Detroit ( , ; , ) is the
largest city in the
U.S. state
In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...
of
Michigan
Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...
. It is also the largest U.S. city on the
United States–Canada border, and the
seat of government of
Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at the
2020 census,
making it the
27th-most populous city in the United States. The
metropolitan area, known as
Metro Detroit
The Detroit metropolitan area, often referred to as Metro Detroit, is a major metropolitan area in the U.S. State of Michigan, consisting of the city of Detroit and its Southeast Michigan, surrounding area. There are varied definitions of the a ...
, is home to 4.3 million people, making it the second-largest in the
Midwest after the
Chicago metropolitan area
The Chicago metropolitan area, also colloquially referred to as Chicagoland, is a metropolitan area in the Midwestern United States. Encompassing 10,286 sq mi (28,120 km2), the metropolitan area includes the city of Chicago, its suburbs and h ...
, and the 14th-largest in the United States. Regarded as a major cultural center, Detroit is known for its contributions to
music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...
, art,
architecture
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...
and design, in addition to its historical automotive background. ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' named Detroit as one of the fifty World's Greatest Places of 2022 to explore.
Detroit is a major port on the
Detroit River
The Detroit River flows west and south for from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie as a strait in the Great Lakes system. The river divides the metropolitan areas of Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario—an area collectively referred to as Detro ...
, one of the four major
straits that connect the
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lak ...
system to the
Saint Lawrence Seaway
The St. Lawrence Seaway (french: la Voie Maritime du Saint-Laurent) is a system of locks, canals, and channels in Canada and the United States that permits oceangoing vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes of North Ameri ...
. The City of Detroit anchors the second-largest regional economy in the
Midwest, behind
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
and ahead of
Minneapolis–Saint Paul
Minneapolis–Saint Paul is a metropolitan area in the Upper Midwestern United States centered around the confluence of the Mississippi, Minnesota and St. Croix rivers in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is commonly known as the Twin Cities ...
, and the
14th-largest in the United States. Detroit is best known as the center of the
U.S. automobile industry, and the "
Big Three" auto manufacturers
General Motors,
Ford
Ford commonly refers to:
* Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford
* Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river
Ford may also refer to:
Ford Motor Company
* Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company
* Ford F ...
, and
Stellantis North America
Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automotiv ...
(Chrysler) are all headquartered in Metro Detroit. , the Detroit metropolitan area is the number one exporting region among 310 defined metropolitan areas in the United States.
[Why MITA will be a success]
''Michigan International Trade Association''. Retrieved on September 3, 2007. "Detroit is the most active commercial port of entry in the USA." "Greater Detroit is the number one exporting region among 310 defined metropolitan areas (CMSA) in the U.S." The
Detroit Metropolitan Airport
Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport , usually called Detroit Metro Airport, Metro Airport, or simply DTW, is a major international airport in the United States covering effective December 30, 2021. in Romulus, Michigan. It is the primary ...
is among the most important
hub airports in the United States. Detroit and its neighboring Canadian city
Windsor
Windsor may refer to:
Places Australia
* Windsor, New South Wales
** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area
* Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland
**Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...
are connected through
a highway tunnel,
railway tunnel
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prep ...
, and the
Ambassador Bridge
The Ambassador Bridge is a tolled international suspension bridge across the Detroit River that connects Detroit, Michigan, United States, with Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Opened in 1929, it is the busiest international border crossing in North ...
, which is the second-busiest international crossing in North America, after
San Diego–Tijuana. Both cities will soon be connected by a new bridge currently under construction, the
Gordie Howe International Bridge
The Gordie Howe International Bridge (french: Pont International Gordie-Howe), known during development as the Detroit River International Crossing and the New International Trade Crossing, is a cable-stayed international bridge across the De ...
, which will provide a complete freeway-to-freeway link. The new bridge is expected to be open by 2024.
In 1701,
Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac and
Alphonse de Tonty founded
Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit, the future city of Detroit. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, it became an important industrial hub at the center of the
Great Lakes region
The Great Lakes region of North America is a binational Canadian–American region that includes portions of the eight U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin along with the Canadian p ...
