Full Description
Once America's "arsenal of democracy," Detroit is now the symbol of the American urban crisis. In this reappraisal of America's racial and economic inequalities, Thomas Sugrue asks why Detroit and other industrial cities have become the sites of persistent racialized poverty. He challenges the conventional wisdom that urban decline is the product of the social programs and racial fissures of the 1960s. Weaving together the history of workplaces, unions, civil rights groups, political organizations, and real estate agencies, Sugrue finds the roots of today's urban poverty in a hidden history of racial violence, discrimination, and deindustrialization that reshaped the American urban landscape after World War II. This Princeton Classics edition includes a new preface by Sugrue, discussing the lasting impact of the postwar transformation on urban America and the chronic issues leading to Detroit's bankruptcy.
Contents
List of Illustrations ix List of Tables xiii Preface to the Princeton Classics Edition xv Preface to the 2005 Paperback Edition xxxii Acknowledgments li Introduction 3 PART ONE: ARSENAL 15 1. "Arsenal of Democracy" 17 2. "Detroit's Time Bomb": Race and Housing in the 1940s 33 3. "The Coffin of Peace": The Containment of Public Housing 57 PART TWO: RUST 89 4. "The Meanest and the Dirtiest Jobs": The Structures of Employment Discrimination 91 5. "The Damning Mark of False Prosperities": The Deindustrialization of Detroit 125 6. "Forget about Your Inalienable Right to Work": Responses to Industrial Decline and Discrimination 153 PART THREE: FIRE 179 7. Class, Status, and Residence: The Changing Geography of Black Detroit 181 8. "Homeowners' Rights": White Resistance and the Rise of Antiliberalism 209 9. "United Communities Are Impregnable": Violence and the Color Line 231 Conclusion. Crisis: Detroit and the Fate of Postindustrial America 259 Appendixes A. Index of Dissimilarity, Blacks and Whites in Major American Cities, 1940-1990 273 B. African American Occupational Structure in Detroit, 1940-1970 275 List of Abbreviations in the Notes 279 Notes 281 Index 365
