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The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit - Updated Edition
The reasons behind Detroit’s persistent racialized poverty after World War IIOnce 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.
615 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 1, 1996
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October 29, 2012
Stunning really, searing and beautifully thorough research on race, political economy and the urban fabric of Detroit.
He engages with some central questions: what the hell happened to rust belt cities, how did they turn from industrial centers to economic backwaters, how did the ghetto form, how did segregation and racism persist? He then answers these questions, in the process knocking the almost the entire body of literature on the 'underclass' out of the ballpark. He does build on those that contained some structural analysis, but looks at a multiplicity of structural forces rather than just one or two (like deindustrialization or racism) and also follows a more historical approach, seeing the origins of the urban crisis in the 1940s and 50s. He does not avoid the question of agency -- and there is so much in here about grassroots action -- but paraphrases Marx when he says "Economic and racial inequality constrain individual and family choices. They set the limits of human agency. Within the bounds of the possible, individuals and families resist, adapt, or succumb." His main thesis:
I find his work most interesting in the way he looks at race and space, though I don't fully agree with his view of race. He writes "Discrimination by race was a central fact of life in the postwar city. But the dimensions, significance, and very meaning of race differed depending on its cultural, political, and economic context. ... Racial ideology, a shifting and fluid popular vernacular of race, served as the backdrop to the relationship between blacks and whites in the postwar city." Discrimination and ideologies of race are indeed shifting things articulated with cultural, political and economic context, but never a backdrop. The opportunity this book misses is a deeper theorisation of the way the events it relates also formed racial ideologies. This is not to deny that ideology also worked on more of a national level, and that ideas of blackness
did not shape history as much as ideas of whiteness
He argues that in addition to culture, "Perhaps most important in shaping the concept of race in the postwar 'period, I argue, were local and national politics. Race was as much a political as a social construction." But for me, the most interesting thing about this is that he is the first (that I have seen) to deeply examine how race and space intertwine, and the consequences of this third factor in conceptions of race:
Much later in the book he goes on to say
How fascinating is that? And depressing. I read this with a little pit of fear that I would run across family members in the accounts of furious blue collar white Catholic homeowners (I didn't).
But what makes this book so fantastic is its breadth. It looks at space and segregation, but also at work and the process of deindustrialisation, it looks at struggle -- both that of African Americans and the grassroots efforts of whites to preserve their neighborhoods, it looks at layers of party politics both local and national, it looks at developers and real estate agents. It looks at gender, at class divisions in the African American community, at union politics and schisms and the way that race consistently trumped class and how homeownership shifted working class consciousness, at the development of discourses around rights and property and housing, shifts in the meaning of liberalism.
This is scholarship to aspire to, the kind of research we need to understand the complexities of race in our cities today and think about effective struggle, and I look forward to reading it again, as its breadth ensures I will find a whole new excitement in it I am sure.
He engages with some central questions: what the hell happened to rust belt cities, how did they turn from industrial centers to economic backwaters, how did the ghetto form, how did segregation and racism persist? He then answers these questions, in the process knocking the almost the entire body of literature on the 'underclass' out of the ballpark. He does build on those that contained some structural analysis, but looks at a multiplicity of structural forces rather than just one or two (like deindustrialization or racism) and also follows a more historical approach, seeing the origins of the urban crisis in the 1940s and 50s. He does not avoid the question of agency -- and there is so much in here about grassroots action -- but paraphrases Marx when he says "Economic and racial inequality constrain individual and family choices. They set the limits of human agency. Within the bounds of the possible, individuals and families resist, adapt, or succumb." His main thesis:
Detroit's postwar urban crisis emerged as the consequence of two of the most important, interrelated, and unresolved problems in American history: that capitalism generates economic inequality and that African Americans have disproportionately borne the impact of that inequality.
I find his work most interesting in the way he looks at race and space, though I don't fully agree with his view of race. He writes "Discrimination by race was a central fact of life in the postwar city. But the dimensions, significance, and very meaning of race differed depending on its cultural, political, and economic context. ... Racial ideology, a shifting and fluid popular vernacular of race, served as the backdrop to the relationship between blacks and whites in the postwar city." Discrimination and ideologies of race are indeed shifting things articulated with cultural, political and economic context, but never a backdrop. The opportunity this book misses is a deeper theorisation of the way the events it relates also formed racial ideologies. This is not to deny that ideology also worked on more of a national level, and that ideas of blackness
In mid-twentieth-century Detroit, as in the rest of the nation, racial identities rested on Widely held assumptions about the inferior intelligence of blacks, notions that blacks were physiologically better suited for certain types of work, and stereotypes about black licentiousness, sexual promiscuity, laziness, and dependence.
did not shape history as much as ideas of whiteness
On the other side was the persistent association of whiteness with Americanism, hard work, sexual restraint, and independence. These assumptions about racial difference were
nourished by a newly assertive whiteness
He argues that in addition to culture, "Perhaps most important in shaping the concept of race in the postwar 'period, I argue, were local and national politics. Race was as much a political as a social construction." But for me, the most interesting thing about this is that he is the first (that I have seen) to deeply examine how race and space intertwine, and the consequences of this third factor in conceptions of race:
Perceptions of racial differences were not, I argue, wholly, or even primarily, the consequences of popular culture. If they were, they would not have had such extraordinary staying power. In the postwar city, blackness and whiteness assumed a spatial definition. The physical state of African American neighborhoods and white neighborhoods in Detroit reinforced perceptions of race. The completeness of racial segregation made ghettoization seem an inevitable, natural consequence of profound racial differences. The barriers that kept blacks confined to racially isolated, deteriorating, inner-city neighborhoods were largely invisible to white Detroiters. To the majority of untutored white observers, visible poverty, overcrowding, and deteriorating houses were signs of individual moral deficiencies, not manifestations of structural inequalities. White perceptions of black neighborhoods provided seemingly irrefutable confirmation of African American inferiority and set the terms of debates over the inclusion of African Americans in the city's housing and labor markets.
Much later in the book he goes on to say
"Racial incidents encoded possession and difference in urban space. Residents of postwar Detroit carried with them a cognitive map that helped them negotiate the complex urban landscape. In a large, amorphous twentieth-century city like Detroit, there were few visible landmarks to distinguish one neighborhood from another, But residents imposed onto the city's featureless topography all sorts of invisible boundaries-boundaries shaped by intimate association, by institutions (like public-school catchment areas or Catholic parish boundaries), by class, and, most importantly, by race.
