Detroit The American Dream

By this time Detroit had become the epicenter of the American automobile. Detroit’s grand boulevards, were now lost in this ever expanding industrial Mecca. Detroit was home to some of America’s biggest names in automotives, including Walter Chrysler, The Dodge Brothers, and the outspoken Henry Ford. Workers in these factories often earned more in wages than many unskilled labor positions around the country. As news of the high-wage jobs in the up-and-coming motor city made its way around the country, migrants began to flood the city in hopes of a better life. Overcrowding among blacks and the have-nots of society was a harsh reality in Detroit’s inner city ghetto, which went by the name of Black Bottom. Several families would cram into single family flats, often grateful to even have a place to stay. Many made due without luxuries like running water, and disease ran rampant along the dirty over-crowded streets. This migration was not often welcomed among white Detroiters. A message of “One Hundred Percent Americanism” was being spread and upheld by the Ku Klux Klan, and Negroes were not Americans. Many white Detroiters, whether they were with the KKK or not, felt that segregation was the way it should be. They feared that if blacks were to breach the color line into white neighborhoods then property values would plummet, real estate agents would not show the houses and the neighborhood would be ultimately

Politicians, journalists, financial analysts and other purveyors of banality have been looking at cars as if a convertible were a business. Fire the MBAs and hire a poet. The fate of Detroit isn’t a matter of financial crisis, foreign competition, corporate greed, union intransigence, energy costs or measuring the shoe size of the footprints in the carbon. It’s a tragic romance—unleashed passions,

Majority of the people that started working in the plants came from the south. These people were looking for work and the state of Michigan provided that for them, with no education needed to start working. This provided the men to take care his whole family. The job provided benefits, great pay, day care, and offer to pay for the schooling if interested while working for the car industry. More and more people started to move and settle in Michigan. When the country was going through its toughest time dealing with the recession people were laid off. People weren’t buying cars at that time because no one could afford it. When people have low income and the air that they breathe is polluted you might have some issues with the economy. With pollution and poverty running so high nothing will get solved but the problem could get worst if it is not prevented and halted. As the economy has gotten worse, the pollution got worse as

Detroit, Michigan grew up around the automobile industry. At its peak, Detroit was the fifth-largest city in the United States, becoming the home to over 1.8 million people by 1950 (Davey, Monica 2013). The prolific population was due greatly to the success of the auto industry in the city. At that time, Detroit was flying high, its name coined “The Motor City” (americaslibrary.gov), and automobiles greatly impacted commercialization. From transporting goods to hastening production, to selling parts, to manufacturing and selling new automobiles, the auto industry completely transformed Detroit. Things seemed

When you hear about the city Detroit do you ever think of it as a city that needs to be gentrified? Gentrification is the process in which renovating or improving a house or district so that it accepts to middle-class taste. Gentrifying the city of Detroit is a great thing because the city needs to show improvement, develop into a better place, and it needs to increase its population numbers from a low rate to a more advanced rate.

In American society, race and racial issues are viewed in a black and white manner. The media portrays matters of race in the simplest terms without taking intersectionality into account. Social class, economic factors, and historical factors impact how racial issues are regarded and handled in specific geographic locations. John Hartigan demonstrates this in his book, Racial Situations: Class Predicaments of Whiteness of Detroit, which describes the dynamics of three local communities: Briggs, Cork Town, and Warrendale. Hartigan examines how white identity varies in these three neighborhoods due to other social factors. Comparing how these local communities respond to race versus the media’s response shows how categorizing people into monolithic groups based only on race is a tactic that ignores the real issues and delays finding solutions.

I received the opportunity to interview one of my father's close friends and business partners, Mr. Joseph E. Hutchison Sr., for the purposes of exploring how he perceived the Detroit riots of 1697. Mr. Hutchison is an African American man, which has lived in multiple neighborhoods throughout Detroit all his life, and has raised a family in the city as well. Furthermore, Mr. Hutchison has a funeral home on Detroit's East Side, which has been thriving for more than forty-years. Moreover, he has a love for the city, no matter what condition the city is in. Pursuing this idea further, Hutchison has experienced about three race riots throughout his life, in which he

The conditions were hardly better in the large cities. In Detroit, were the entire economy centered on the auto manufacturing facilities of the Ford Motor Company, conditions were especially bad. Mayor Murphy tried to give as many people welfare as he could, but soon the number of people needing help forced the program, and the city with it, into desperate financial straights, but because of Hoovers policies, there was no federal money to help them. The members of the communist party, never numbering more than 2000, led thousands of workers in protests on Detroit streets. One of these protest led the workers to the outskirts of Detroit, and the grounds of the Ford plant.

