Klaudia Chara, Detroit

Klaudia Chara

Detroit The Story of Urban Decay AAD Dissertation Studio 9 2020–21

Extracts from Klaudia Chara, Detroit: The Story of Urban Decay

Dissertation Studio 9 Thinking with Ruins Tutor: Danielle Hewitt

School of Art, Architecture and Design London Metropolitan University 2021

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How can Detroit’s post industrial ruins be understood as a product of an inherently racist capitalist society?

T h e E r a o f t he L a v i s h M o t o r C i t y

To explain how Detroit became a discarded product of capitalism, we have to take a look at the beginnings of its industrialisation. The location of Detroit is a crucial element for its rapid growth spurt, the city is “located in the heart of the Great Lakes region”, perfect for the mining of natural resources such as “coal, iron and copper”, the city was also easily accessible by both water and land (Sugrue, 2012). These resources and advantages soon proved to be adequate for the automotive industry. Notably, one of the first inventors to use these privileges was Ransom Olds, a leading role in mass-production of automobiles, “designer behind the three-horsepower”, the famous “curved-dash Oldsmobile, the first commercially successful American-made automobile and the first to use a progressive assembly system” (Parrot-Sheffer, 2020), which would later be picked up and improved by competitors such as Ford. The now well known Henry Ford, founded the Ford motor company in 1901 in Detroit.

Factory production was later launched in 1903 with some help from several investors, one of them being the Dodge brothers who in 1913 launched their own motor company. Later in 1928 Dodge would be bought by the Chrysler corporation increasing the companies sales in Detroit’s market. By only 1915, Detroit would already become the automobile manufacturing centre for the country, with the auto industry dominating Detroit’s economy (Hyde, 2001).

These companies would soon form what’s now known as the ‘Big Three’ or ‘Detroit’s Three’, they dominated the market making “up 75% of all automobile sales in” (Around Michigan, n.d.) the United States only by 1929

It is these factories that then opened thousands of new job opportunities for workers living in the city as well as outsiders. Out of the three, mostly notably the Ford Company grew rapidly opening several more factories and constantly growing their workforce. In order to secure “a stable, loyal workforce”, in 1914 “Ford announced the five dollar day” (Sugrue, 2012), meaning workers would now be paid double their usual salary. As demonstrated in figure 1, hundreds of new workers came to Ford’s factories hoping for the substantial pay. However, the whole point of this scheme was not so wholesome, the idea was not to just pay a decent wage to the workers, but rather having a higher offer on the table than the competitors, meaning workers would be twice as likely to work for Ford, they were also “more likely to turn up on time, sober and work diligently” (Worstall, 2012). Furthermore, that year car production prior to pay rise was at 170,000 and afterwards it sparked to 202,000 (Worstall, 2012). This revolutionary move sprouted a major awakening of jobs, workers from all over the country and even Europe began flooding the factories for a chance of decent pay. Many of these workers were from minority ethic backgrounds, “by 1914, 70% of Ford’s workforce was foreign born” (Mackaman, 2014), making the Ford Company the most diverse workforce

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at the time. Detroit would soon become known as the motor city, “the epitome of the American Dream” (Jay and Conklin, 2020), a global symbol of modernity and capitalism that built it (Sugrue, 2012). The city was seen to become the very heart of the country, with its rapidly growing economy, by the 1940s it ranked as the 4th largest city in America (Wolansky, 2018).

Figure 1. Crowd of Applicants outside Highland Park Plant after Five Dollar Day Announcement, January 1914.

The Abrupt Deterioration of Detroit

So what went wrong? There are four main reasons for the beginning of Detroit’s downfall and later deindustrialisation. By the 1950s the Big Three of Detroit were at their economical peak making huge profits like never before, but like many companies today their greed for more income, led to the decision to close down factories in the rising metropolis, and instead open new factories in smaller towns in order to gain a low-wage workforce. Unfortunately the “Big Three were loyal only to shareholders” and “not the people of Detroit” (Wolff, 2013),

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resulting in hundreds of workers losing their jobs, this was the beginning of the rising unemployment rate.