. The city's population became the fourth-largest in the nation in 1920, after only
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, Chicago and
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
, with the expansion of the
auto industry
The automotive industry comprises a wide range of companies and organizations involved in the design, development, manufacturing, marketing, and selling of motor vehicles. It is one of the world's largest industries by revenue (from 16 % such ...
in the early 20th century.
[Nolan, Jenny (June 15, 1999]
How Prohibition made Detroit a bootlegger's dream town
. Michigan History, ''The Detroit News''. Retrieved on November 23, 2007. As Detroit's industrialization took off, the
Detroit River
The Detroit River flows west and south for from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie as a strait in the Great Lakes system. The river divides the metropolitan areas of Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario—an area collectively referred to as Detro ...
became the busiest commercial hub in the world. The strait carried over 65 million tons of shipping commerce through Detroit to locations all over the world each year; the freight throughput was more than three times that of New York and about four times that of
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
. By the 1940s, the city's population remained the fourth-largest in the country. However, due to industrial restructuring, the loss of jobs in the auto industry, and rapid
suburbanization
Suburbanization is a population shift from central urban areas into suburbs, resulting in the formation of (sub)urban sprawl. As a consequence of the movement of households and businesses out of the city centers, low-density, peripheral urba ...
, among other reasons, Detroit entered a state of
urban decay
Urban decay (also known as urban rot, urban death or urban blight) is the sociological process by which a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude. There is no single process that leads to urban deca ...
and lost considerable population from the late 20th century to the present. Since reaching a peak of 1.85 million at the
1950 census, Detroit's population has declined by more than 65 percent.
In 2013, Detroit
became the largest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy, which it successfully exited in December 2014, when the city government regained control of Detroit's finances.
Detroit's diverse culture has had both local and international influence, particularly in
music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...
, with the city giving rise to the genres of
Motown and
techno
Techno is a Music genre, genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally music production, produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempo often varying between 120 and 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central Drum beat, rhythm is typ ...
, and playing an important role in the development of
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
,
hip-hop,
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
, and
punk
Punk or punks may refer to:
Genres, subculture, and related aspects
* Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres
* Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...
. The rapid growth of Detroit in its boom years resulted in a globally unique stock of
architectural monuments and
historic places. Since the 2000s,
conservation
Conservation is the preservation or efficient use of resources, or the conservation of various quantities under physical laws.
Conservation may also refer to:
Environment and natural resources
* Nature conservation, the protection and managem ...
efforts have managed to save many architectural pieces and achieved several large-scale
revitalizations, including the restoration of several historic
theatres
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...
and entertainment venues,
high-rise renovations, new sports stadiums, and a riverfront revitalization project. More recently, the population of
Downtown Detroit,
Midtown Detroit
Midtown Detroit is a mixed-use area consisting of a business district, cultural center, a major research university, and several residential neighborhoods; it is located along the east and west side of M-1 (Michigan highway), Woodward Avenue, nor ...
, and various other neighborhoods have increased. An
increasingly popular tourist destination, Detroit receives 16 million visitors per year. In 2015, Detroit was named a
"City of Design" by
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
, the first U.S. city to receive that designation.
Toponymy
Detroit is named after the
Detroit River
The Detroit River flows west and south for from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie as a strait in the Great Lakes system. The river divides the metropolitan areas of Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario—an area collectively referred to as Detro ...
, connecting
Lake Huron with
Lake Erie
Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also h ...
. The city's name comes from the
French word détroit''
' meaning "strait" as the city was situated on a narrow passage of water linking two lakes. The river was known as “''le détroit du Lac Érié''," among the
French, which meant "the strait of Lake Erie".
History
Early settlement
Paleo-Indian people inhabited areas near Detroit as early as 11,000 years ago including the culture referred to as the
Mound-builders
A number of pre-Columbian cultures are collectively termed "Mound Builders". The term does not refer to a specific people or archaeological culture, but refers to the characteristic mound earthworks erected for an extended period of more than 5 ...
.
