Housing crisis deepens in Detroit. Ten years since the Mack Avenue fire By Debra Watson and with photographs by Mary Moore 21 June 2003 It has been a decade since Leroy Lyons and Shereese Williams lost their seven children in a tragic house fire on Detroit’s East Side.
On a February afternoon in 1993, a raging inferno devoured the 130-year-old wooden frame home where the family lived. The parents were out of the house at the time the blaze broke out. When they returned to find their home in flames and their children dead, the police treated them not as bereaved parents but as criminals. The Committee for a Citizens Inquiry was formed by the Workers League (forerunner of the Socialist Equality Party) to expose the attempt of big business and the political elite to cover up their own responsibility for the accumulated social distress that lay behind the tragic deaths.
After an exhaustive investigation, the Citizens Inquiry concluded that the fire itself was not an isolated case. Utility shutoffs continue. Six decades in Detroit: How abandonment, racial tensions and financial missteps bankrupted the city. It was called a city of magic, and many believed the best was yet to come.
For a week in July 1951, Detroit put down its tools to reflect on its magnificence. The city that in four decades transformed from an unremarkable Midwestern community into a prosperous urban powerhouse was celebrating its 250th birthday. A million people lined Woodward for a parade. A musical written for the occasion, “City of Freedom,” ran for 11 days. The city marked the anniversary by creating the Detroit Historical Museum and launching a fundraising drive for Cobo Hall. “The magic of Detroit is the way it sprang apparently full grown, fully prepared, into a world-wide metropolitan eminence, virtually overnight, after two centuries of somnolent obscurity,” John C. Detroit was something new and hopeful. But as Mayor Albert Cobo lit a cake with 250 candles and sent balloons into the summer sky, Detroit was already in decline.
They weren’t. “It was always a city built on money. $500 Houses Not Selling In Detroit – But Suburbs Are Booming. This month, thousands of homes will be auctioned off in Wayne County, Mich., starting at $500.
But so far, people aren’t buying. The majority of these are in Detroit and not exactly a hot commodity. While the county has seen a boom in housing this year, it’s happening 20 or 30 minutes out of the city, which famously declared bankruptcy just months ago. Housing is booming in the suburbs, where foreclosures are more easily absorbed by the market and homebuyers are looking to invest. "Detroit is a split personality, because where there's activity, it's in the suburbs," David Blitzer, chairman of the S&P index committee, told CNN Money "It's not in the center city," Since the recession, housing prices in Detroit are down 36 percent, and still 28 percent below pre-recession levels, according to the most recent Case-Schiller index. Detroit Home Prices and Home Values. Race relations shape Detroit's narrative. For Detroit, a Crisis Born of Bad Decisions and False Hope.
Detroit is a shocking example of "white flight." CofCC.org News Team “We moved away because of the crime.”
“We moved away because of the noise.” “We moved because our kids got attacked at the schools.” These are some of the excuses you hear from millions of middle class white people who have moved, sometimes multiple times, to get away from black neighbors. They are terrified to simply say that they fled the neighborhood to get away from black people. Detroit, Michigan is a giant monument to white flight. 1) In 2000, Detroit ranked as the United States’ eleventh most populous city, with 951,270 residents. 2) The city population dropped from its peak in 1950 with a population of 1,849,568 to 871,121 in 2006. 3) Detroit is usually listed as 82% black. Detroit has lost over half it’s population and virtually all of it’s white people since the 1950s!!!! Marilyn Salenger: ‘White flight’ and Detroit’s decline. By Marilyn Salenger July 21, 2013 Marilyn Salenger is president of Strategic Communications Services and a former correspondent and news anchor for several CBS stations.
An almost palpable sadness has swept across the country at the news that the city of Detroit has filed for bankruptcy. While the possibility of this had been discussed, the reality of what was once the fourth-largest city in the United States sinking to such depths is disheartening, a moment people will remember for years to come. To understand that the decline and bankruptcy represent so much more than dollars and cents requires a step back to a time that many would prefer to forget but remains unforgettable.
In the late 1960s,racial tensions engulfed parts of our country, at the cost of lost lives and abject destruction. It was the beginning of the ending we are now seeing for a city that once stood tall with head held high. My home town of Gary, Ind. White flight took hold and left a lasting imprint. Continue reading.