The sustained violence in Detroit's neighborhoods was the consummate act in a process of identity formation. White Detroiters invented communities of race in the city that they defined spatially. Race in the postwar city was not just a cultural construction, Instead, whiteness, and by implication blackness, assumed a material dimension, imposed onto the geography of the city. Through the drawing of racial boundaries and through the use of systematic violence to maintain those boundaries, whites reinforced their own fragile racial identity."
How fascinating is that? And depressing. I read this with a little pit of fear that I would run across family members in the accounts of furious blue collar white Catholic homeowners (I didn't).
But what makes this book so fantastic is its breadth. It looks at space and segregation, but also at work and the process of deindustrialisation, it looks at struggle -- both that of African Americans and the grassroots efforts of whites to preserve their neighborhoods, it looks at layers of party politics both local and national, it looks at developers and real estate agents. It looks at gender, at class divisions in the African American community, at union politics and schisms and the way that race consistently trumped class and how homeownership shifted working class consciousness, at the development of discourses around rights and property and housing, shifts in the meaning of liberalism.
This is scholarship to aspire to, the kind of research we need to understand the complexities of race in our cities today and think about effective struggle, and I look forward to reading it again, as its breadth ensures I will find a whole new excitement in it I am sure.
April 18, 2013
In his 1996 work The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit Thomas Sugrue focused on the implications of the racism in the residential and labor markets of Detroit for the city. Key to Sugrue’s approach is his view that race is an economically and politically constructed concept that creates an illusion of difference, from which social prejudice arises. In large part Origins is framed as a rebuttal to “influential conservative scholars, backed by well-funded think tanks and foundations, [who] have continued to ignore or downplay the political and economic causes of impoverishment. Instead, they have resuscitated theories about racial differences in culture, values and even intelligence. Those arguments – however discredited by rigorous scholarly research – continue to appeal to those who believe that the causes and solutions of social problems start and end with poor people themselves.” Rejecting assumptions about the character and work ethic of the urban poor, Sugrue elaborates the interplay of structural forces and social choices which caused the urban interior of Detroit to stagnate. Beginning his account in the 1940’s when the nation’s manufacturing base began to shift away from the Northern cities, Origins tells a story of racial tensions within the working class of Detroit that set white and black against each other in a competition for access to housing and a shrinking pool of industrial jobs.
As African-Americans settled in large numbers in Detroit following World War II, white residents in many cases sought to protect their interests by excluding black migrants from equal access to housing, union membership, employment and financial services. Each deprivation formed an interlocking constraint on the ability of black residents of the city to attain stability and prosperity. Conflict over access to opportunity was exacerbated by ebbing demand for unskilled labor due to factory automation and the decentralization of the auto industry supply chain to suburban communities. Undermined by politicized racial division, constructive programs by the municipal government such as the provision of government housing, which might have ameliorate some of the symptoms of overcrowding and economic dislocation, were enfeebled. Through amid racial violence the familiar contours of today’s shrunken tax base, degenerating infrastructure and struggling inner city took shape.
As African-Americans settled in large numbers in Detroit following World War II, white residents in many cases sought to protect their interests by excluding black migrants from equal access to housing, union membership, employment and financial services. Each deprivation formed an interlocking constraint on the ability of black residents of the city to attain stability and prosperity. Conflict over access to opportunity was exacerbated by ebbing demand for unskilled labor due to factory automation and the decentralization of the auto industry supply chain to suburban communities. Undermined by politicized racial division, constructive programs by the municipal government such as the provision of government housing, which might have ameliorate some of the symptoms of overcrowding and economic dislocation, were enfeebled. Through amid racial violence the familiar contours of today’s shrunken tax base, degenerating infrastructure and struggling inner city took shape.
February 15, 2011
Sugrue presents a contrarian view of 20th century Detroit. While the post-World War II era is often remembered as a time of unmitigated prosperity, Sugrue’s analysis contends that Detroit was always fragile, even if just under the surface. He points to social tensions from overwhelming racial discrimination in housing and employment, wanton disregard for the city (and state) by the automobile industry, the poaching of jobs by other states, and the Federal government’s encouragement of decentralization.
While specific racial issues compose the bulk of this book, Sugrue spends considerable time on economic issues that transcend race (but ultimately exacerbate racial issues). Probably the biggest omission — particularly in light of Sugrue’s assertions about housing — is a further analysis of highway development and urban renewal projects. However, either of those topics could easily fill a book on their own.
In my opinion, the story of 20th century Detroit is tragedy on a grand scale, an object indictment of “The American Century,” a horrific commentary on race relations, and a stinging rebuke of corporate capitalism. Regardless of your perspective, The Origins of the Urban Crisis is a highly engaging and thought-provoking assessment of The Motor City.
While specific racial issues compose the bulk of this book, Sugrue spends considerable time on economic issues that transcend race (but ultimately exacerbate racial issues). Probably the biggest omission — particularly in light of Sugrue’s assertions about housing — is a further analysis of highway development and urban renewal projects. However, either of those topics could easily fill a book on their own.
In my opinion, the story of 20th century Detroit is tragedy on a grand scale, an object indictment of “The American Century,” a horrific commentary on race relations, and a stinging rebuke of corporate capitalism. Regardless of your perspective, The Origins of the Urban Crisis is a highly engaging and thought-provoking assessment of The Motor City.
August 19, 2025
When did Detroit go wrong? The 1967 riots are often seen as the beginning of the city's tragic decline, but Sugure argues that the seeds of downfall were sown much earlier - in the 1940s. A toxic mix of elements: the dispersal of the auto industry away from the city, along with institutional and cultural racism that limited the options of black Southerners who had come to Detroit seeking a new life after the war, resulted in the implosion still visible today.