In the 17th century, the region was inhabited by
Huron
Huron may refer to:
People
* Wyandot people (or Wendat), indigenous to North America
* Wyandot language, spoken by them
* Huron-Wendat Nation, a Huron-Wendat First Nation with a community in Wendake, Quebec
* Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi ...
,
Odawa,
Potawatomi and
Iroquois
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...
peoples.
The area is known by the
Anishinaabe
The Anishinaabeg (adjectival: Anishinaabe) are a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples present in the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States. They include the Ojibwe (including Saulteaux and Oji-Cree), Odawa, Potawat ...
people as ''Waawiiyaataanong'', translating to 'where the water curves around'.
The first Europeans did not penetrate into the region and reach the straits of Detroit until French missionaries and traders worked their way around the
League of the Iroquois
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian Peoples, Iroquoian-speaking Confederation#Indigenous confederations in North America, confederacy of First Nations in Canada, First Natio ...
, with whom they were at war and other Iroquoian tribes in the 1630s.
[
] The Huron and
Neutral people
The Neutral Confederacy (also Neutral Nation, Neutral people, or ''Attawandaron'' by neighbouring tribes) were an Iroquoian people who lived in what is now southwestern and south-central Ontario in Canada, North America. They lived throughout t ...
s held the north side of
Lake Erie
Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also h ...
until the 1650s, when the Iroquois pushed both and the
Erie people
The Erie people (also Eriechronon, Riquéronon, Erielhonan, Eriez, Nation du Chat) were Indigenous people historically living on the south shore of Lake Erie. An Iroquoian group, they lived in what is now western New York, northwestern Pennsylvani ...
away from the lake and its
beaver-rich feeder streams in the
Beaver Wars of 1649–1655.
By the 1670s, the war-weakened Iroquois laid claim to as far south as the
Ohio River valley in northern
Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...
as hunting grounds,
and had absorbed many other Iroquoian peoples after defeating them in war.
For the next hundred years, virtually no British or French action was contemplated without consultation with the Iroquois or consideration of their likely response.
When the
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...
evicted the
Kingdom of France
The Kingdom of France ( fro, Reaume de France; frm, Royaulme de France; french: link=yes, Royaume de France) is the historiographical name or umbrella term given to various political entities of France in the medieval and early modern period ...
from Canada, it removed one barrier to American colonists migrating west.
British negotiations with the Iroquois would both prove critical and lead to a Crown policy limiting settlements below the
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lak ...
and west of the
Alleghenies
The Allegheny Mountain Range (; also spelled Alleghany or Allegany), informally the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada and posed a significant barrier to land travel in less develo ...
. Many colonial American would-be migrants resented this restraint and became supporters of the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
. The 1778 raids and resultant 1779 decisive
Sullivan Expedition
The 1779 Sullivan Expedition (also known as the Sullivan-Clinton Expedition, the Sullivan Campaign, and the Sullivan-Clinton Genocide) was a United States military campaign during the American Revolutionary War, lasting from June to October 1779 ...
reopened the
Ohio Country to westward emigration, which began almost immediately. By 1800 white settlers were pouring westwards.
Later settlement
![FortShelbyDetroit](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/FortShelbyDetroit.png)
The city was named by
French colonists, referring to the
Detroit River
The Detroit River flows west and south for from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie as a strait in the Great Lakes system. The river divides the metropolitan areas of Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario—an area collectively referred to as Detro ...
(french: link=no, le détroit du lac Érié, meaning ''the
strait of Lake Erie''), linking
Lake Huron and
Lake Erie
Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also h ...
; in the historical context, the strait included the
St. Clair River
The St. Clair River (french: Rivière Sainte-Claire) is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed November 7, 2011 river in central North America which flows from Lake Huron int ...
,
Lake St. Clair and the Detroit River.
On July 24, 1701, the French explorer
Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, with his lieutenant
Alphonse de Tonty and along with more than a hundred other settlers, began constructing a small fort on the north bank of the Detroit River. Cadillac would later name the settlement
Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit, after
Louis Phélypeaux, comte de Pontchartrain Louis may refer to:
* Louis (coin)
* Louis (given name), origin and several individuals with this name
* Louis (surname)
* Louis (singer), Serbian singer
* HMS ''Louis'', two ships of the Royal Navy
See also
Derived or associated terms
* Lewis ( ...
