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Detroit Skyline with Renaissance Center in foreground

Detroit

The Motor City Revs Up for Growth

From the moment that Charles King first drove a motorcar down its streets in 1896, Detroit has been tied to automobiles. Transportation and commerce had an established hold on the city even before the automobile came along (the Detroit River connects Lake St. Clair with Lake Erie, making Detroit a major port), but when Random Olds’s plant started manufacturing cars in 1901 and Henry Ford established the Ford Motor Company in 1903, Detroit found its calling as the Motor City. Ford brought further fame to Detroit by introducing not only the assembly line but also a reduced workday and guaranteed wages of $5 a day.

Immigration and Southerners moving north swelled the population. By 1940, Detroit’s population was over 1.6 million, making it the fourth largest city in the nation. Motown Records would publish some of the best American music in the 1960s, putting African American groups high on the charts and further fueling a strong city economy.

But by the late 1960s, Detroit faced an economic downturn. Factory work held fewer opportunities for city workers. Racial unrest and the 12 th Street Riots—among the worst in this country’s history—frightened many residents into fleeing to the suburbs. Japanese automotive competition and the Arab Oil Embargo of the 1970s further damaged Detroit ’s economy. Between 1960 and 2000, the city lost a little under half of its residents.

With its emptied downtown and vacant buildings, Detroit became an icon of urban decay in America. As of the 1990 U.S. Census it had the highest poverty level of the 100 largest U.S. cities.

But Detroit has worked hard in recent years to bring life back to the Motor City. Neighborhoods are being revitalized; arts and culture are seeing a comeback with the $60-million Max M. Fisher Music Hall and the greatly expanded new home of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. Residents are investing in homes in their own neighborhoods: according to the U.S. Census, homeownership among African Americans rose 4.4 percent between 1990 and 2000. More than half of African-American households are now in owner-occupied housing units, well above the national average.