White’s main points relate to the automotive revolution. Environmentalists want car companies to determine how to make alternatives to the regular petroleum-fueled engine. White explains alternative methods that could persuade the automotive industry to go green, such as using ethanol or other biofuels to power one’s car (332). However, while explaining

Gentrification in Detroit, with whites beginning to move in and occupy areas that have been previously inhabited by blacks is gaining momentum, with a cheerleading media and political elites leading the way with tax breaks for corporations, new residents who are predominately white and economically middle to upper class, and a heavy police presence. All of the above factor are manifestations of a political climate in the United States of Republican led initiatives of austerity programs. Spurred on by the idea of privatization, and the Free Market economic policy of corporations having the freedom to influence and control the resources of Public institutions and politics, further eroding the opportunities for the average person, which is magnified in the Black community with disastrous results. Juxtaposed with the majority of the city, where, blight, unemployment, closing of schools, crime are all remnants of a once great city are evident to anyone that courageously visits these

Reputations can be very deceiving.  They cause you to think a certain way about something without forming your own opinion first.  Reputations are like stereotypes: they both make you conform to other people's views about a subject without getting to know it for yourself.  The city of Detroit falls victim to having a bad reputation.  The Motor City is known as being corrupt and left for dead; it is called hopeless and dangerous by people who have never even stepped foot into the city.  Growing up thirty miles from Detroit, I consider myself a Detroiter and disagree with the city’s horrible reputation.  I believe that Detroit has been through

Detroit, once the New York City of its time, nick named the “Motor City” as it contained one of the leading car manufacturing centers of the automobile industry. As a metropolis for the first half of the twentieth century, Post World War II, Detroit became an economic fortress and focal point in American History. Detroit’s economic stronghold placed the city in a position that was once beneficial. From the surging employment opportunities perpetuated by the booming automotive market to the development, and implementation of substandard housing and the casual labor market, Detroit became the land of opportunity that loomed with an air of new beginnings. Today, however, Detroit continues to reap the aftermath of contradictory political

Detropia is a documentary directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady that explores the decline of Detroit, Michigan. The film is to raise awareness of the city that used to flourish but is now struggling to support its citizens with the downfall of its automobile industry. Detropia was made in 2012 and highlights important stories and viewpoints of citizens still living in Detroit who are filled with hope for its future. I chose to review Detropia because it really corresponds with what we have been discussing in Geography, such as urban geography and population growth. Urban geography is a subdiscipline of geography that deals with areas of the Earth’s surface that have a high concentration of buildings and architecture. The documentary Detropia goes into depth of why Detroit’s population is dissolving and what is being done about it.

Detroit is a very well-known and diverse city. “Somewhere behind its neglected, graffiti covered skyscrapers are charming reminders of a city that was once among the world’s wealthiest” (Gray). This city has been through a lot. Detroit was first founded by the French in 1701 and then used as a fur trade post. Jumping a little in the future, it has had riots and protest for equal rights among its busy streets. Detroit is also known as the Motor City. “By the mid-twentieth century one in every six working Americans was employed directly or indirectly by the automotive industry” (Sugrue). Yet after everything this city has endured Detroit is thought of as a place of fear. It has a lot of history and has a lot to offer if people would let

Transportation is the number one thing we consumers do that harms the environment. Transportation causes the highest amount of environmental damage overall - nearly half of the toxic air pollution and more than a quarter of the greenhouse gases traceable to household consumption. Over time, however, sales of trucks, vans and SUV's went from 16% market share to over 50%. One big auto manufacturer even shelved their work of the last three years, spent updating their most popular selling economy car, so they could spend the money getting SUVs to market faster.