As someone who grew up in suburban Detroit, Sugrue's account gave me a new perspective on my family's place in this shared history. The stories that Metro Detroiters have told themselves about the causes of the city's decline are missing vital elements: the auto industry's abandonment of the city starting in the 1950s, the fraught racial identity of working class white Detroiters trying to escape their ethnic past, the rampant housing and job discrimination that kept black people corralled in ghettos they couldn't escape from even if they had the means, the vandalism and intimidation perpetrated by white housing associations against black households attempting to cross racial barriers, the role that class played in determining the fortunes of residents, the way that segregation has transposed itself onto Detroit's suburbs (essentially becoming a more fortified version of Detroit's white neighborhoods). Segregation is a problem of every American city, but in Detroit it remains especially acute.
Sugure has understandably chosen a very specific timeframe, but I found myself wishing he had widened the lens a bit to question the fundamental economic and environmental sustainability of basing an entire region's economy on a product - the automobile - whose use propagates a ruinous planning model so evident in Detroit itself.
This story continues to play itself out. Despite glimmers of hope, no one is particularly optimistic about Detroit's future. Any progress will have to come to terms with the city's past. Segure's book should be required reading for everyone from SE Michigan.
As someone who grew up in suburban Detroit, Sugrue's account gave me a new perspective on my family's place in this shared history. The stories that Metro Detroiters have told themselves about the causes of the city's decline are missing vital elements: the auto industry's abandonment of the city starting in the 1950s, the fraught racial identity of working class white Detroiters trying to escape their ethnic past, the rampant housing and job discrimination that kept black people corralled in ghettos they couldn't escape from even if they had the means, the vandalism and intimidation perpetrated by white housing associations against black households attempting to cross racial barriers, the role that class played in determining the fortunes of residents, the way that segregation has transposed itself onto Detroit's suburbs (essentially becoming a more fortified version of Detroit's white neighborhoods). Segregation is a problem of every American city, but in Detroit it remains especially acute.
Sugure has understandably chosen a very specific timeframe, but I found myself wishing he had widened the lens a bit to question the fundamental economic and environmental sustainability of basing an entire region's economy on a product - the automobile - whose use propagates a ruinous planning model so evident in Detroit itself.
This story continues to play itself out. Despite glimmers of hope, no one is particularly optimistic about Detroit's future. Any progress will have to come to terms with the city's past. Segure's book should be required reading for everyone from SE Michigan.
March 27, 2015
If you've ever wondered: "Dang, how did our inner cities get to be the way they are today, especially Detroit?" this is a great work for you. Sugrue traces the growth of urban inequality and segregation from WWII to the 1967 riots in Detroit and outlines the deeply rooted causes of the urban crisis.
WWII witnessed a vast expansion of economic opportunity for whites and African-Americans in Detroit with the growth of war industries. African Americans flooded the city from the South, creating a serious housing crisis that the white-dominated city government did little to redress. The postwar period saw a gradual process of deindustrialization, the movement of factories out of the city, and mechanization. Blacks, who had less power in unions and city government, were usually the first to lose their jobs. They also had more trouble gaining access to public housing or New Deal style benefits. For example, the FHA, working through private banks, very rarely offered loans to blacks because they considered them to be too much of a risk. This meant that whites could more easily move up to the middle class while blacks were more likely to be stuck in dead-end neighborhoods. Even if a black family worked hard enough to move into a white neighborhood with better schools and prospects, deep racism and the (mythical) fear of the decline of property values usually pushed them out. Sugrue's accounts of white homeowners' associations bullying and harassing blacks in their neighborhoods are absolutely shocking and enraging. Stories of teenage boys harassing black neighbors or little girls writing about blacks as dirty thieves in school speak to the depths of racial animosity there. When whites couldn't control the influx of blacks, they tended to retreat to the suburbs, taking a great deal of money with them. Basically, Sugrue shows how opportunities lessened as a whole for all Detroit's and how, for both structural and very human reasons, blacks suffered the most from this decline.
Surge provides a compelling argument that the racism, segregationist housing, and structural economic factors are the basic underlying causes of the urban crisis. He offers a solid antidote to accounts of urban decay that focus on the individual or cultural flaws of African-Americans. His book is stuffed with examples of hard-working people who simply could not overcome the immense structural and human forces arrayed against them. It would be interesting to see how this persistent blocking of upward and outward mobility and the persistent poverty did change African-American culture in the city, possibly creating a feedback loop between culture and . Nevertheless, I'm convinced by Sugrue locating the origins of urban decay largely outside of culture and individual flaws. Sugrues' book is a testimony to the immense work still left to be done in understanding and addressing the causes and racism and inequality in modern America.
WWII witnessed a vast expansion of economic opportunity for whites and African-Americans in Detroit with the growth of war industries. African Americans flooded the city from the South, creating a serious housing crisis that the white-dominated city government did little to redress. The postwar period saw a gradual process of deindustrialization, the movement of factories out of the city, and mechanization. Blacks, who had less power in unions and city government, were usually the first to lose their jobs. They also had more trouble gaining access to public housing or New Deal style benefits. For example, the FHA, working through private banks, very rarely offered loans to blacks because they considered them to be too much of a risk. This meant that whites could more easily move up to the middle class while blacks were more likely to be stuck in dead-end neighborhoods. Even if a black family worked hard enough to move into a white neighborhood with better schools and prospects, deep racism and the (mythical) fear of the decline of property values usually pushed them out. Sugrue's accounts of white homeowners' associations bullying and harassing blacks in their neighborhoods are absolutely shocking and enraging. Stories of teenage boys harassing black neighbors or little girls writing about blacks as dirty thieves in school speak to the depths of racial animosity there. When whites couldn't control the influx of blacks, they tended to retreat to the suburbs, taking a great deal of money with them. Basically, Sugrue shows how opportunities lessened as a whole for all Detroit's and how, for both structural and very human reasons, blacks suffered the most from this decline.
Surge provides a compelling argument that the racism, segregationist housing, and structural economic factors are the basic underlying causes of the urban crisis. He offers a solid antidote to accounts of urban decay that focus on the individual or cultural flaws of African-Americans. His book is stuffed with examples of hard-working people who simply could not overcome the immense structural and human forces arrayed against them. It would be interesting to see how this persistent blocking of upward and outward mobility and the persistent poverty did change African-American culture in the city, possibly creating a feedback loop between culture and . Nevertheless, I'm convinced by Sugrue locating the origins of urban decay largely outside of culture and individual flaws. Sugrues' book is a testimony to the immense work still left to be done in understanding and addressing the causes and racism and inequality in modern America.