Another factor, relates to the way in which the work in these factories was done, the auto industry decided to invest into a more modern labour-saving technology, this process is known as automation, replacing assembly line jobs with reliable machinery, cutting production time and space for error drastically, resulting in faster production and a safe end product (Sugrue, 2012). Although this was a great investment got the companies, a rather poor deal for the workers, as hundreds more lost their jobs during this period. Unskilled jobs were easily replaceable with machinery, “what once took 1,000 people to manufacture”, can now be reduced to “less than 200” (Wartzman, 2017), a drastic and devastating result for the economy and the workforce. Even with the rising unemployment, workers and their families were still coming from all over the country unaware of the issue. Thus many families chose to follow the businesses into the suburbs and smaller towns for a better chance of employment elsewhere.

Further reasoning explains how the economy tumbled even further during the 1973 oil shortage. By the 1970s oil consumption in America was skyrocketing even though domestic oil production was rapidly depleting, resulting in a heavy dependence on oil import from the Middle East, regardless of this inconvenience the American state believed they had a secure unlimited source of oil flowing from the Middle East, as they were under the false impression that the exporters simply weren’t able to afford any sudden loss of revenue coming from the United States (History.com Editors, 2018a). The failure to put a plan in place in case relations were to be compromised became a sudden reality. On the 16th October 1973, quite literally overnight the OPEC (Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries) made a revolutionary decision for the benefit of their economy, to increased the rate of “a barrel of oil by an extraordinary 70%”(Epp, 2013), meaning America would now have to pay more than double the usual price. Needless to say this had a catastrophic effect on Detroit’s auto industry and economy, sales drastically shrunk as the vast majority of the city weren’t able to afford such a necessity as petrol to fuel their cars. This sales depression would last another 2 years, the auto industry were forced to find a more fuel efficient and reliable solution as oil prices weren’t dropping any time soon.

The most significant reason for the further decline of Detroit, was the heavy reliance on one industry alone to fuel the whole economy caused the 1980s economic recession, costs of living rose drastically and poverty overtook the city. Once a newly flourishing metropolis with nearly 2 million inhabitants is now a ghost town with only 674,841 inhabitants as of 2019.

The remanence of abandoned homes, factories and warehouses haunts the great metropolis, leaving a constant reminder of the largest “municipal bankruptcy in the nation’s history” (Vlasic, 2013) and the nostalgia of what could have been. Although Detroit wasn’t the only city to suffer such deindustrialisation, it was much harsher because of the refusal by the state to diversify into other sectors, such as education or banking, compared to other cities such as Chicago or Pittsburgh who didn’t rely on the one industry that started their growth, as a result they are doing much better economically than Detroit (Padnani, 2019).

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The Racism in Deindustrialization So what was the final blow that de-industrialised Detroit completely? There are two sides to this story, one told by the white supremacy who argue that Detroit was the dream city, flourishing with opportunities for everyone, where whites and blacks lived and worked together in peace. According to this view, this was demolished by the 1967 racial riots, where whites refused to work and live side by side with blacks, because they still considered them as savages and property rather than equal human beings. As a result in the beginning of what turned out to be 5 days of rioting, 700 people were injured, 1,500 arrested and 26 lost their lives, additionally when an officer was killed, the state sent out troops with weapons in order to control the crowd (Walsh, 2017). The riots caused white flight, leaving the city with a vast majority black population, due to this it is believed that the black rioters “caused the city’s decline” and “whites bear no responsibility for its problems” (Boyle, 2001).

