The pattern: Population change in Detroit

Downtown Detroit today

Suburban Detroit

What has caused the decline of this once great city?

Locals in Detroit today describe the city as "like living in a museum - a museum of neglect". While cities across the world plan for population growth and creating larger and better cities, Detroit faces different challenges. It is a city that had a dramatic rise and then a spectacular fall.

In less than 60 years the population of the city has dropped from a high of nearly two million people to a city today of little more than 700,000 people. It is a city that has 66,000 vacant sections and 78,000 abandoned buildings. It is a city with empty skyscrapers, factories left in ruins, and residential streets once densely populated but now full of houses left abandoned, burnt to the ground or demolished spread across its urban landscape.

In 2009, the Detroit mayor's office introduced a policy called' Transforming Detroit'. The policy set out plans for the redevelopment of the city, improving the quality of life for all citizens, repopulating the city and reclaiming the future for Detroit as a world-class city. The policy highlighted the need to:

improve and restore the three essential services of public safety, public transportation and public lighting
provide recreational opportunities for the people
deal with urban blight and decay
sort out the city's debts and stabilise its finances
reorganise government and rethink urban policy

The policy and the plans are a sign that Detroit is a city facing an usual set of problems and challenges.

Detroit city and its location

In 1950, Detroit was one of 83 cities in the world with over one million residents. Its population was similar in size to Sydney and three times the size of Auckland. Today, Detroit would not even make the list of the largest 500 global cities. Sydney now is seven times larger than Detroit and Auckland has double the population of Detroit.

Detroit is a city in the Great Lakes area in the northern part of the Midwest region of the USA. It is part of Wayne County and is the largest city in the state of Michigan. The city is located on the Detroit River, which links two of the Great Lakes Huron and Erie. Although Detroit is located over 1500 kilometres inland, it is an important seaport. It has direct access to the Atlantic Ocean via Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, canals and the St Lawrence River. The city is close to the US-Canada border. The Detroit River forms the border between the USA and Canada. The Canadian city of Windsor, Ontario, is only a few minutes' drive away by bridge or tunnel across the river from Detroit.

Detroit population facts

Detroit 1850-1950s - rapid growth

Detroit 1850-1950s - rapid growth

1850s-1950s was a century of growth of business and population in Detroit - entrepreneurs, land speculators and workers migrated to the city from across the world (especially from Europe and Canada) and from other parts of the USA. The city became a magnet for people with skill, ambition and vision.
People crossing borders transformed Detroit from farmland into an industrial giant. Polish, Lebanese, Irish and Italian immigrants, along with Southern African-Americans (blacks) and whites, arrived in huge numbers during the 19th and 20th centuries to work in auto and other manufacturing plants.
In 1870, four-fifths of children at school in Detroit had parents born outside the USA.
Detroit has been described as the Silicon Valley of the earth 20th century - a fast-growing and innovative place that offered opportunities for people to get a job and become wealthy.
In 1914, car manufacturer Ford offered $5 per day for an eight-hour work day. The previous pay rate was $2.34 per day for nine hours. 15,000 workers applied for the 3000 jobs available.
The success of Ford attracted other auto industry pioneers like Packard, Dodge and Chrysler to Detroit in the early 1900s, just like Hollywood did for movies after 1940, and Silicon Valley for computers after 1970.
In 1920, Detroit was the fourth-largest city in the USA. The wealth of the city and its architecture led to it
being called the 'Paris of the Midwest'.
Detroit reached its peak population of nearly two million in 1950. The local population had the highest median income and highest rate of home ownership in the country.
In the mid-1950s, General Motors, with its headquarters in Detroit, was the largest single employer on earth. Eighty percent of all the world's cars were being made in the Detroit area at this time. Detroit was booming with its thriving auto industry. Many of the residents of the city were auto workers who enjoyed good pay and good benefits.
But there were signed not all was well:
Automation in the car plants and competition from foreign car makers were both in their early phases.
Where other major cities in the USA had populations of varied education and skill levels, the auto assembly lines in Detroit required only limited technical ability to perform highly repetitive tasks. The workforce of Detroit was mostly unskilled or semi-skilled. Detroit enjoyed middle-class levels of wealth, but without middle-class levels of skills and education.
African-American (black) workers and their families from the Southern states of the USA had moved north to Detroit in large numbers from the 1930s onwards. They were attracted by the factory jobs and high wages on offer. These African-Americans were welcomed as workers but not as residents by the white population of Detroit. Racism and racial hatred lay close to the surface across the city neighbourhoods.

Detroit 1950s-2014 - rapid decline

The population of Detroit has declined by more than one million people since 1950. The city now is the 18th-largest in the USA. The last time the population of Detroit was as low as it is today was in 1910.
In 1960, average family incomes in Detroit were the highest in the USA. Now, 60 percent of all children in Detroit live in poverty. The unemployment rate is close to 20 percent, twice the average for the USA.
One-third of all the land in the city is vacant or derelict.
The average house price in the city is just $NZ30,000. In some parts of the city, houses can be bought for less than $NZ5,000. In comparison, the average house in Auckland now costs $800,000.
Detroit was hit hard by the 2007-2010 global financial crisis when banks, finance companies and businesses failed. Ford, General Motors and Chrysler cut production as sales fell. All were close to bankruptcy and needed government help to survive. Unemployment rose, house prices fell. Many people in Detroit were unable to pay their mortgages and had homes that were worth much less than they paid for them. Some of these families abandoned their homes and moved away to look for work in other parts of the USA.
There are 85,000 street lights in the city. The council has switched off most of the lights away from the main roads to save money. Thieves have stripped out the copper wiring from many of the others. Only half the street lights now work.
The school system has been rated as the worst in the USA. Close to 50 percent of all the people living in the city have no school qualifications.
In 2012, there were 411 murders in the city. The murder rate in Detroit is 11 times higher than in New York City. Detroit has been described as the Murder Capital of the USA and the most dangerous city to live in.
Because of financial problems, the city has cut police numbers by half over the last 10 years. To save money, most police stations are closed to the public for 16 hours each day.
More than half of the properly owners in Detroit failed to pay their 2011 tax bills. This added to the financial problems facing the city. Public services like schools, libraries and police had their budgets cut.
A number of council offices have been serving prison sentences for the misuse of city funds.
The road '8 Mile' that marks the northern boundary of the city has become famous as a marker dividing a black city in decay from more prosperous white surrounding areas.