Detroit Redlining Map 1939 | DETROITography Part of Detroit’s history of racial discrimination is comprised on housing discrimination, which in turn contributed to job discrimination, interpersonal racism, and continued racial inequity of opportunity. These areas of Detroit were targeted for “urban renewal” in the 1960s which displaced thousands of black residents to public housing complexes. Today these areas of Detroit have more vacancy (see map) than others either because the redlined properties were managed by slumlords whose properties deteriorated (see map) more quickly or from renewal efforts that didn’t consider the displacement of black residents. The racial divisions we see in our neighborhoods today are the result of deliberate actions taken in the past. (State of Opportunity) This segregation of housing, which was legal up until the 1980s, also furthered school segregation and the inadequate education of Detroit’s black children. You can find other HOLC maps online at: urbanoasis.org Like this: Like Loading... Related
Detroit Race Riot (1967) The Intersection of 12th Street and Clairmount, Saturday, July 23, 1967 Image Courtesy of the Detroit Free Press Image Ownership: Public Domain The Detroit Race Riot in Detroit, Michigan in the summer of 1967 was one of the most violent urban revolts in the 20th century. It came as an immediate response to police brutality but underlying conditions including segregated housing and schools and rising black unemployment helped drive the anger of the rioters. On Sunday evening, July 23, the Detroit Police Vice Squad officers raided an after hours “blind pig,” an unlicensed bar on the corner of 12th Street and Clairmount Avenue in the center of the city’s oldest and poorest black neighborhood. At 5:20 a.m. additional police officers were sent to 12th Street to stop the growing violence. Around 1:00 p.m. police officers began to report injuries from stones, bottles, and other objects that were thrown at them. At 2:00 a.m. Sources:Allen D.
Detroit’s Bankruptcy Reflects a History of Racism This is black history month. It is also the month that the Emergency Manager who took political power and control from the mostly African American residents of Detroit has presented his plan to bring the city out of the bankruptcy he steered it into. This is black history in the making, and I hope the nation will pay attention to who wins and who loses from the Emergency Manager’s plan. Black people are by far the largest racial or ethnic population in Detroit, which has the highest percentage of black residents of any American city with a population over 100,000. Detroit’s bankruptcy plan calls for the near-elimination of the retiree health benefits that city workers earned over the years, as well as drastic cuts in the pensions that retired and current workers have earned and counted on. It’s important to view what is happening to Detroit and its public employees through a racial lens. Government was involved at a more micro level as well. So, why is Detroit bankrupt?
Eerie Before and After Images Show Urban Decay in Detroit | The Weather Channel Perhaps no American city symbolizes urban decay more than Detroit, Michigan. Modern day ruins of the Motor City are not difficult to find, as nature has reclaimed much of the city and neighboring areas. When their occupants left, the homes in the slideshow above became examples of what happens when weather and nature take over unattended homes. Using Google Maps time lapse function, it’s easy to see how much the Detroit suburbs have changed over just the last few years. Several homes are captured in the slideshow above and shown across several years, between 2007 and 2013. A lot changes throughout those six years. Weeds, grass and trees grow in the abandoned homes, and take over parts of each neighborhood. But the changes to these buildings stretch beyond natural occurrences. No street appears as devastated as Hoyt Avenue, which had two well-kept homes in 2009 that were completely overrun by grass and weeds by 2013. MORE FROM WEATHER.COM: Modern Ruins of Abandoned Detroit
Rush Limbaugh: Detroit Went Bankrupt Because Blacks Drove Out Whites By Alan Pyke and Igor Volsky Economists are attributing Detroit’s recent bankruptcy filing to problems facing the entire Rust Belt region: a shrinking tax base, high health and pension costs, sprawl, and general dysfunction. But on Tuesday, Rush Limbaugh added another cause to the long list of factors that have contributed to the city’s downfall: black people. During an appearance on Fox News’ On The Record with Greta Van Susteren on Tuesday, Limbaugh claimed that “unchecked” Democratic rule “since the last Republican mayor [in] 1957” created a lazy and bloated culture of out-of-control spending and corruption. LIMBAUGH: You have massive welfare states where citizens are given things left and right in order to buy their votes. You have no opposition whatsoever. First, Coleman Young, who Limbaugh claims caused the riots, wasn’t elected to the mayor’s office until six years after violence broke out, in 1973. The riots of the late 1960s set off “a chain reaction in neighboring communities.”
