The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit - Updated Edition

This is quite a remarkable book. It attempts to explain the riots that occurred in Detroit in the late 1967. These riots were racially based and some of the most brutal in America. The book basically is about racism. It describes the history of racism in Detroit between the 1930's and the 1960's. Unlike other books that tend to be anecdotal this book attempts to look at the mechanics of the process and to provide empirical material to illustrate and validate the material in the text. The story of the book is that racism is a complex phenomenon. Detroit in the 1940's had a vast appetite for labor. This lead to it being a city in which Afro Americans could be employed. Large numbers began to migrate and to fill the more lowly paid jobs in the auto industry. The book explains the sorts of mechanisms, which governed this process. How employers would discriminate against blacks, to keep them in lowly paid positions and the fights that some unions engaged in to overcome such practices. The book goes on to explain how housing was one of the main ways in which blacks were able to be limited to certain areas. The widespread use of housing covenants permitted blacks to be excluded from more affluent areas. This meant that blacks became concentrated in small areas which subsequently became ghettos. The action of courts and legislatures to overcome the use of discriminatory covenants was opposed violently. The book shows how populist politicians would ply the race card to gain election at the expense of the more principled. How they would exploit the fear of residents about the alleged nexus between Afro Americans and crime. This in turn led to violence being unleashed on those Afro Americans who were able to afford housing in more affluent areas. With the 50's and 60's came the widespread use of automation. The number of jobs in the auto industry began to decline. As the jobs dried up the position of Afro Americans eroded further. As employment fell away the areas they lived in began to run down and become the stereotypical ghettoes, wracked with decay and unemployment. This decay occurred against a background of a society which battled hard to exclude Afro Americans from good housing, employment and the political process. The violence of 1967 was thus hardly a surprise. The book is extremely good. Often books dealing with such subjects can rely on cliché and assertion. This book consists of fact after fact and it is full of tables and maps. It is one of the more interesting studies to come out in years. No wonder it won a prize.

I read this book during my undergraduate studies in Sociology in a course that focused in wage labor and racial inequality. The professor that taught this course was amazing, and him recommending this book for our class to read, allowed me to open my eyes to information I already knew, and expand upon the knowledge of racial inequality in America that I did not know, especially of Detroit. I live in metro-Detroit and while I knew about the race riots, and the extreme barriers of racial populations along the 8 mile line, I did not know just how incredibly racist American history has truly been. I'm truly not that surprised. The price Amazon offers for a BRAND new copy is amazing. I rented this book from my college bookstore for $25. It was old and heavily used. I wanted to buy and own this book, and the bookstore was going to charge me an additional $25 to own a heavily used book. I got a newer copy for $15 on here, works out for this college student's wallet.

It often seemed repetitive and disorganized. If it were not for these minor shortcomings, it would deserve five stars. As stated, the information is terrific, especially for a lifelong Michigander such as myself. It reveals the underlying and fundamental issues that have plagued Detroit for nearly a century. Sugrue does so through the corporate, economic, societal, racial, organizational, religious, and governmental roles. All of his facts and statistics are cited extensively. In short, if you are interested in such topics, The Origins of Urban Crisis is for you!

I have not read a book about racial living patterns in Detroit, covering the period from the 1930s to the 1970s. Read other books in other cities, such as New York, or Pittsburgh, or Chicago, but none were as direct. The author specifically describes the racial hostility toward Black job seekers, home buyers, and new arrivals in a way that is never talked about in Detroit schools, media, or political discussions. It is as if Coleman Young became Mayor, and all the conditions that existed when he arrived, were all caused by him. After reading this book, it becomes clearer what conditions and circumstances existed before Young got elected. Now, when the critics and haters bad mouth Detroit, you know the source of the vitriol and contempt is entirely racial, not factual. Really wished I knew about this book 25 years ago.

fantastic book that argues capitalism generates economic inequalities and African Americans have disproportionately experienced the impact of these inequalities. falls within other books that explore the rise of the new right, but this book is unique in its focus on suburbanization and race. re-periodizes work on deindustrialization, arguing that seeds of the urban crisis were sown in the 40s and 50s- out of the contradictions of New Deal liberalism. this book shows how the racialized new deal effectively excluded african americans- but the language of rights inherent in the new deal was used by african americans to makes claims to rights. however, at the same time whites were using the same language to make claims on property rights, which redrew racial lines. on of the key- yet somewhat unexplored points is the impact of antiradicalism and anticommunism on postwar America- generating feelings of conformity and setting limits on acceptable bounds of debate.

all good -prompt arrival of book

Très bon livre!