When was the tipping point when Detroit went from up and coming city to decline?

[firstandten]

The election of CAY is a symptom, not a cause.

I"m surprised we went 15 posts into this before CAY was mentioned. Sometimes folks have a difficult time understanding the difference between the symptoms and the root causes. In CAY 's case asking yourself what were the issues that got him elected [[at least for the first couple of terms) gets you a lot closer to the root causes of Detroit's decline than just him being in office and perhaps acting like a jerk to a certain segment of the population.

[Ravine]

After the riot of 1967, a lot of folks threw in the towel and moved out. The population, and therefore the tax-base, has been declining ever since.
The auto industry, for a couple of reasons, lost a lot of its strength. Blame higher gas prices, blame increased purchase of imports, blame unions, blame management greed, blame some or all of those factors. The bottom line is the same: sinking.
It's not terribly complicated, just terribly sad, and I no longer believe that it's going to get better.
I think we're fucked, gang.

[MidTownMs]

I"m surprised we went 15 posts into this before CAY was mentioned. Sometimes folks have a difficult time understanding the difference between the symptoms and the root causes. In CAY 's case asking yourself what were the issues that got him elected [[at least for the first couple of terms) gets you a lot closer to the root causes of Detroit's decline than just him being in office and perhaps acting like a jerk to a certain segment of the population.

I didn't live in Detroit during the CAY administration...but I have read and heard many things about him...I moved back to Detroit the day of his funeral. I felt I shouldn't add him to my list because what I know about him is hearsay which I chose not to comment on.

[esp1986]

While there are other factors, most factors can [[in some way) be tied back to these three:

1) Expressways - Obviously built to get people to and from place to place, as well as to the city, quickly. This started the exodus, as some people started looking for cheaper property. Demand for amenities in the suburbs would lead to the creation of modern malls.

2) Closing of Detroit's Rail System - When the rail system was shut down, many people lost the way they get around the city. People were then forced to not only drive, but own a car as well. Now essentially being forced to drive anyway, people no longer saw any benefit to the higher property values and corresponding taxes in the city, so they also used the convenience of the expressways and searched for cheaper property outside of the city.

3) Riots - There were a lot of people holding out in the city. However, following the riots, "white flight" took hold, as the biggest single factor in Detroit's decline, leading to an era of corruption and rampant decline as a lot of people and money left the city.

[Axle]

I'm just going to give a simplistic response: Politics and apathy.
The events listed provided the blinders [[excuses) for both politicians and residents [[not all mind you!), and it just snowballs from there <insert causes/effects, events mentioned in previous posts> and here we are.

Alex.

[DetroitPlanner]

As 1953 pointed out, Detroit's population peaked between the 1950 and 1960 census. Therefore it most likely took a few years for it to peak at approximately 2 million. This is also when the last of the large subdivisions went in within the City limits. Freeway building began in the 1950's and it started to remove large numbers of housing units. It also freed up a lot of the congestion on City streets, so folks were able to move further out into wild and exotic places like Southfield or St. Clair Shores and because gas was cheap it did not impact thier family budget. Its been downhill ever since.

CAY was elected when I was a tot. I wanted Ernie Brown to win. Why? Because he was the only one who came to our door and asked for my parent's votes. I got to shake his hand. Therefore he was only in my book. I can also remember Mr Belvedire coming to our door, though he looked different that the TV Mr Belividere. I appreciated CAY's fiestyness. To be fair the City was run pretty well under him in spite of what many may think. Garbage would get picked up. If you had bulk items it was not an issue like it is now. The parks were mowed. When there would be things like sinkholes or water main breaks they would get fixed right away.

The decline in schools was because of a decline in tax base and the desire to keep the same number of schools open that served a population of 2 million.

[Hermod]

Lets not get too carried away on blaming the expressways. In 1961, the eastbound Ford ended at Gratiot and the Chrysler ended at the Ford. The Southfield, Fisher, and Jeffries.existed only on paper. The Lodge and Davison were the only completed routes.

Those eeeeeeevulllllll suburbanites snuck into the city on Harper [[3 lanes), Gratiot [[four lanes), Mound [[four lanes, Van Dyke [[2 and 4 lanes), Mound [[four lanes), and Dequindre [[2 lanes) in their "invasions" of Detroit.

[DetroitPlanner]

Lets not get too carried away on blaming the expressways. In 1961, the eastbound Ford ended at Gratiot and the Chrysler ended at the Ford. The Southfield, Fisher, and Jeffries.existed only on paper. The Lodge and Davison were the only completed routes.