, Minister of Marine under
Louis XIV
, house = Bourbon
, father = Louis XIII
, mother = Anne of Austria
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
, death_date =
, death_place = Palace of Ver ...
.
[, p. 56.] A church was soon founded here, and the parish was known as Sainte Anne de Détroit. France offered free land to colonists to attract families to Detroit; when it reached a population of 800 in 1765, this was the largest European settlement between
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...
and
, both also French settlements, in the former colonies of New France and La Louisiane, respectively.
By 1773, after the addition of Anglo-American settlers, the population of Detroit was 1,400. By 1778, its population reached 2,144 and it was the third-largest city in what was known as the
Province of Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirteen p ...
since the British takeover of French colonies following their victory in the
Seven Years' War
The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European Great Powers, and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Other concurrent conflicts include the French and Indian War (175 ...
.
The region's economy was based on the lucrative
fur trade, in which numerous Native American people had important roles as trappers and traders. Today the
flag of Detroit reflects its French colonial heritage. Descendants of the earliest French and
French-Canadian settlers formed a cohesive community, who gradually were superseded as the dominant population after more
Anglo-American settlers arrived in the early 19th century with American westward migration. Living along the shores of Lake St. Clair and south to Monroe and downriver suburbs, the ethnic French Canadians of Detroit, also known as
Muskrat French
The Muskrat French (french: Francophonie au Michigan; also known as the Mushrat French or Detroit River French Canadien) are a cultural group and dialect found in southeastern Michigan along the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair, the western and ...
in reference to the fur trade, remain a subculture in the region in the 21st century.
During the
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the ...
(1754–63), the North American front of the
Seven Years' War
The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European Great Powers, and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Other concurrent conflicts include the French and Indian War (175 ...
between Britain and France, British troops gained control of the settlement in 1760 and shortened its name to ''Detroit''. Several regional Native American tribes, such as the Potowatomi, Ojibwe and Huron, launched
Pontiac's War
Pontiac's War (also known as Pontiac's Conspiracy or Pontiac's Rebellion) was launched in 1763 by a loose confederation of Native Americans dissatisfied with British rule in the Great Lakes region following the French and Indian War (1754–176 ...
in 1763, and
laid siege to
Fort Detroit
Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit or Fort Detroit (1701–1796) was a fort established on the north bank of the Detroit River by the French officer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac and the Italian Alphonse de Tonty in 1701. In the 18th century, Fre ...
, but failed to capture it. In defeat, France ceded its territory in North America east of the Mississippi to Britain following the war.
Following the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
and the establishment of the United States as an independent country, Britain ceded Detroit along with other territories in the area under the
Jay Treaty
The Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation, Between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America, commonly known as the Jay Treaty, and also as Jay's Treaty, was a 1794 treaty between the United States and Great Britain that averted ...
(1796), which established the northern border with its colony of Canada. The
Great Fire of 1805 destroyed most of the Detroit settlement, which had primarily buildings made of wood. One stone fort, a river warehouse, and brick chimneys of former wooden homes were the sole structures to survive. Of the 600 Detroit residents in this area, none died in the fire.
19th century
From 1805 to 1847, Detroit was the capital of Michigan as a territory and as a state.
William Hull
William Hull (June 24, 1753 – November 29, 1825) was an American soldier and politician. He fought in the American Revolutionary War and was appointed as Governor of Michigan Territory (1805–13), gaining large land cessions from several Am ...
, the United States commander at Detroit surrendered without a fight to British troops and their Native American allies during the
War of 1812
The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States, United States of America and its Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom ...
in the
Siege of Detroit
The siege of Detroit, also known as the surrender of Detroit or the Battle of Fort Detroit, was an early engagement in the War of 1812. A British force under Major General Isaac Brock with Native American allies under Shawnee leader Tecums ...