The Threat to Detroit’s Rebound Isn’t Crime or the Economy, It’s the Mortgage Industry As a young married couple, Steven and Corey Josephson chose to begin their lives together in Detroit. They came from Greeley, Colorado, a city that couldn’t be more different. It was founded as an experimental utopian community; its majority-white population has more than doubled since 1970; and its unemployment rate is lower than the national average, and about half that of Detroit. Along with their beagle, Baley, they moved into a house in northeast Detroit near 8 Mile Road. “He bought the house originally for $40,000, but home values are not even close to that,” Josephson says. Two different stories are playing out in Detroit — though they seem like they should contradict each other. But at this point, at least, there’s room for everyone. The story of war ends — so far — in one of two ways. Or perhaps there is someone who wants to buy the home. In Detroit, there were 3,500 sales of single-family homes in 2014. One Neighborhood, Two Mortgage Crises The problems don’t end there.
What became of Detroit? As Detroit approaches a new turn in its difficult journey over the past several decades, the imposition of an Emergency Financial Manager by the governor of Michigan (link), many people are asking a difficult question: how did we get to this point? The features that need explanation all fall within a general theme -- the decline of a once-great American city. The city's population is now roughly 40% of its peak of almost two million residents in 1950 (link); the tax revenues for city government fall far short of what is needed to support a decent level of crucial city services; the school system is failing perhaps half of the children it serves; and poverty seems a permanent condition for a large percentage of the city. The decline is economic; it is political; it is demographic; it is fiscal; and it is of course a decline in the quality of life for the majority of the residents of the city. What about race and white flight? Another vicious circle in Detroit concerns schooling.
Eight miles of murder | World news Even by the low standards of Eight Mile Road, the Triple C bar was a seedy place to die. It is a squat one-storey building, windowless and dingy. The only hint at the nightclub inside is three white 'C's tacked to a dirty wall. It was here last week that local Detroit rapper 'Proof' died in a gun battle. It was a fight that ended another young black life in one of America's toughest cities. It also wrote one more bloody footnote to the growing legend of Eight Mile Road: a stretch of tarmac that divides both a city and a nation. To many, Eight Mile is a familiar name - made famous by the semi-autobiographical movie of the same name by rapper Eminem. But unlike the white rapper Eminem, the black Proof - real name DeShaun Holton - showed that most people do not escape Eight Mile. But Eight Mile means far more than another dead Detroit rapper, far more than one successful movie. Walking from one side of Eight Mile Road to the other is a jarring experience. Violence in rap
The Downfall of Detroit: White Flight and the 1967 Race Riots | husseinbazzi The 1967 Detroit riot, also known as the 12th Street riot, was a civil disturbance in Detroit, Michigan that began in the early morning hours of Sunday, July 23, 1967. The precipitating event was a police raid of an unlicensed, after-hours bar then known as a blind pig, on the corner of 12th (today Rosa Parks Boulevard) and Clairmount streets on the city’s Near West Side. Police confrontations with patrons and observers on the street evolved into one of the deadliest and most destructive riots in United States history, lasting five days and surpassing the violence and property destruction of Detroit’s 1943 race riot, which occurred 24 years earlier. The events of 1967 were not spontaneous; they had substance for both blacks and whites. The result of “white flight” around America was the unequal social conditions and relative disparities between races, particularly in communities of color such as Detroit. Works Cited Blakeslee, Jan. “”White Flight” to the Suburbs: Demographic Approach.”
Taxes fall in Detroit neighborhoods Many Detroit homeowners will see their property tax assessments drop 5%-15% this year, although bustling downtown and Midtown will see an increase of 5%, city officials said Monday. It's the latest adjustment in Detroit's three-year effort to reassess every one of the city's 220,000 homes, something that Detroit's chief assessor, Gary Evanko, said the city hasn't done in at least 45 years. Officials want to ensure that property tax assessments more closely match home sale prices in a city deeply scarred by the subprime mortgage foreclosure crisis. City officials said large portions of northwest, north and northeast Detroit will see 15% reductions, while the southwest, near west and lower east parts of the city will see reductions around 5%. Some of the city's more stable neighborhoods — Boston-Edison, Indian Village and Sherwood Forest — will see increases of 15%, reflecting rising sale prices. But assessments on 95% of homes in the city will go down.