Case Study: The Decline Of Detroit

Detroit once use to be Americas 5th largest city until the decline. The city of Detroit, has gone through a major economic and demographic decline in recent decades. Detroit's decline began in the late 1950s, when the city lost almost a tenth of their population. The population of the city went from 1,850,000 in the late 1950s to 701,000 in 2013. Factors that have influenced the decline of Detroit includes the the automobile industry, which suffered from global competition and has moved much of the remaining production out of Detroit. Local crime rates are among the highest in the United States, and vast areas of the city are in a state of severe urban decay. In addition Detroit suffers from large rates of poverty and crime which continue to be ongoing problems. Such factors that have brought Detroit to a decline are:

Reliance on the automobile Industry. The expansion of the auto industry nearly a century ago fuelled a growth spurt that made Detroit the fourth largest city in the country. The automobile industry attracted thousands of thousands of people to Detroit, raising its population to 1,850,000 million. A large proportion of people saw Detroit as an opportunity for employment and to work at the big three companies which were ford, Chrysler and General Motors. Soon
Racial tensions were raised in the 1940s when's the blacks moved to Detroit looking for employment. While more and more blacks moved to Detroit, the White middle classes moved to newly built cities and apartments elsewhere.
In 1967 there was huge riot between the whites and blacks which left the town and community in ruins. After the riots Detroit failed to bounce back. Most people thought of Detroit as battlefield where no one would ever go. As a result of this battle and conflict the city had lost 363,000 white residents while it gained 182,000 black residents. In 2015, statistics show that 82% of Detroit's population are