However, the second side to this story seems more truthful. The racial riots weren’t the sole reason for the decline of Detroit, deindustrialisation started right after the Second World War, where full political and economical power laid entirely in the hands of the white rule, who encouraged and enforced segregation and racism within the city through the 1940s to 1950s, leading to drastic long term effects on the housing, jobs and auto industry (Apel, 2015). It all began when minority ethnic workers and their families, majority of them being African American, migrated to Detroit in order to find work at the automotive factories. Due to this vast number of migrants there began to be a shortage for housing, this was because The white ruled major at the time Albert Cobo “opposed public housing because whites opposed building such housings in or near white areas” (Apel, 2015). The racism thickens when Detroit’s officials failed to take advantage of the federal funding provided by the state in the 1949 housing act. Following this refusal, from 1950 to 1956 Detroit ranked eighteenth among the twenty-five largest cities in America, building less public housing than other much smaller cities such as Boston, St. Louis and New Orleans (Fisher, 1959). To make matters worse, “whites opposed black home ownership in white neighbourhoods”, those who had the courage to proceed living in those areas faced huge terror in the shape of “fire bombing, shattered windows, and other forms of intimidation and violence” (Sugrue, 2014), pure racial hatred. However, this violence, hatred and segregation didn’t just occur in housing, it also accompanied the workforce. The United Auto Workers union gave companies and corporations free rein to peruse policies in favour of white privilege and encourage racism and segregation. African Americans were the last workers to be hired but first fired, they were given the dirtiest, lowest, most dangerous jobs and because those were the unskilled jobs, they were the first to be eliminated and replaced with machinery, disproportionately affecting young black men and their careers, leaving them demoralised (Apel, 2015).

The process of radicalised suburbanisation started when the automotive companies began relocating to the suburbs, with the white workers following, leaving the vastly African American population in the city, slowly consumed by poverty. This process was further supported by the white ruled state who funded highways and federally guaranteed mortgage loans that massively favoured white homebuyers (Apel, 2015). With the African American population largely shut out from suburban housing and employment, the city became

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increasingly poor with rising living costs making it impossible to leave. Whites therefore “reinforced African Americans ghettoisation, trapping them in the centre of the city as it was being rapidly stripped of jobs” (Boyle, 2001), forcing the black community to carry the weight of deindustrialisation caused by the white rule.

By the 1960s Detroit was already dominated by abandoned factories and bordered up stores and restaurants, the loss of industry jobs could be felt through the whole economy, the city also never developed a rapid transit system between the city and the suburbs. Practically trapping the impoverished black community in the ruins of the city, so that they can bear the responsibility of the white rules actions. In addition, Detroit’s highway planners were careful to avoid white residential neighbourhoods, but felt no such compunction about destroying black neighbourhoods (Sugrue, 2014). Racial segregation was stark at the time between the city and the suburbs, demonstrating perfectly the relationship between black oppression and capitalist exploitation, “Detroit is almost 83% black” whereas “the neighbouring white working class suburbs are less than 2% black” (Fishman, 2007). Its this negligence, segregation and racism that paved the way for the anger and frustration that exploded in the early morning on Sunday 23rd July 1967.

Already suffering a housing shortage, the Twelfth street where the riot took place, was densely packed with apartments designed to house one or two families. Instead, due to the white rules refusal to build extra public housing, these apartments now served six to eight families (Young and Wheeler, 1994). With this unbelievable negligence there’s no surprise for the black communities frustration and anger towards the state. Furthermore, with the lack of sufficient jobs, commercial businesses gave way to “pool halls, liquor stores, sleazy bars, pawn shops, and second-hand businesses” (Fine, 2007). This is important information as the riots began in an illegal drinking establishment called the ‘Bling pig’, when officers decided to arrest 85 patrons, among them two veterans who had freshly returned from overseas (History.com Editors, 2018b). Whilst officers were waiting for reinforcements a crowd of 200 gathered at around 4am, by 8pm that crowd had expanded drastically to 3,000 people. In order to control the riot the state sent in “17,000 police, National guardsmen and federal troops” armed with weapons, as a result at the end of the 5 long days, over 7,200 people were arrested, 43 lost their lives, 30 of them by police brutality including 25 African Americans, thousands more were injured and 2,500 buildings were burned, over $36 million of insured property was destroyed (Sugrue, 2014). Figures 2 and 3 both depict the carnage and violence that occurred that day.

Figure 2. Policemen Arrest Black Suspects on 12th Street on 25 July 1967.

Figure 3. Police and Rioters, 12th Street, Detroit, 1967

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