, believing his forces were vastly outnumbered. The
Battle of Frenchtown
The Battles of Frenchtown, also known as the Battle of the River Raisin and the River Raisin Massacre, were a series of conflicts in Michigan Territory that took place from January 18–23, 1813, during the War of 1812. It was fought between the ...
(January 18–23, 1813) was part of a U.S. effort to retake the city, and U.S. troops suffered their highest fatalities of any battle in the war. This battle is commemorated at
River Raisin National Battlefield Park
The River Raisin National Battlefield Park preserves the site of the Battle of Frenchtown as the only national battlefield marking a site of the War of 1812. It was established as the 393rd unit of the United States National Park Service under ...
south of Detroit in
Monroe County. Detroit was recaptured by the United States later that year.
The settlement was incorporated as a city in 1815.
[ As the city expanded, a geometric street plan developed by Augustus B. Woodward was followed, featuring grand boulevards as in ]Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
.
Prior to the American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
, the city's access to the Canada–US border made it a key stop for refugee slaves gaining freedom in the North along the Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and Canada. ...
. Many went across the Detroit River to Canada to escape pursuit by slave catchers.[ An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 African-American refugees settled in Canada. ]George DeBaptiste
George DeBaptiste ( – February 22, 1875) was a prominent African-American conductor on the Underground Railroad in southern Indiana and Detroit, Michigan. Born free in Virginia, he moved as a young man to the free state of Indiana. In 1840, he s ...
was considered to be the "president" of the Detroit Underground Railroad, William Lambert the "vice president" or "secretary", and Laura Haviland
Laura Smith Haviland (December 20, 1808 – April 20, 1898) was an American abolitionist, suffragette, and social reformer. She was a Quaker and an important figure in the history of the Underground Railroad.
Early years and family
Laura Sm ...
the "superintendent".
Numerous men from Detroit volunteered to fight for the Union during the American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
, including the 24th Michigan Infantry Regiment. It was part of the legendary Iron Brigade
The Iron Brigade, also known as The Black Hats, Black Hat Brigade, Iron Brigade of the West, and originally King's Wisconsin Brigade was an infantry brigade in the Union Army of the Potomac during the American Civil War. Although it fought ent ...
, which fought with distinction and suffered 82% casualties at the Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg () was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. In the battle, Union Major General George Meade's Army of the Po ...
in 1863. When the First Volunteer Infantry Regiment arrived to fortify Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, President Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
is quoted as saying, "Thank God for Michigan!" George Armstrong Custer
George Armstrong Custer (December 5, 1839 – June 25, 1876) was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars.
Custer graduated from West Point in 1861 at the bottom of his class, b ...
led the Michigan Brigade The Michigan Brigade, sometimes called the Wolverines, the Michigan Cavalry Brigade or Custer's Brigade, was a brigade of cavalry in the volunteer Union Army during the latter half of the American Civil War. Composed primarily of the 1st Michigan ...
during the Civil War and called them the "Wolverines".
During the late 19th century, wealthy industry and shipping magnates commissioned the design and construction of several Gilded Age
In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1900, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Wes ...
mansions east and west of the current downtown, along the major avenues of the Woodward plan. Most notable among them was the David Whitney House
The David Whitney House is a historic mansion located at 4421 Woodward Avenue in Midtown Detroit, Michigan. The building was constructed during the 1890s as a private residence. It was restored in 1986 and is now a restaurant. The building was ...
at 4421 Woodward Avenue
A woodward is a warden of a wood. Woodward may also refer to:
Places
;United States
* Woodward, Iowa
* Woodward, Oklahoma
* Woodward, Pennsylvania, a census-designated place
* Woodward Avenue, a street in Tallahassee, Florida, which bisects th ...
, and the grand avenue became a favored address for mansions. During this period, some referred to Detroit as the "Paris of the West" for its architecture, grand avenues in the Paris style, and for Washington Boulevard, recently electrified by Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventi ...
.[ The city had grown steadily from the 1830s with the rise of shipping, shipbuilding, and manufacturing industries. Strategically located along the ]Great Lakes
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lak ...
waterway, Detroit emerged as a major port and transportation hub.