June 17, 2010
As many other raters have mentioned, this book is an eye-opening, must-read account for anyone interested in Detroit, Urban Studies, or the politics of race. I'm surprised to find some have called it dry, because I actually found it to be pretty readable... And I often give up on super academic, jargon-laden works.
I loved this book, but I thought that the analysis of automation and decentralization by manufacturers in Detroit (particularly the big 3) was extremely biased against corporations. I'm not a fan of corporations myself, but I think it is unfair to couch the decision to automate and disperse operations in racial terms. These decisions certainly affected black workers disproportionately, and as a result perpetuated racial inequalities, but I doubt they were racially motivated-there were sound business reasons why these decisions were necessary to maintain and grow the business in the face of rising competition (the ultimate failure of the big 3 to compete against Japanese auto manufacturers in the 80s suggests they may not have done this sufficiently)... African Americans had been (very unfairly) relegated to the most dangerous positions, and then the factories quite rationally decided to automate these dangerous jobs to avoid unnecessary injury and death... The solution was not to avoid automation, but rather a earlier intervention - at the point when there was discriminatory hiring practices that prevented black people from getting the more desirable, less dangerous, higher-skilled work. If these roles had been open to black workers, then automation would have hit black and white workers more equally.
Similarly - decentralization was not an inherently anti-worker policy, as it ended up creating jobs in other areas of the midwest and south. The problem was that the very, very discriminatory housing market meant black workers were significantly less mobile than white workers, which once again led to inequality. Decentralization would have had a more equitable effect had the housing market been less discriminatory.
In any case, I still found the thesis to be compelling and well-argued. I just wanted to throw up a little bit of criticism to keep the discussion interesting!
I loved this book, but I thought that the analysis of automation and decentralization by manufacturers in Detroit (particularly the big 3) was extremely biased against corporations. I'm not a fan of corporations myself, but I think it is unfair to couch the decision to automate and disperse operations in racial terms. These decisions certainly affected black workers disproportionately, and as a result perpetuated racial inequalities, but I doubt they were racially motivated-there were sound business reasons why these decisions were necessary to maintain and grow the business in the face of rising competition (the ultimate failure of the big 3 to compete against Japanese auto manufacturers in the 80s suggests they may not have done this sufficiently)... African Americans had been (very unfairly) relegated to the most dangerous positions, and then the factories quite rationally decided to automate these dangerous jobs to avoid unnecessary injury and death... The solution was not to avoid automation, but rather a earlier intervention - at the point when there was discriminatory hiring practices that prevented black people from getting the more desirable, less dangerous, higher-skilled work. If these roles had been open to black workers, then automation would have hit black and white workers more equally.
Similarly - decentralization was not an inherently anti-worker policy, as it ended up creating jobs in other areas of the midwest and south. The problem was that the very, very discriminatory housing market meant black workers were significantly less mobile than white workers, which once again led to inequality. Decentralization would have had a more equitable effect had the housing market been less discriminatory.
In any case, I still found the thesis to be compelling and well-argued. I just wanted to throw up a little bit of criticism to keep the discussion interesting!
January 24, 2011
Incredibly thorough and depressing study of Detroit's postwar urban crisis. Most tragic are the countless self-destructive decisions and self-fulfilling prophesies made by white Detroiters, including government officials and employers. Detroit is a city that was violently brought down by racial discrimination in many forms, including housing and employment discrimination, divided labor unions, and grassroots racisim, especially among working-class Catholics. Detroit is one city that lends itself particularly well to this kind of case study because its postwar demographics are almost completely broken down into black and white. A city like New York, for example, would be much more complicated to analyze. Still, the general path followed by Detroit can be applied to any American city with a large working-class population that was subject to mass de-industrialization and decentralization.
November 29, 2014
Sometimes the most telling thing is what they didn't teach you in school.
Sugrue clearly did his homework researching this book, and makes a compelling argument for how many of the issues plaguing Detroit (and other American cities) have their roots in deindustrialization, and -- perhaps moreso -- in workplace and housing discrimination that effectively wiped out opportunities for minorities.
Sugrue clearly did his homework researching this book, and makes a compelling argument for how many of the issues plaguing Detroit (and other American cities) have their roots in deindustrialization, and -- perhaps moreso -- in workplace and housing discrimination that effectively wiped out opportunities for minorities.
August 9, 2018
This is a powerful history of Detroit before the infamous 1967 riot. Historian Sugrue lays out an effective argument that Detroit was crumbling economically and systemic racism preyed on more blacks due to migration in the late 1940s and 1950s. All these economic and racial changes made whites nervous and they responded. Readers will learn a lot from this important book.
November 12, 2016
I loved this book. It really changed the way I think about race and class and equality, to be honest.
April 11, 2021
These days I more easily grow bored with academic, socioeconomic analysis. But this book kept my attention. This book is a real confrontation with the way white people have organized and mobilized to stop Black people from enjoying a fair share of wealth. As the chapters progress, the actions of white 'homeowners associations' become more blatant and extreme.
April 11, 2012
With this work, Thomas J. Sugrue presented a new interpretation of the decline and fall of the American industrial city using Detroit as a case study. While previous historians have pointed to the riots of 1967 as the fulcrum upon which Detroit’s (and by extension other northern industrial cities’) fortunes turned, Sugrue pushed that point back by two decades. Instead he contends that the seeds for the city’s substantial decline were actually sown in the immediate aftermath of World War II. There was massive wartime relocation of southern African American, as well as Appalachian whites, seeking factory jobs in defense industries. The loss of those jobs once defense orders waned, coupled with rampant racism and inadequate housing, all played a part in the decline.
Sugrue argued that by placing housing and employment within the context of race, one can plainly see the cause and timing of Detroit’s decline. He makes the case that the postwar economic boom enjoyed by many communities was not universal, and was in fact, unevenly distributed across the country. For Detroit specifically, Sugrue pointed out that even in the best of times, those jobs that were available, were by and large, lower-paying jobs without the security of union contracts to guarantee long-term employment. Many of the employees still could not afford to purchase the cars coming off the assembly lines of the plants in which they toiled. And while home ownership certainly grew rapidly immediately after the war, it still remained an unattainable goal for many.