You're not factoring in the amount of time it takes to condem and remove all of those homes and businesses, reroute utilities, then actually begin building the thing. As it stands now it takes an entire construction year to reconstruct a freeway. Just imagine having to dig it out first, the process would take a minimum of 5 years to do and thats using today's timelines with advanced technologies [[but we stepped sort of backwards due to Environmental Impact Statements/Environmental Justice. Don't get me wrong EIS and EJ are very important in the building of government infastructure. However they do add time to development.

[Hermod]

You're not factoring in the amount of time it takes to condem and remove all of those homes and businesses, reroute utilities, then actually begin building the thing. As it stands now it takes an entire construction year to reconstruct a freeway. Just imagine having to dig it out first, the process would take a minimum of 5 years to do and thats using today's timelines with advanced technologies [[but we stepped sort of backwards due to Environmental Impact Statements/Environmental Justice. Don't get me wrong EIS and EJ are very important in the building of government infastructure. However they do add time to development.

DP, I worked for the City of Detroit at the time [[1961) as a Junior Civil Engineer in the Bureau of Expressway Design.

We were working on detailed plans for the "13th contract" [[13th phase) which would partially complete the Ford-Chrysler interchange. I think that initial planning only went out to Holbrook and north of that was "pie in the sky".

I got so tired of drawing expressway cross-sections [[in pre-autocad days) that when i went into the army for my two year commitment, I just stayed in the army. Somewhere around 1964, I went back and took my lump sum out of the retirement kitty.

[skyl4rk]

Victory Japan Day meant the end of the Arsenal of Democracy. From that point on there was a shift to the civilian economy which meant that there were not as many jobs available and they were not available to the same groups of people as they were during wartime. Returning troops came back and looked for jobs. Women and minorities saw their opportunities decrease, in particular in good paying positions. Many of the people who had moved to Detroit for work in the 40s and 50s found that they were no longer welcome. This set up the foundations of the race war that occurred from the 50s through today.

The Arsenal of Democracy period was the economic development binge, thereafter, the hangover.

[Hermod]

Victory Japan Day meant the end of the Arsenal of Democracy. From that point on there was a shift to the civilian economy which meant that there were not as many jobs available and they were not available to the same groups of people as they were during wartime. Returning troops came back and looked for jobs. Women and minorities saw their opportunities decrease, in particular in good paying positions. Many of the people who had moved to Detroit for work in the 40s and 50s found that they were no longer welcome. This set up the foundations of the race war that occurred from the 50s through today.

The Arsenal of Democracy period was the economic development binge, thereafter, the hangover.

I don't think that was as big a factor. Many of the workers in Detroit were draft exempt as workers in "essential war industry". Many of the women filling jobs were eager to get back into life as moms [[remember the post-war baby boom?). I agree that the war brought a large number of southern whites and blacks to Detroit which exacerbated the racial tensions in the city.

The immediate post war economic boom kept most of them working their wartime jobs only making consumer products instead of war materiel. There wasn't a real problem with unemployment till 1954 when the post war auto shortages had been filled and people quit needing new cars.

1954 and 1958 were the dim, dark years for employment in Detroit.

[English]

1954 and 1958 were the dim, dark years for employment in Detroit.

My grandmother is the only person that I know who talks about this. She told me about all the men out of work in Detroit during the Eisenhower administration.

People characterize the 1950s as this utopia when for many in the US and in Detroit, it was anything but.

[softailrider]

Whatever point anyone thinks was the beginning [[there are many to choose from), Coleman's election was the end of all hope for the city. Detroit essentially died that day.

I often wonder what the city would be like todayif Nichols would have won that first election.

[PeachLaser]

For my family, it was when my brother was attacked by a gang member in New Center in 1951 for no apparent reason. My father said, "We are getting out of here." The timing seems to fit the peak and decline of Detroit.

[stasu1213]

In the 1950s through the late 60s Detroit still had strong vibrant neighborhoods. New Yorkers and Chicagoian wished they could have their own space meaning a house and a garage to put you car in. New Yorkers lived on top of one another then. Detroit was still a great place to live. The question I have is if "white flight" had not happened during the time period from the 50s through the 80s, would Detroit be declining poster child of urban despair that it is today?

[mwilbert]

I think Detroit's run as an "up and coming" city ended with the Great Depression. I'm not saying it started declining then, but much of the entrepreneurial energy that you saw everywhere in the 'teens and Twenties went out of the place. No more big buildings. Consolidation and relative stagnation of the auto industry as huge numbers of smaller firms went out of business. Obviously Detroit was quite prosperous during and after WWII, but the dynamism was largely gone.

Psychologically, there was a brief revival under Cavanaugh, but that ended in '67.

[eno]

Detroit has been going downhill since automobiles began to be mass-produced and heavy industry and factory culture ruled the landscape.