In 1896, a thriving carriage trade prompted Henry Ford
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that ...
to build his first automobile in a rented workshop on Mack Avenue. During this growth period, Detroit expanded its borders by annexing all or part of several surrounding villages and townships.
20th century
In 1903, Henry Ford founded the Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobi ...
. Ford's manufacturing—and those of automotive pioneers William C. Durant
William Crapo Durant (December 8, 1861 – March 18, 1947) was a leading pioneer of the United States automobile industry and co-founder of General Motors and Chevrolet. He created a system in which a company held multiple marques – each s ...
, the Dodge Brothers
Dodge is an American brand of automobiles and a division of Stellantis, based in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Dodge vehicles have historically included performance cars, and for much of its existence Dodge was Chrysler's mid-priced brand above Ply ...
, Packard, and Walter Chrysler
Walter Percy Chrysler (April 2, 1875 – August 18, 1940) was an American industrial pioneer in the automotive industry, American automotive industry executive and the founder and namesake of American Chrysler Corporation.
Early life
Chrysler wa ...
—established Detroit's status in the early 20th century as the world's automotive capital.[ The growth of the auto industry was reflected by changes in businesses throughout the Midwest and nation, with the development of garages to service vehicles and gas stations, as well as factories for parts and tires.
In 1907, the ]Detroit River
The Detroit River flows west and south for from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie as a strait in the Great Lakes system. The river divides the metropolitan areas of Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario—an area collectively referred to as Detro ...
carried 67,292,504 tons of shipping commerce through Detroit to locations all over the world. For comparison, London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
shipped 18,727,230 tons, and New York shipped 20,390,953 tons. The river was dubbed "the Greatest Commercial Artery on Earth" by The Detroit News
''The Detroit News'' is one of the two major newspapers in the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan. The paper began in 1873, when it rented space in the rival ''Detroit Free Press'' building. ''The News'' absorbed the ''Detroit Tribune'' on Februar ...
in 1908.
With the rapid growth of industrial workers in the auto factories, labor unions
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits (su ...
such as the American Federation of Labor and the United Auto Workers
The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers (UAW), is an American labor union that represents workers in the United States (including Puerto Rico) ...
fought to organize workers to gain them better working conditions and wages. They initiated strikes and other tactics in support of improvements such as the 8-hour day/40-hour work week, increased wage
A wage is payment made by an employer to an employee for work done in a specific period of time. Some examples of wage payments include compensatory payments such as ''minimum wage'', '' prevailing wage'', and ''yearly bonuses,'' and remune ...
s, greater benefits, and improved working conditions {{Short description, 1=Overview of and topical guide to working time and conditions
This is a list of topics on working time and conditions.
Legislation
* See :Employment law
Working time
* See :Working time
* Flextime
Working conditions
* Bios ...
. The labor activism during those years increased the influence of union leaders in the city such as Jimmy Hoffa of the Teamsters
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), also known as the Teamsters Union, is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of The Team Drivers International Union and The Teamsters National Union, the ...
and Walter Reuther
Walter Philip Reuther (; September 1, 1907 – May 9, 1970) was an American leader of organized labor and civil rights activist who built the United Automobile Workers (UAW) into one of the most progressive labor unions in American history. He ...
of the Autoworkers.
Due to the booming auto industry, Detroit became the fourth-largest city in the nation in 1920, following New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
and Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
.
The prohibition of alcohol
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic be ...
from 1920 to 1933 resulted in the Detroit River becoming a major conduit for smuggling of illegal Canadian spirits.
Detroit, like many places in the United States, developed racial conflict and discrimination in the 20th century following the rapid demographic changes as hundreds of thousands of new workers were attracted to the industrial city; in a short period, it became the fourth-largest city in the nation. The Great Migration brought rural blacks from the South; they were outnumbered by southern whites who also migrated to the city. Immigration brought southern and eastern Europeans of Catholic and Jewish faith; these new groups competed with native-born whites for jobs and housing in the booming city.