Sugrue also showed that the loss of jobs hurt African Americans disproportionately. One could argue that a life in Appalachia had served as no greater preparation for industrial work, and yet Sugrue argued that those white migrants held onto jobs, or at least had an easier time replacing them if they were lost. He also examined hiring practices of individual firms and industries to make his point of de facto hiring discrimination. He successfully argued that it was not the role of decentralization, which moved the jobs away from African Americans sequestered in the inner city ghettos, but instead ordinary, everyday racism.
Housing was another issue which contributed to the city’s economic failure. As Sugrue pointed out, not only did African Americans migrants from the South pour into Detroit, but their white counterparts from Appalachia did so as well. The housing crisis that resulted from the thousands of new residents did not affect both groups equally. This should eliminate Wilson’s argument that class was the deciding factor; Sugrue showed plainly that it was race instead. He argued that the overwhelmingly negative white response to the prospect of African American neighbors was due in large part to white fear: whites feared unknown African Americans and they also feared the impact of desegregation on home prices. White neighborhood associations saw segregation as the key to peace on the home front; in fact, Sugrue noted that “Many cited the Jim Crow South as a model for successful race relations.”
Sugrue’s carefully researched work does show that many of the factors that are responsible for the decline of industrial cities have been in place far longer than most would posit. By using data from the United States census and other government reports, as well as privately gathered surveys, the author clearly upholds his thesis in regard to Detroit. Where he may be on shakier ground is his assertion that Detroit serves as a model for other industrial cities of the North and Midwest that have suffered similar declines. Without similar data, gathered just as painstakingly as that present in The Origins of the Urban Crisis, one would be hard pressed to apply this model universally. Sugrue himself described the work as “a social and political history of inequality in a twentieth-century city,” and it is best left to that limit.
Sugrue argued that by placing housing and employment within the context of race, one can plainly see the cause and timing of Detroit’s decline. He makes the case that the postwar economic boom enjoyed by many communities was not universal, and was in fact, unevenly distributed across the country. For Detroit specifically, Sugrue pointed out that even in the best of times, those jobs that were available, were by and large, lower-paying jobs without the security of union contracts to guarantee long-term employment. Many of the employees still could not afford to purchase the cars coming off the assembly lines of the plants in which they toiled. And while home ownership certainly grew rapidly immediately after the war, it still remained an unattainable goal for many.
Sugrue also showed that the loss of jobs hurt African Americans disproportionately. One could argue that a life in Appalachia had served as no greater preparation for industrial work, and yet Sugrue argued that those white migrants held onto jobs, or at least had an easier time replacing them if they were lost. He also examined hiring practices of individual firms and industries to make his point of de facto hiring discrimination. He successfully argued that it was not the role of decentralization, which moved the jobs away from African Americans sequestered in the inner city ghettos, but instead ordinary, everyday racism.
Housing was another issue which contributed to the city’s economic failure. As Sugrue pointed out, not only did African Americans migrants from the South pour into Detroit, but their white counterparts from Appalachia did so as well. The housing crisis that resulted from the thousands of new residents did not affect both groups equally. This should eliminate Wilson’s argument that class was the deciding factor; Sugrue showed plainly that it was race instead. He argued that the overwhelmingly negative white response to the prospect of African American neighbors was due in large part to white fear: whites feared unknown African Americans and they also feared the impact of desegregation on home prices. White neighborhood associations saw segregation as the key to peace on the home front; in fact, Sugrue noted that “Many cited the Jim Crow South as a model for successful race relations.”
Sugrue’s carefully researched work does show that many of the factors that are responsible for the decline of industrial cities have been in place far longer than most would posit. By using data from the United States census and other government reports, as well as privately gathered surveys, the author clearly upholds his thesis in regard to Detroit. Where he may be on shakier ground is his assertion that Detroit serves as a model for other industrial cities of the North and Midwest that have suffered similar declines. Without similar data, gathered just as painstakingly as that present in The Origins of the Urban Crisis, one would be hard pressed to apply this model universally. Sugrue himself described the work as “a social and political history of inequality in a twentieth-century city,” and it is best left to that limit.
May 6, 2015
This book, written in the mid-1990s, is still as relevant and applicable for reading today as it was two decades ago. Looking at Detroit as a specific case study, it picks apart the many tangled threads of race relations; class differences; the influence of religion; the decisions of business and industry; and the actions (and inactions) of the local, state, and federal government to reveal the reasons why one particular city -- once the shining example of America's productivity -- collapsed under the weight of chronic un- and underemployment and deep structural inequalities. As someone who grew up outside a fading industrial city with its own racial strife and employment problems, I found myself nodding along sadly as I read Sugrue's work...and even wincing as some of his examples and conclusions struck rather too close to home.
May 27, 2013
This is a powerful book. It was so powerful that it made me want to put it down so that I wasn't impacted by the ways that it pulled at me. Sometimes it was hard to take.
It is an essential book on race relations. It shows the historical context that built up to the riots and why Detroit has become what it is today.
The book has information pre-World War II, but focuses on the time between the war and the 1967 riot. The conclusion shows how the urban versus suburban hostilities developed, and why they have continued so long after that.
It is an essential book on race relations. It shows the historical context that built up to the riots and why Detroit has become what it is today.
The book has information pre-World War II, but focuses on the time between the war and the 1967 riot. The conclusion shows how the urban versus suburban hostilities developed, and why they have continued so long after that.
March 24, 2018
Thomas J. Sugrue’s The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit is a rich, detailed tragedy of a once proud city. In America, Detroit has become synonymous with the concept of urban failure. It has been seen as a metropolitan blight on the American landscape, pocked with foreclosed homes, the lifeless husks of factories, and other signs of economic ruin. Inextricably tied to this perception is the issue of race, as African Americans have long been symbolic of the moral, social, and economic shortcomings that suburbanites now refer to as culturally “urban.” How did this come to be? Sugrue follows the various threads that led to our modern conceptions of race as it relates to an urban setting and to the causes of Detroit’s, and by extension similar northern cities, plight. Sugrue argues “that the coincidence and mutual reinforcement of race, economics, and politics in… the period from the 1940s to the 1960s... set the stage for the fiscal, social, and economic crises that confront urban America today,” and that “Detroit’s postwar urban crisis emerged as the consequence of two of the most important, interrelated, and unresolved problems in American history: that capitalism generates economic inequality and that African Americans have disproportionately borne the impact of the inequality.” Detroit’s decline was a result of numerous factors, including automation, deindustrialization, chronic unemployment, and housing shortages, and its racial divide should be understood in terms of the postwar discrimination that regularly targeted and limited the advancements of blacks.
