Summary

The article begins with a short presentation of how the author lived her life in the 1970s, in Detroit. Despite the fact that the media has always presented Detroit as a devastated city after the white flight and politics in the 1960s, Edgar believes that her childhood was harmonious.

Edgar sets to explain how her parents came to live in Detroit. Her family moved from Mississippi and her father got a job at a local car factory, just like the majority of their neighbors. Because of her father’s job and of her mother’s involvement in her children’s schools, Edgar led a happy, middle-class life.

The article’s perspective widens as Edgar explains some of Detroit’s later issues. The article indicates the crucial link between prosperity and the automobile industry (“the Big 3”), which employed a huge proportion of Detroit residents. The author goes on to mention the racial tensions that generated the phenomenon called “white flight”, which enabled blacks to move into inner-city Detroit areas while whites relocated to the suburbs. She also discusses the decline of the local factories who moved their production from the city.

Furthermore, the author mentions the racial policies...