The development of the city

The second part of your task asks you to focus on the development of the city of Detroit. For this, we recommend you focus on Carolyn Edgar’s article as well as on the two other sources you have previously analyzed.…

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The “white flight”

The term “white flight” refers to the movement of white people who isolated themselves from African-Americans into homogenous areas in Detroit’s suburbs and avoided mixed-race neighborhoods. Carolyn Edgar’s article shows that the “white flig…

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Poverty

Edgar’s article shows how poverty began to spread in Detroit in the 1980s: “As the elders died and their children moved out, the character of my parents’ neighborhood changed from middle class to poor and increasingly crime-prone” (ll. 70-71).

Holton’s news clip, “The Dead Zone: Detroit Becomes Urban Wasteland” also shows how poverty, in fact, never left the city: “More govern…

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Unemployment

From the 1980s, unemployment also became an important issue in Detroit. Carolyn Edgar states that after college, she had nowhere to return to in her home city, and she consequently accepted an “out-of-state job” (l. 79):

The problem was, there was nothing to come back to after college. Entry level management jobs at the Big 3 were scarce, and there were f…

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Crime and violence

Finally, a great part of the development of Detroit is related to crime and violence. For example, Edgar’s article presents the way in which poverty led to the appearance of violent gangs:

By the time I graduated from college in the late ’80s, my parents’ neighborhood had taken a turn for the worse, thanks to the crack epidemic and …