For a detailed look at Sugrue’s argument, click the spoiler section.
Sugrue advances existing scholarship by providing deeper insight into the causes of Detroit’s decline. He does this in a number of ways. Firstly, Sugrue’s examination “suggests that the origins of the urban crisis are much earlier than social scientists have recognized.” He also claims that his focus, urban economic decline, “has remained largely absent from historical accounts of the 1940s and 1950s.” Similarly, he writes, “The history of race relations and civil rights in the North remains… largely unexamined by historians.” Sugrue’s assessment remedies these scholarly deficiencies.
Urban Crisis vividly articulates the causes, experiences, and effects of Detroit’s decline. Sugrue gives the reader a glimpse into the lives of blacks and whites as they navigated a shifting landscape which was transforming in terms of race, economy, and housing. With clarity of narrative, interpretation, and presentation, Sugrue guides the reader through the struggles and occasional victories of working class Detroiters, but always we know that the story is meant to end tragically. For many, Detroit is a casualty of America’s twentieth-century industrial age, and though the history and present condition of the city is dark, Surgue at least insightfully illuminates the path which brought it there, as well as all the ways its fate could have been prevented, or at the very least, softened for its citizens.
For a detailed look at Sugrue’s argument, click the spoiler section.
Sugrue advances existing scholarship by providing deeper insight into the causes of Detroit’s decline. He does this in a number of ways. Firstly, Sugrue’s examination “suggests that the origins of the urban crisis are much earlier than social scientists have recognized.” He also claims that his focus, urban economic decline, “has remained largely absent from historical accounts of the 1940s and 1950s.” Similarly, he writes, “The history of race relations and civil rights in the North remains… largely unexamined by historians.” Sugrue’s assessment remedies these scholarly deficiencies.
Urban Crisis vividly articulates the causes, experiences, and effects of Detroit’s decline. Sugrue gives the reader a glimpse into the lives of blacks and whites as they navigated a shifting landscape which was transforming in terms of race, economy, and housing. With clarity of narrative, interpretation, and presentation, Sugrue guides the reader through the struggles and occasional victories of working class Detroiters, but always we know that the story is meant to end tragically. For many, Detroit is a casualty of America’s twentieth-century industrial age, and though the history and present condition of the city is dark, Surgue at least insightfully illuminates the path which brought it there, as well as all the ways its fate could have been prevented, or at the very least, softened for its citizens.
March 27, 2025
A good, yet narrow, academic look at the rise and subsequent decline of Detroit from approximately 1939-1967.
Sugrue’s explanation of this era is based on a restricted scope of analysis, centering solely on the negative effects that systemic racism and deindustrialization (industry flight) had on housing options and employment opportunities for Black Detroiters.
Although I agree with Sugrue’s analysis, and concede that Black housing and employment disparities are likely the biggest culprits, I think he’s ignoring other important forces at play that contributed to Detroit’s urban crisis. Topics such as education, health care, and the experience of Detroit’s other non-white/Black ethnicities (Detroit’s Latino and Middle Eastern populations are especially important to the city’s cultural, political, and historical fabric) are virtually ignored.
Sugrue’s explanation of this era is based on a restricted scope of analysis, centering solely on the negative effects that systemic racism and deindustrialization (industry flight) had on housing options and employment opportunities for Black Detroiters.
Although I agree with Sugrue’s analysis, and concede that Black housing and employment disparities are likely the biggest culprits, I think he’s ignoring other important forces at play that contributed to Detroit’s urban crisis. Topics such as education, health care, and the experience of Detroit’s other non-white/Black ethnicities (Detroit’s Latino and Middle Eastern populations are especially important to the city’s cultural, political, and historical fabric) are virtually ignored.
October 19, 2007
Thomas Sugrue’s The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and
Inequality in Postwar Detroit uncovers the multiple intertwined causes of urban decline and crisis in Detroit. Complicating the sociological reasons for the presence of the underclass and urban decline, Sugrue stresses the
need to look at the history of the political economy of Detroit in order to find the sources of urban crisis. Sugrue’s meticulously documented book ,rich with archival sources, statistics, photographs, and personal accounts
shows the interweaving of structural forces of housing, economics, and public policy, “grassroots conservatism”, and individual and personal choices made by politicians, civic and union leaders, employers, and homeowners. According to Sugrue, three simultaneous forces-the flight of jobs, workplace discrimination, and racially segregated housing and resources-combined to transform Detroit from relative urban prosperity and growth to urban decline.
Sugrue contributes to the field by positioning the beginnings of the urban crisis to a much earlier period than many other historians have suggested. Sugrue suggests that the 1940s were a crucialperiod in the development of northern industrial cities. Detroit, like many other industrial northern cities, was an important destination for African-Africans aspiring to a better life and fleeing from the agrarian South. Arranging the spatiality of race, economics, labor, and housing in Detroit, Sugrue demonstrates how exclusionary racial covenants, discriminatory bank lending, racially prejudiced real estate agencies, and the governmental legitimization of redlining tactics used by Federal Housing Administration all placed obstacles to the equal opportunities for African-Americans’ opportunities to secure housing. White homeowners,wishing to protect prized real estate investments, established neighborhood associations to combat the entrance of African-Americans to white-dominated areas. Many neighborhood groups persuaded real estate agencies and politicians to maintain the racial boundaries of neighborhoods. Violence was another tactic used to intimidate black homeowners and prospective buyers from crossing boundaries. Whites also resisted public housing near white neighborhoods as exemplified by Sugrue’s account of the Sojourner Truth riots. In the public mind, public housing soon became synonymous with black housing. Unlike other urban areas such as New York, public housing became a scarce resource. “Slum clearing” and highway construction
displaced many African-American communities in the name of progress. As a result, black neighborhoods developed at a slower pace, and crowded,scarce, poorly maintained housing increased.
