All-in-all, not an encouraging suite of implications. It stifles innovation and entrepreneurship, and without them growth is stifled as well. Looking at Detroit as a specific case study, it picks apart the many tangled threads of race relations; class differences; the influence of religion; the decisions of business and industry; and the actions (and inactions) of the local, state, and federal government to reveal the reasons why one particular city -- once the shining example of America's productivity -- collapsed under the weight of chronic un- and underemployment and deep structural inequalities. With this work, Thomas J. Sugrue presented a new interpretation of the decline and fall of the American industrial city using Detroit as a case study. Detroit and the huge River Rouge auto plant boomed when it was difficult and expensive to move raw materials and finished goods over roads or to distant places. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of, Published This book looks at the massive problems that Detroit was suffering in the 1990s and continues to suffer in 2015. This has given me an insight. Welcome back. Sugrue traces the growth of urban inequality and segregation from WWII to the 1967 riots in Detroit and outlines the deeply rooted causes of the urban crisis. However, people don't simply riot for no reason! Obviously, the answers to these questions like most historical questions are highly complex and require a lot of research.

This is a surprise dark side to the aspiration for widespread home ownership. Blog. The Origins of the Urban Crisis Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit - Updated Edition. Download Citation | The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit | Once America's "arsenal of democracy," Detroit is now the symbol of the American urban crisis. Book Description: Once America's "arsenal of democracy," Detroit over the last fifty years has become the symbol of the American urban crisis. by Matthew Kaminski, talks about what Gilbert has accomplished. Key to Sugrue’s approach is his view that race is an economically and politically constructed concept that creates an illusion of difference, from which social prejudice arises. (and they could effectively search for lower grief levels in these distant locations). The author manages to tip the content to compelling and away from dry, however. This is a powerful history of Detroit before the infamous 1967 riot. And when that happened Detroiters blamed all sorts of external problems for it happening. He demonstrates how a complex mixture of factors including housing, jobs, racial prejudice, econimics, and politics led to the urban crisis in Detroit. The author states his thesis, and then completely supports it in the first fifth of the book. It's not that these cities never try anything to solve this problem. Introduction. This is a race issue only where race affects the grief level. This is a powerful book. We’d love your help. They liked prescription (my term for status quo) and so they stuck with steel and auto making until the factories shut their doors because they couldn't make money. So... they went elsewhere. The solutions promoted by Dan Gilberts sound good to city fathers, but they don't address the real problems. The dark side, not seen by these enthusiasts, is that home ownership strongly supports status quo and prescriptionism -- if a person owns a home, they become deeply concerned about property values. This is a largely scholarly work with plenty of tables, graphs, and endnotes.

The book is dense but well written and totally fascinating. When did Detroit go wrong? I don't think this was Sugrue's intention, but it is not a great leap to make this inference. Still, the general path followed by Detroit can be applied to any American city with a large working-class population that was subject to mass de-industrialization and decentralization. As a result, “race and class became more important than ethnicity as a guide to the city’s residential geography. Complicating the sociological reasons for the presence of the underclass and urban decline, Sugrue stresses the need to look at the history of the political economy of Detroit in order to find the sources of urban crisis. The result was only a few companies in the Detroit area hired blacks, and when they did they put them in low-paying, dirty service jobs, such as janitorial work. Thomas Sugrue’s The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit uncovers the multiple intertwined causes of urban decline and crisis in Detroit. by Roger Bourke White Jr., copyright Oct 2014.

This was not a fun or enlightening read. In this reappraisal of America's dilemma of racial and economic inequality, Thomas Sugrue asks why Detroit and other industrial cities have become the sites of persistent racialized poverty. There was massive wartime relocation of southern African American, as well as Appalachian whites, seeking factory jobs in defense industries. Instead he contends that the seeds for the city’s substantial decline were actually sown in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Incredibly thorough and depressing study of Detroit's postwar urban crisis. Sugrue looks at the underlying structural problems that existed in Detroit since the 1940s and why people had such strong incentive to riot in 1968. To make them more interested in setting up shop in city center, things such as restrictive zoning laws, status quo-loving neighborhood associations, and capricious city officials and union leaders have to be dealt with. One might think that a book written in 1996 might not contain the most relevant outlook is pretty wrong. There are no discussion topics on this book yet. by Roger Bourke White Jr., copyright Oct 2014. It is a must-read for anyone in the Metro Detroit area.

This book is an extremely thorough account of how the current map of class and racial inequality has been laid down upon Detroit. Interestingly, first item on his Rogues Gallery of things that caused the decline is automation.

Sugrue weaves an extremely well-researched and compelling narrative of the city of Detroit and the many factors that contribute to the disparity in housing, employment and class that exists even today within the city. Sugrue attempts to show how events unfolded and what resulted from those events. This is a largely scholarly work with plenty of tables, graphs, and endnotes. While the post-World War II era is often remembered as a time of unmitigated prosperity, Sugrue’s analysis contends that Detroit was always fragile, even if just under the surface.

I understand there are updated and enlarged editions other than this one. He points to social tensions from overwhelming racial discrimination in housing and employment, wanton disregard for the city (and state) by the automobile industry, the poaching of jobs by other states, and the Federal government’s encouragement of decentrali. When global transportation got quicker and more reliable, (thanks to better ships, ports and airports) and local trucking got faster and cheaper, (thanks to freeways and interstates) companies had the option of decentralizing and taking advantage of local specialties in distant locations. The business environment needs to become, flexible, transparent, and simple. Thomas Sugrue examines the causes of the “urban crisis” of major American cities which involved white flight and suburbanization and caused high levels of poverty and unemployment for the urban black population. It is a shame that this history is not widely taught. The city fathers, unions and residential neighbors made conducting business in Detroit a grief-filled process. In fact, it was very systematically and strategically made to be so. (the 1940's and 50's) In such an environment centralization and localized vertical integration paid big benefits.

He is also trying to get gentrifying to become more widespread. by Sugrue, Thomas J. Through statistical analysis, demographic maps. Sugrue presents a contrarian view of 20th century Detroit.

Race riots as seen in Detroit in 1967 were the climax of these tensions. He is supporting professional sports teams, buying up inner city distressed real estate, and getting various governments to finance high-profile edifices such as sports arenas, convention centers and casinos. Instead, they have resuscitated theories about racial differences in culture, values and even intelligence. It covers the time period leading up to but not including the late 1960's riots. But these issues were symptoms, not causes, of Detroit's problems. 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. The son of a Detroit bar owner, Mr. Gilbert started a mortgage business that he turned into Quicken Loans, amassing a fortune of $4 billion. Sometimes the most telling thing is what they. Overall, I found this book to be monotonous. I read this earlier this year and forgot to log it but this is a whopper of a read. Obviously, the answers to these questions like most historical questions are highly complex and require a lot of research.

An interesting perspective that delves into race relations and poverty in Detroit from the 20s onward. Philip Taft Labor History Book Award (1996), Mariah Carey Is Telling Her Own Story (and Recommending Books).