Postwar Detroit Essay

Précis 1- The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit

Thomas J. Sugrue’s novel, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit, presents a meticulously detailed and insightful perspective of Detroit’s modern urban crisis and how it is affiliated with post-industrial decline and issues of race. Separated into three sections, the novel argues how white flight and de-industrialization were not only results of “one of the most brutal riots in American history” but also instigators of it as well (Sugrue 259). This riot transformed Detroit as a city, hindering its urban development for decades to come.

Throughout the first section of the novel, Sugrue introduces the racial, economic, and political

The commotion alerted nearby citizens who flocked to the scene, and the built up tensions of many years of discrimination escalated into a riot. It took a combined effort of almost seventeen thousand law enforcement officers to be suppressed (Sugrue 259). Conflict flared throughout the city streets during the summer of 1967 as a Detroit was once again torn by a period of cataclysmic violence (Sugrue 260). Detroit has really fully recovered from the events of the past, evident through ongoing economic struggles and recently a declaration of bankruptcy, and creates a controversial situation in regards to the origins of this urban crisis. De-industrialization and white flight were not merely the result of the 1967 riot as they also inspired the feelings of hatred and frustration among black Detroiters in the previous years. They grew alongside the tensions, only to worsen when the riot broke out. Ultimately, these events are the consequences of political and economic decisions of individuals and institutions rooted in attitudes of racial