Perhaps, Sugrue’s most insightful contribution is his analysis of the demographics and behavior of white homeowner associations. With a sense of entitlement to homeownership and a disillusionment of the supposed New Deal liberalism towards African-American, white homeowners vehemently defended the demarcation of neighborhoods. Without the financial means to move, the white-working class developed and shared a sense of “grassroots conservatism” shared and manifested by both genders. Sugrue utilizes letters written to politicians and newspapers as a source of expression for the animosity, frustration, and discontent harbored by many white homeowners. Sugrue explores the field of whiteness and identity to explain in part the phenomena of white flight and fierce opposition to integration. While Sugrue adeptly defends his argument, I am curious as to if Sugrue is leaving out the effects of Brown vs. Board of Education and the prospect of desegregated schools and their contributions to white flight and white neighborhoods preservation efforts. However, Sugrue has significantly forced me to rethink the frameworks and historical dimensions involved in urban decline in other northern cities, such as Philadelphia, Newark, and
Brooklyn.
Inequality in Postwar Detroit uncovers the multiple intertwined causes of urban decline and crisis in Detroit. Complicating the sociological reasons for the presence of the underclass and urban decline, Sugrue stresses the
need to look at the history of the political economy of Detroit in order to find the sources of urban crisis. Sugrue’s meticulously documented book ,rich with archival sources, statistics, photographs, and personal accounts
shows the interweaving of structural forces of housing, economics, and public policy, “grassroots conservatism”, and individual and personal choices made by politicians, civic and union leaders, employers, and homeowners. According to Sugrue, three simultaneous forces-the flight of jobs, workplace discrimination, and racially segregated housing and resources-combined to transform Detroit from relative urban prosperity and growth to urban decline.
Sugrue contributes to the field by positioning the beginnings of the urban crisis to a much earlier period than many other historians have suggested. Sugrue suggests that the 1940s were a crucialperiod in the development of northern industrial cities. Detroit, like many other industrial northern cities, was an important destination for African-Africans aspiring to a better life and fleeing from the agrarian South. Arranging the spatiality of race, economics, labor, and housing in Detroit, Sugrue demonstrates how exclusionary racial covenants, discriminatory bank lending, racially prejudiced real estate agencies, and the governmental legitimization of redlining tactics used by Federal Housing Administration all placed obstacles to the equal opportunities for African-Americans’ opportunities to secure housing. White homeowners,wishing to protect prized real estate investments, established neighborhood associations to combat the entrance of African-Americans to white-dominated areas. Many neighborhood groups persuaded real estate agencies and politicians to maintain the racial boundaries of neighborhoods. Violence was another tactic used to intimidate black homeowners and prospective buyers from crossing boundaries. Whites also resisted public housing near white neighborhoods as exemplified by Sugrue’s account of the Sojourner Truth riots. In the public mind, public housing soon became synonymous with black housing. Unlike other urban areas such as New York, public housing became a scarce resource. “Slum clearing” and highway construction
displaced many African-American communities in the name of progress. As a result, black neighborhoods developed at a slower pace, and crowded,scarce, poorly maintained housing increased.
Perhaps, Sugrue’s most insightful contribution is his analysis of the demographics and behavior of white homeowner associations. With a sense of entitlement to homeownership and a disillusionment of the supposed New Deal liberalism towards African-American, white homeowners vehemently defended the demarcation of neighborhoods. Without the financial means to move, the white-working class developed and shared a sense of “grassroots conservatism” shared and manifested by both genders. Sugrue utilizes letters written to politicians and newspapers as a source of expression for the animosity, frustration, and discontent harbored by many white homeowners. Sugrue explores the field of whiteness and identity to explain in part the phenomena of white flight and fierce opposition to integration. While Sugrue adeptly defends his argument, I am curious as to if Sugrue is leaving out the effects of Brown vs. Board of Education and the prospect of desegregated schools and their contributions to white flight and white neighborhoods preservation efforts. However, Sugrue has significantly forced me to rethink the frameworks and historical dimensions involved in urban decline in other northern cities, such as Philadelphia, Newark, and
Brooklyn.
August 5, 2015
I took a break from fiction and medical textbooks to read some history/social science. This book looks at the massive problems that Detroit was suffering in the 1990s and continues to suffer in 2015. What was the root cause of these problems? When did they start? Who was responsible? Obviously, the answers to these questions like most historical questions are highly complex and require a lot of research. Thomas Sugrue put in an astounding amount of effort and detail into a diagnosis that goes way beyond the overly simplified narratives we have heard before. We have heard liberals say that GM outsourcing jobs was the single factor and conservatives say that Detroit electing Democratic mayors in the 1970s and 1980s was the answer. Most historians will point to the 1968 riots and say that was the single event that chased away Detroit's upper class, destroyed the city's tax base, and ergo led to its ultimate demise. However, people don't simply riot for no reason! The fact that Detroit had a problem was obvious in 1968, but that wasn't actually when the problem truly began. Sugrue looks at the underlying structural problems that existed in Detroit since the 1940s and why people had such strong incentive to riot in 1968. This is a must read for lovers of American history and sociology!
February 3, 2021
A readable, fact-filled history of mid-2oth century Detroit from a progressive perspective, beginning with World War II and ending with the 1967 riots. The basic narrative arc of the book is as follows: 1) in the 1940s, whites were racist; 2) in the 1950s and the 1960s, a) whites continued to be racist and b) industrial jobs left town, causing c) things to get even worse for Blacks (even though in the 1940s, discrimination prevented Blacks from getting the jobs in question), causing d) riots and white flight.
Even though Sugrue certainly documents his story, his own data suggests that reality was a bit more complex. For example, one of his tables shows that between 1960 and 1970, the unemployment rate for Blacks was cut in half, from 18.2 percent to 9.8 percent (p. 151). Another table shows that even in Black ghetto neighborhoods, household income increased by over 30 percent in the 1950s (p. 199).
As Sugrue points out, it is a common belief that the 1950s and 1960s were a golden age of prosperity for Detroiters, and his book is a useful corrective to this view. But I wonder if he goes too far in the other direction.