[Hermod]

My grandmother is the only person that I know who talks about this. She told me about all the men out of work in Detroit during the Eisenhower administration.

People characterize the 1950s as this utopia when for many in the US and in Detroit, it was anything but.

It was "boom and bust" in the fifties.

We would have a couple of good automotive years followed by a bad year.

54 and 58 were particularly bad years.

The auto industry was a much bigger component of the US GDP in those years as well with ripples back into steel, trucking, advertising, etc.

The off-year elections in 54 and 58 gave the Democratic Party majorities in the House of Representatives that it didn't lose until 1994. A down year also was the boost that gave JFK his presidential victory in 1960 [[a very close race).

"Whats good for General Motors is good for the country" was really true back then.

President Kennedy, in 1962, pushed through income tax decreases which cut the bottom rate from 20% to 14% and cut the top rate from 91% to 70% to attempt to stop what he referred to as "rolling recessions" which he blamed on unwillingness to spend and invest [[he was the first supply-sider).

[1953]

I'll add another dynamic to this conversation: the air conditioner.

Since the popularization of the air conditioning unit, the American center of population has swiftly moved south and west. Without that invention, the population may have largely stayed huddled together in the north and east.

1953

[Carey]

There's been a lot of talk on this thread about racism and expressways as reasons for Detroit's decline. But those are two ingredients that are present in every American metro area. Look at all the expressways that criss-cross Chicago, for example, And racism is certainly an American disease, and it isn't difficult to think of racial incidents in recent years in most U.S. big cities.

I think what's specific to Detroit is the over-dependence on one industry, or one sector -- manufacturing -- which turned out to be bad luck, as manufacturing declined over the past 50 years. Chicago's population has dropped by about 1 million people since 1950, but thanks to a more diversified economy, it remains a very viable city in most areas.

The 1950s were a very bad time for Detroit, job-wise, though life in many neighborhoods continued to be as lively and comfortable as many old timers recall. But one of the first things Jerry Cavanagh did when he became mayor was to insitute the income tax, as the city was running out of money.

[XDetroitr]

All of the aforementioned reasons contributed to the decline. But 1 additional reason is sorely missing from the long list... crime. It drove my parents out of a racially mixed neighborhood near Herman Kiefer Hospital in the mid-50s. And eventually drove me out of Palmer Park in the early 80s. Crime may not have been the primary factor for the decline, but it's definitely the main reason for it's delayed recovery.

[Hypestyles]

help is needed more than ever.. hopefully there will be a push for aggressive attraction of alternative industry to urban detroit, also much more adult education to combat adult illiteracy, and radical reform of city schools to educate youth..

[Danny]

Detroit just like any other American Cities in the [[Rust Belt) fell to

segregation
xenophobia
suburban development
freeways
white flight
shoping malls
riots of 67 [[ not a race riot)
Coleman Young
black growth and takeover after 1975
gang problems
Detroit Public School problems
city council problems
Kwame's parties
and black flight

Detroit haven't change a lot, but it did change one step at a time.


WORD FROM THE STREET PROPHET

Because if you want to change Detroit, get rid of the 'I don't care about Detroit people!'

Neda, I miss you so

[English]

I've said this on almost every DPS thread we've had here, but we need for DPS schools to operate more like 24-7-365 comprehensive "life centers." Three meals per day, combining the functions of a traditional school with a community center, health clinic, police mini-station, and safe house. We need to minimize the amount of time that kids, especially young ones, spend in chaotic homes and dangerous neighborhoods. For instance, on nights that a mom is going to spend with a potentially nutty boyfriend, it would be vital for there to be a dormitory for the kid to have a safe place to sleep. If a young teenaged boy has been threatened in the neighborhood, he should be able to stay at school. EVERY Detroit public school teacher worth their salt has dealt with kids who just can't go home... the idea of "home" is terrifying. A few are OK going home, but getting there via public transportation or walking is just too dangerous.

Make these school life centers safe. On the inside, they can be wonderful, clean, and bright, but on the perimeter, they should have security. Enforce zero tolerance policies for fighting and weapons. Screen the HECK out of all adult workers and volunteers, and ensure that no one adult is alone with kids.

I'd advocate for boarding schools, period, but you couldn't locate them in the city at all... too tempting of a target. There's also the issue of what happens when kids go home for the summer.

Socioeconomic realities have killed the neighborhoods of the poor. If we're not going to round up people or take other anti-human measures, we might as well try to save the generation that we have left...

...but we won't do any of this, because we can't afford it.

Remember that Chicago teen who was beat to death, Derrion Albert? He was a studious young man with a bright future. Imagine if he didn't have to walk home that evening. Imagine if he'd been able to stay at school.

Just some thoughts...

[Detroitnerd]

October 1929.