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2 Uneven Development in Metropolitan Detroit OUf purpose in this chapter is to trace uneven development- the spatial trajectory of investment and disinvestment, economic growth and decline - in metropolitan Detroit since the Second World War. We begin with Detroit in the late 1940s, when the spatial path taken by an expanding auto industry, abetted by federal transportation and housing policies, yielded massive suburbanization. Auto decentralization, then the reorganization of commercial capital from downtown to regional shopping centers gave birth to two Detroits. One, the Detroit metropolitan area as a whole, had a thriving economy. The other, the central city, became home for hundreds of thousands of poor and unemployed people. This peculiar postwar pattern of uneven urban development is by now a familiar story in the United States. In growing numbers industrial and commercial companies moved their capital from the central city to the suburbs and beyond. The central city came to be surrounded by mostly white suburbs of an affluent professional or more modest working-class character. Meanwhile private disinvestment created a crisis for the central city indexed in jobs lost, schools impoverished, houses dilapidated, stores abandoned, crimes committed, taxes increased, services reduced. As capital and jobs moved elsewhere, the central city came to be increasingly populated by minorities, by poor people, and by the aged - by people, that is, who often share a marginal relationship to the process of economic production and exchange. And to be marginal to the economy is to have few political resources and little influence with the government. Yet, paradoxically, even as industrial and commercial corporations abandoned the city, new private investment (backed by public "incentives") was targeted to the redevelopment of downtown. New administrative, financial, cultural, and recreational activities for the downtown gentry bloomed, even as life in the rest of the city wilted. Since relations of conflict tend to follow lines of inequality, this dualistic pattern of uneven deCopyrighted Material 2 Uneven Development in Metropolitan Detroit Our purpose in this chapler is to trace uneven development- the spatial trajectory of investment and disinvestment. economic growth and decline - in metropolitan Detroit since the Second World War. We begin with Detroit in the late 1940s. when the spalial path taken by an expanding auto industry. abetted by federal transportation and housing policies. yielded massive suburbanization. Auto decentralization. then the reorganization of commercial capital from downtown to regional shopping centers gave birth to two Detroits. One, the Detroit metropolitan area as a whole. had a thriving economy. The other. the central city, became home for hundreds of thousands of poor and unemployed people. This peculiar postwar pattern of uneven urban development is by now a familiar story in the United States. In growing numbers industrial and commercial companies moved their capital from the central city to the suburbs and beyond. The central city came to be surrounded by mostly white suburbs of an affluent professional or more modest working-class character. Meanwhile private disinvestment created a crisis for the central city indexed in jobs lost. schools impoverished. houses dilapidated, stores abandoned. crimes committed. taxes increased. services reduced. As capital and jobs moved elsewhere, the central city came to be increasingly populated by minorities. by poor people. and by the aged - by people. that is. who oflen share a marginal relationship to the process of economic production and exchange. And to be marginal 10 the economy is to have few political resources and lillIe influence with the government. Yet. paradoxically. even as industrial and commercial corporations abandoned the city. new private investment (backed by public "incentives") was targeted to the redevelopment of downtown. New administrative. financial, cultural. and recreational activities for the downtown gentry bloomed, even as life in the rest of the city wilted. Since relations of conflict tend to follow lines of inequality, this dualistic pattern of uneven deCopyrighted Material 12 Uneven Development velopment tended to pit the city against the suburbs, and neighborhoods against downtown. Of course, this dual development model never fully captured what was going on, but until recently it seemed a reasonable enough approximation for many urban areas, including Detroit. By the mid-1970s, however, deviations from that urban trajectory were just too big to ignore. The changes afoot didn't displace the earlier development pattern so much as they came to overlay it, making uneven metropolitan development more complicated and more intricate. First, there has been the rise of downtowns in the suburbs. Younger metropolises, like Los Angeles and Houston, seem almost to have started out that way, but...

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