Even though Sugrue certainly documents his story, his own data suggests that reality was a bit more complex. For example, one of his tables shows that between 1960 and 1970, the unemployment rate for Blacks was cut in half, from 18.2 percent to 9.8 percent (p. 151). Another table shows that even in Black ghetto neighborhoods, household income increased by over 30 percent in the 1950s (p. 199).
As Sugrue points out, it is a common belief that the 1950s and 1960s were a golden age of prosperity for Detroiters, and his book is a useful corrective to this view. But I wonder if he goes too far in the other direction.
August 14, 2014
Thomas Sugrue examines the causes of the “urban crisis” of major American cities which involved white flight and suburbanization and caused high levels of poverty and unemployment for the urban black population. Sugrue contends that this phenomenon was not inevitable, but was caused by economic and racial policies which began amidst the post World War II national economic boom. Race riots as seen in Detroit in 1967 were the climax of these tensions. Through statistical analysis, demographic maps,anecdotal evidence, and photographs Sugrue provides convincing evidence for his argument that the deterioration of life for urban blacks was not due to a lack of individual motivation or self-determination, but instead resulted from the “coincidence and mutual reinforcement of race,
economics, and politics” which “set the stage for the fiscal, social, and economic crises that confront urban America today.”(5) A powerful and informative work.
economics, and politics” which “set the stage for the fiscal, social, and economic crises that confront urban America today.”(5) A powerful and informative work.
September 5, 2011
This book changed how I look at the modern landscape of American cities. Sugrue focuses on the post-WWII trends in Detroit, but the same population and industrial patterns are found to a lesser degree in just about every other Rust Belt metropolis. I grew up in Milwaukee, one of the most segregated cities in the US, and now I have a better idea of how it got that way.
He takes on a number of tough topics that culminate in urban decay: systemic discrimination and segregation in the workplace and housing market, legal strategies adopted by various parties, community group-mobilization and turf battles, real estate and profit-driven interests, white flight, and de-industrialization. The statistics and population analyses are often overwhelming, but he does a good job of adding the occasional illustrative anecdote that ties it together.
He takes on a number of tough topics that culminate in urban decay: systemic discrimination and segregation in the workplace and housing market, legal strategies adopted by various parties, community group-mobilization and turf battles, real estate and profit-driven interests, white flight, and de-industrialization. The statistics and population analyses are often overwhelming, but he does a good job of adding the occasional illustrative anecdote that ties it together.
February 12, 2017
As soon as I moved to Detroit, this was a book that over and over again was mentioned and recommended to me. It took me 3 years to finally crack it open, and as a non-Detroiter I am so glad that I did. Sugrue weaves an extremely well-researched and compelling narrative of the city of Detroit and the many factors that contribute to the disparity in housing, employment and class that exists even today within the city. This book is extremely dense, and Sugrue presents fact after fact that further proves that the status of black people in Detroit and cities like it was no accident. In fact, it was very systematically and strategically made to be so. I think this should be required reading for anyone doing any type of policy or social justice work in the city.
May 7, 2017
This is a largely scholarly work with plenty of tables, graphs, and endnotes. The author manages to tip the content to compelling and away from dry, however. This the story of institutional lack of opportunity for African-American Detroiters largely tracked from the WW II-era boom of the city as an industrial 'arsenal' to the eve of the '67 riots. The story of racist loan, real estate, and owner association covenant policies is told on a municipal scale through data with interspersed incidents of particular individuals. It is a sad and disheartening litany of abuses perpetrated upon a population. I understand there are updated and enlarged editions other than this one.
January 19, 2023
If you are interested in learning the history of Detroit this is a MUST READ. Growing up near Detroit we just learned that it used to be a big music and car city and then suddenly it wasn't. I had heard the oral history (the truth) from friends and family in the community, but this lays everything out clear as day, giving definitions and explanations for things we knew were there all along. This book starkly pointed out that race was THE reason for Detroit's post-war urban crisis. It fills in all the blanks that our public education history books leave out. You will finish this book with a new perspective on all urban centers and black communities around the United States.
January 24, 2008
As a transplanted west-coaster recently arrived in Michigan - Sugrue's work first caught my eye several months ago. Now that I've finished, I wish I'd read it months earlier. He provides a close examination of the historical and sociological background to the 1967 Detroit riots beginning with the rapid industrialization and residential growth in the early 1900s. And by beginning his account so early, offers a richly nuanced and multi-faceted account.
A must-read for anyone doing ministry in Detroit (as I now am).
A must-read for anyone doing ministry in Detroit (as I now am).
February 8, 2015
Really interesting, well-written, well-researched book arguing that the decline of Detroit traces back to forces long before the race riots of the 1960s -- to entrenched housing and employment discrimination against people of color in post-war cities, and the collision of those forces with deindustrialization. Excellent and illuminating book -- well worth reading. It is remarkable to think that this was only half a century before (and it'd be naive to think that the same forces of housing segregation do not continue to shape economic outcomes today).
October 1, 2008
This is a book that attempts to chronicle the demise of the City of Detroit and the racial tensions that were at play at the time of the initial decline. Sugrue attempts to show how events unfolded and what resulted from those events. It covers the time period leading up to but not including the late 1960's riots. It is a must-read for anyone in the Metro Detroit area. Perhaps it provides a bit of perspective and knowledge into how we got to where we are now.
May 12, 2016
This is a great book in terms of the research and documentation Sugrue provides. Sugure challenges the common narrative that racism wasn't prevelant in the North as it was in the South. He demonstrates how a complex mixture of factors including housing, jobs, racial prejudice, econimics, and politics led to the urban crisis in Detroit. If you're looking for a short and concise read, however, you will find this book overwhelming and a bit repetitive.
January 28, 2019
If you ever wondered how Detroit ended up with an impoverished citizenry and in bankruptcy, read this book. Professor Sugrue lays out the origins of the crisis in the 1940's and 1950's. The African American community faced many roadblocks, but foremost were racial discrimination and deindustrialization of the city. This book studies Detroit, but I think we can reflect on how our local community has been affected by these issues. The book is dense but well written and totally fascinating.
November 16, 2007
A very academic and very powerful argument on the economic, racial and legal reasons for the existence of urban crisis. Centered around Detroit from 1930's though the 70's, the author lucidly shows how the past actions of government, business and citizens groups created a segregated inner city the influence of which extends to present day.
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