Thomas J. Sugrue (born 1962, Detroit, Michigan) is an American historian of the twentieth-century United States at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is currently David Boies Professor of History and Sociology.
Posted on 03/26/2011 10:44:17 PM PDT by WeatherGuy
At first glance, the numbers released by the Census Bureau last week showing a precipitous drop in Detroit’s population — 25 percent over the last decade — seem to bear a silver lining: most of those leaving the city are blacks headed to the suburbs, once the refuge of mid-century white flight.
But a closer analysis of the data suggests that the story of housing discrimination that has dominated American urban life since the early 20th century is far from over.
Detroit is not the only American city to face persistent residential segregation, but it is among the worst: it has ranked among the 10 most segregated metropolitan areas in the United States since the mid-20th century (though the rate of black-white segregation there has fallen markedly in the last decade, as blacks have moved into once-exclusive white neighborhoods).
As Detroit’s black population skyrocketed during the Great Migration from the South, the city’s whites fought what they called the “Negro invasion” with every tool at their disposal. From 1945 to 1965 whites attacked at least 250 black families — usually the first or second to move into all-white neighborhoods — breaking windows, burning crosses and vandalizing homes.
When white Detroiters could not win by fighting, they fled to the suburbs. Indeed, for a half-century beginning in the 1950s, Detroit lost nearly half of its population, almost all whites.
Those who left the city cited various reasons: desire for a little green space, new housing, better schools, freedom from crime. Few of them acknowledged the racial motive behind white flight, that words like “freedom from crime” were code for moving away from blacks.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
My folks left that area in 1978 when my dad retired from the Detroit police dept. If you could see the brick tudor house we lived in today, you would cry........
As much as I hate to say it, the blacks who have moved to the suburbs such as Eastpoint, Roseville and Centerline are bringing the same blight and mentality with them as they brought to Detroit's east side...They let their homes in Detroit fall apart then moved out.
As a side note, my parent's house originally belonged to my grandparents who had it built when that area was a new subdivision in a wooded area.
Perhaps in Detroit but in the near suburbs it's starting all over again.....
You have to understand that liberalism is first and foremost an anti-White narrative.
If non-Whites flee Whites, it's called ethnic cleansing.
If Whites flee the actions of non-Whites it's called segregation.
If non-Whites are moving en masse to White countries, it's called immigration and must be praised even if it's bringing the White country down.
Whites moving en masse to non-White countries is called colonialism and is condemned even if it raised the non-White country to new heights.
I’ve seen the same thing happen in the areas of Tacoma not far from downtown. It’s an interesting cycle to observe.
Thanks for that perspective. It was a learning moment for me.
The apologists from the Provence of Manhattan never cease to find problems that must be solved by more liberalism
Thomas J. Sugrue (born 1962, Detroit, Michigan) is an American historian of the twentieth-century United States at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is currently David Boies Professor of History and Sociology.
>>”From 1945 to 1965 whites attacked at least 250 black families...”
A sad story, to be sure, and something for those at the time who participated or who just looked the other way while it happened to be ashamed of.
But a close analysis of the statistics from, say, 1965 to 1985 would show many, many more than 250 white families attacked by blacks in Detroit. Why does the reporter not look at this aspect of Detroit’s white flight?
Detroit paradise:
http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Detroit_MI/beds-4/price-1-5000#/sortby-1
Oops, that link is for elitist four-bedroom properties. Here’s the what people of more modest means can afford:
Okay, okay, okay. Fine. Just for the sake of argument, let’s say you’re right. Now explain how it is that all the whites leaving Detroit resulted in the place becoming a third-world sh*thole.
When blacks move from the city to the suburbs it's a "silver lining". When whites move from the city to the suburbs, it's "racism".
Look at what happened to South Africa.
Didn't get my dad out until 1980, but when the first blacks moved onto his street, they painted a big E on their front door and dad said if the riots ever get to his neighborhood, he guess he'd have to put an E on his door too..
I married and moved to the burbs in 1959. Well before the riots of the 60's...
A new house in the suburbs was cheaper than an established house in Detroit in the 1950's..
Nice site. Bookmarked.
And see my previous comment.
I live here.
I'm just curious. Why do you live there?
Note UPenn is in Philidelphia, I'm confused as to why Tom chose to live in Newtown over Philidelphia. Maybe the Phili body count shown in the upper left corner of www.thugreport.com has something to do with it? 306 murders last year and on its way to match that this year with 72.
“Few of them acknowledged the racial motive behind white flight, that words like “freedom from crime” were code for moving away from blacks.”
My apologies to Professor Sugrue. I didn’t realize that his assertion that there was a “racial motive” behind white flight was backed by first hand experience.
1. He left the city too, the same thing he bitches about other whiteys doing.
2. He didn't mention the 1967 riots. Some hardliner blacks call it a "rebellion."
3. The decline in Detroit during the 60's started with progressive white leftist policies put in place by Jerome Cavanagh.
So far, Detroit’s black suburbanization has followed a well-trodden path. Those blacks heading outward from Detroit aren’t moving to all suburbs equally. Rather, they move into places with older houses, rundown shopping districts and declining tax revenues.
That describes the entire state of Michigan right now, dumbass. I thought you Ivy Leaguers are supposed to be smart. You don't know s**t.
Not counting areas which have been as long as I remember going back to the 70's as "suburbs in name only" (Pontiac, Inkster, that Oakland County portion of 8mile and Wyoming area near Ferndale, Highland Park, Ecorse, and River Rouge), Black suburbanization in the Detroit area until recently largely followed what was at the time white middle-upper middle class areas, not the working class areas. Southfield. Parts of West Bloomfield and Farmington Hills, Sterling Heights, and Canton. Exception in Oak Park, Romulus which is more working class. Only recently (last 15-20 years) did it expand more to Redford, more parts of Wayne/Westland, South Warren, Eastpointe, Harper Woods, Grosse Pointe Park, eastern Livonia, etc. I'm not as familiar with Macomb County, so I don't know as much with Clinton Township and Mt Clemens. While many of those areas are working class, some of those are higher dollar, like GPP and Livonia.
It's not as simple as this clown stuck in 1967 believes.
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