#shrinkingcities

images from detroiturbex

Exploring and understanding the City of Detroit Because people need to see what is happening to the people and city of Detroit.

Working paper on Detroit by shrinkingcities.com

Shrinking Cities Detroit Situated in the northern Mid-West of the USA, Detroit became the centre of American car production at the beginning of the twentieth century. The "Big Three" ? Chrysler, Ford and General Motors ? created the ultimate "Motor City". It was here that the first street was surfaced with concrete; here that Davison Freeway, the first city motorway, was built. Detroit was long able to boast of unparalleled economic growth. During the nineteen-twenties, one skyscraper was built after another; department stores and palatial cinemas lined the streets. It is no wonder that the number of inhabitants rose from 285,700 to 1.85 million between 1900 and 1950. After 1950, the boom town became one of the first to experience the drift of population to the edge of town. The suburbanisation of Detroit took place against a background marked not only by the rise of the car, but also by racial tension. Between 1940 and 1960, the proportion of blacks in the population grew to one-third. The white middle-classes, full of resentment against the black lower classes, fled to the periphery. In 1998, 78 percent of those living in the suburbs were white, while 79 percent of those in the inner city were black. At this time, the average income in the metropolitan area was almost double that in the inner city.