozens of small cities in Northern Michigan that unfortunately have the same fate. As the jobs dry up in the relatively wealthy industrial cities, there is less money going into these towns during the weekeends. For every Petosky and Travese City that seem to be doing ok, there are dozens of Alpens, Oscodas, West Branches, Roscommons, Kalkaskas that are not.

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Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner

I have to agree with Bham on this. Flint and the area surrounding it are in a major state of decline. Yes there are positive places, but the area continues to slide downward. The same is true for Saginaw.

I would also add Battle Creek, Jackson, and Muskegon to the list. On a much smaller scale there are dozens of small cities in Northern Michigan that unfortunately have the same fate. As the jobs dry up in the relatively wealthy industrial cities, there is less money going into these towns during the weekeends. For every Petosky and Travese City that seem to be doing ok, there are dozens of Alpens, Oscodas, West Branches, Roscommons, Kalkaskas that are not.

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Funny you mention Roscommon. My parents moved from there. What a horrible little town. They just tore down a historic house, one of the oldest buildings left in the town, and built a Dollar General. You're also talking about a town of 1000 people that was never anything to begin with. It's like the thousands of small towns all over the US.

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Originally Posted by Shollin

Funny you mention Roscommon. My parents moved from there. What a horrible little town. They just tore down a historic house, one of the oldest buildings left in the town, and built a Dollar General. You're also talking about a town of 1000 people that was never anything to begin with. It's like the thousands of small towns all over the US.

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I noted that new DG the other day while I was up at my Cabin. I don't get into Rosco much, but its about 15 miles from the place.

I think you guys are looking at the wrong timeframe. There’s a good book called Michigan Shadow Towns. The books tells how Michigan went from having 3,823 towns in 1910 to only 1,295 in 1940. Think of every town, each with its own grist mill, its own small industries, its own forges, all becoming intertwined into the Midwestern American economy. By the end of the Depression, Americans increasingly worked at giant industries in large cities, and foods and goods were distributed from large central facilities as opposed to being made in small towns.

Then, after 1950, arguably the zenith of Detroit, consider the rise of the global economy, in which large American cities are increasingly like the shadow towns of old Michigan, where production is offshored to other countries with lower wages and fewer protections for workers, and all on a more massive scale [[as in China).

I think this is the best way to compare the decline of Detroit with the decline of other Michigan cities — in the continuum of their decline.