> Detroit is the perfect microcosm of the US wealth polarity trend.

Au contraire, Detroit is a perfect microcosm of absolutely abominable government and culture. Sure, this has led to wealth disparity, as anyone with the means to get out, has. But the root cause is awful governance.

So you realize that "anyone with the means to get out" of Detroit started doing so 1968ish after the riots, and it in fact is what caused the population and economic decline of Detroit?

One really did come before the other, and it was the exodus of white people (followed by the auto companies) before it was the collapse of the city or any accusations of 'abominable government' (and 'culture', what?).

It's kind of just what happened.

They only left when the politicians forgot their job and instead served to stir up resentment and worse. They served themselves instead of the people, Detroit like many similar cities is an example of where politicians and government employee unions put themselves first before the citizens. However unlike cities like New York the money ran out.

Politicians have learned to use diversity to drive a wedge to keep and gain more political power. The divide us, hyphenate us, and make victims, all so they can keep their power.

I'm not from Detroit so would it be possible for someone to provide references to any claims? People are just offering opinions. Having watched the news all my life, all I saw was that Detroit followed the auto industry, which did well when big cars did well.

There were riots in Detroit in 1967, as in many American cities in the late 60s (Detroit's was actually one of the first of that trend). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Detroit_riot

A white exodus from Detroit immediately followed. You can see in the wikipedia decade-by-decade population statistics that Detroit's population loss began between 1960 and 1970, and continued -- and further, with the racial breakdown, that the population loss was almost exclusively white people, with the black population actually continuing to rise through 1990. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Detroit

Although, in fact, you can see in the figures above that white (but not black) population of Detroit had actually already started to drop between 1950 and 1960, it accelerated significantly, and amazingly quickly, after 1967.

Here's a good popular article on the history of race relations -- and white disinvestment and abandonment -- in Detroit, blaming white abandonment for Detroit's current distress. http://www.epi.org/blog/detroits-bankruptcy-reflects-history... I strongly recommend this short readable article.

Coleman Young, the first African-American mayor of Detroit, served as mayor from 1974 to 1994. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coleman_Young

As that wikipedia article says, "Young's tenure as mayor has been blamed in part for the city's ills, especially the exodus of middle class taxpayers to the suburbs, the emergence of powerful drug-dealing gangs, and the rising crime rate." The accusations you see in this thread of 'government mismanagement' began with Young's long tenure. Whether they are right or wrong (I'm not a huge fan of Young myself), in fact white flight (which is the entire nature of Detroit's population decline, as the wikipedia demographic statistics show -- black population continued to rise for decades as Detroit's overall population plummeted) began long before Young's election, so can't be a response to any mismanagement from Young's administration.

Shivetya's claim that "They only left when the politicians forgot their job and instead served to stir up resentment and worse," is typical (and is typical in being about race while avoiding using racial words; 'abominable culture', oh? Sadly, I don't think he means an abominable culture of white supremacy. 'stir up resentment', eh? Gee, what could black people in Detroit have had to be resentful about, unless it was artificially 'stirred up'? I suspect people saying such things feel similarly about Ferguson) -- but gets the order of history of wrong. I suppose you could blame Young (or subsequent black mayors) for not managing to reverse the disinvestment trend (although, then, the U.S. auto industry started shrinking and what was left leaving municipal Detroit, which was going to be a problem no matter what; although the fact that the auto industry too increasingly moved to the suburbs is actually part of the 'white flight' story) -- but it's simply a historical fact that the disinvestment trend pre-dated black control.

If the people in this thread blaming bad municipal government really mean pre-1967 white municipal government they should say so and explain what they mean -- but generally the people making these arguments (with barely coded racial terms) mean the post-1974 Coleman Young administration -- but by the time Young took power, the white exodus was already massive, which is what led to his election in fact.

Nobody's gonna read this tldr post in deeply nested not highly rated part of this comment thread, but you asked, so I give you what you ask for, cause this shit pisses me off.

Well I read it. The situation in Detroit sounds remarkably similar to the situation in Memphis. Instead of race riots sparking massive white flight, we had desegregation and busing. Immediately, there was a huge exodus to the suburbs. Within 5 years of busing, Memphis had the largest private school system in the country. .

Interestingly, Briarcrest, which is the private school in Memphis that "The Blindside" is based on, is a Southern Baptist school founded immediately after busing. Its legacy is one of overt racism, which I thought was nicely whitewashed in the movie's narrative of white saviours rescuing Michael Orr.

Additionally, Memphis' first black mayor, Willie Herenton was mayor from 1991 to 2009 and has had much of the city's slide blamed on him. The extent of his influence on that is arguable, but there was certainly a great deal of mismanagement that happened under his watch. We've had some reinvestment in our downtown, but we've still got lots of problems.

Yep, it is a common situation in the U.S.

Detroit's mismanagement goes back long before 1967. It goes back at least to the 1920s and very likely much farther than that. The success of the auto industry in the area just papered over those problems for a long time.

I think every major city has the wealthy suburbs nearby like that, industries grow and the wealthy owners leave the cities for more space. Bloomfield Hills is ~20 miles away from Detroit. LA's rich and poor cities are much closer than that, and in NYC it's practically neighborhood by neighborhood with the absurdly wealthy cities farther out.

Substitute Grosse Pointe for Bloomfield if you want an extraordinarily wealthy suburb within single-digit miles of deeply poor neighborhoods.

Similar to Oakland. Everyone knows Oakland is full of riots and crime and whatnot. Not everybody knows it completely encircles Piedmont, one of the richest cities in the country. It's all a matter of drawing lines.

Grosse Pointe is extremely wealthy and literally a stones throw from some very rough neighbor hoods of Detroit. I live in a middle class suburb of Detroit and my family and I will drive up and down lakeshore drive every christmas admiring the extravagant light displays that the rich folk put on. You can immediately tell when you have left Grosse Pointe.