The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit

The reasons behind Detroit’s persistent racialized poverty after World War II Once America's "arsenal of democracy," Detroit is now the symbol of the American urban crisis. In this reappraisal of America’s racial and economic inequalities, Thomas Sugrue asks why Detroit and other industrial cities have become the sites of persistent racialized poverty. He challenges the conventional wisdom that urban decline is the product of the social programs and racial fissures of the 1960s. Weaving together the history of workplaces, unions, civil rights groups, political organizations, and real estate agencies, Sugrue finds the roots of today’s urban poverty in a hidden history of racial violence, discrimination, and deindustrialization that reshaped the American urban landscape after World War II. This Princeton Classics edition includes a new preface by Sugrue, discussing the lasting impact of the postwar transformation on urban America and the chronic issues leading to Detroit’s bankruptcy. Contents Illustrations Tables Preface to the Princeton Classics Edition Preface to the 2005 Edition Acknowledgments Introduction Part One. Arsenal 1. “Arsenal of Democracy” 2. “Detroit’s Time Bomb”: Race and Housing in the 1940s 3. “The Coffin of Peace”: The Containment of Public Housing Part Two. Rust 4. “The Meanest and Dirtiest Jobs”: The Structures of Employment Discrimination 5. “The Damning Mark of False Prosperities”: The Deindustrialization of Detroit 6. “Forget about Your Inalienable Right to Work”: Responses to Industrial Decline and Discrimination Part Three. Fire 7. Class, Status, and Residence: The Changing Geography of Black Detroit 8. “Homeowners’ Rights”: White Resistance and the Rise of Antiliberalism 9. “United Communities Are Impregnable”: Violence and the Color Line Conclusion. Crisis: Detroit and the Fate of Postindustrial America Appendix A. Index of Dissimilarity, Blacks and Whites in Major American Cities, 1940–1990 Appendix B. African American Occupational Structure in Detroit, 1940–1970 Abbreviations in the Notes Notes Index Once America's "arsenal of democracy," Detroit has become the symbol of the American urban crisis. In this reappraisal of America's racial and economic inequalities, the author asks why Detroit and other industrial cities have become the sites of persistent racialized poverty. He challenges the conventional wisdom that urban decline is the product of the social programs and racial fissures of the 1960s. Weaving together the history of workplaces, unions, civil rights groups, political organizations, and real estate agencies, Sugrue finds the roots of today's urban poverty in a hidden history of racial violence, discrimination, and deindustrialization that reshaped the American urban landscape after World War II. This Princeton Classics edition includes a new preface by the author, discussing the lasting impact of the postwar transformation on urban America and the chronic issues leading to Detroit's bankruptcy Once America's "arsenal of democracy," Detroit over the last fifty years has become the symbol of the American urban crisis. In this reappraisal of racial and economic inequality in modern America, Thomas Sugrue explains how Detroit and many other once prosperous industrial cities have become the sites of persistent racialized poverty. He challenges the conventional wisdom that urban decline is the product of the social programs and racial fissures of the 1960s. Probing beneath the veneer of 1950s prosperity and social consensus, Sugrue traces the rise of a new ghetto, solidified by changes in IN 1927, Charles Sheeler photographed the Ford Motor Company's enormous River Rouge plant.