Detroit was one of the major Midwest cities that was a site for the dramatic urban revival of the Ku Klux Klan beginning in 1915. "By the 1920s the city had become a stronghold of the KKK", whose members primarily opposed Catholic and Jewish immigrants, but also practiced discrimination against Black Americans.["Detroit Race Riots 1943"](_blank)
. ''Eleanor Roosevelt'', WGBH, American Experience, PBS (June 20, 1983). Retrieved on September 5, 2013. Even after the decline of the KKK in the late 1920s, the Black Legion, a secret vigilante group, was active in the Detroit area in the 1930s. One-third of its estimated 20,000 to 30,000 members in Michigan were based in the city. It was defeated after numerous prosecutions following the kidnapping and murder in 1936 of Charles Poole, a Catholic organizer with the federal Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...
. Some 49 men of the Black Legion were convicted of numerous crimes, with many sentenced to life in prison for murder.
In the 1940s the world's "first urban depressed freeway" ever built, the Davison, was constructed in Detroit. During World War II, the government encouraged retooling of the American automobile industry in support of the Allied powers, leading to Detroit's key role in the American Arsenal of Democracy
"Arsenal of Democracy" was the central phrase used by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a radio broadcast on the threat to national security, delivered on December 29, 1940—nearly a year before the United States entered the Second Worl ...
.[Nolan, Jenny (January 28, 1997]
Willow Run and the Arsenal of Democracy
. Michigan History, ''The Detroit News''. Retrieved on November 23, 2007.
Jobs expanded so rapidly due to the defense buildup in World War II that 400,000 people migrated to the city from 1941 to 1943, including 50,000 blacks in the second wave of the Great Migration, and 350,000 whites, many of them from the South. Whites, including ethnic Europeans, feared black competition for jobs and scarce housing. The federal government prohibited discrimination in defense work, but when in June 1943 Packard promoted three black people to work next to whites on its assembly lines, 25,000 white workers walked off the job.
The Detroit race riot of 1943 took place in June, three weeks after the Packard plant protest, beginning with an altercation at Belle Isle. Blacks suffered 25 deaths (of a total of 34), three-quarters of 600 wounded, and most of the losses due to property damage. Rioters moved through the city, and young whites traveled across town to attack more settled blacks in their neighborhood of Paradise Valley.[Dominic J. Capeci, Jr., and Martha Wilkerson, "The Detroit Rioters of 1943: A Reinterpretation"](_blank)
''Michigan Historical Review'', January 1990, Vol. 16 Issue 1, pp. 49–72.
Postwar era
Industrial mergers in the 1950s, especially in the automobile sector, increased oligopoly in the American auto industry. Detroit manufacturers such as Packard and Hudson merged into other companies and eventually disappeared. At its peak population of 1,849,568, in the 1950 Census, the city was the fifth-largest in the United States, after New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles.
In this postwar era, the auto industry continued to create opportunities for many African Americans from the South, who continued with their Great Migration to Detroit and other northern and western cities to escape the strict Jim Crow laws and racial discrimination policies of the South. Postwar Detroit was a prosperous industrial center of mass production. The auto industry comprised about 60% of all industry in the city, allowing space for a plethora of separate booming businesses including stove making, brewing, furniture building, oil refineries, pharmaceutical manufacturing, and more. The expansion of jobs created unique opportunities for black Americans, who saw novel high employment rates: there was a 103% increase in the number of blacks employed in postwar Detroit. Black Americans who immigrated to northern industrial cities from the south still faced intense racial discrimination in the employment sector. Racial discrimination kept the workforce and better jobs predominantly white, while many black Detroiters held lower-paying factory jobs. Despite changes in demographics as the city's black population expanded, Detroit's police force, fire department, and other city jobs continued to be held by predominantly white residents. This created an unbalanced racial power dynamic.
Unequal opportunities in employment resulted in unequal housing opportunities for the majority of the black community: with overall lower incomes and facing the backlash of discriminatory housing policies, the black community was limited to lower cost, lower quality housing in the city. The surge in Detroit's black population with the Great Migration augmented the strain on housing scarcity. The liveable areas available to the black community were limited, and as a result, families often crowded together in unsanitary, unsafe, and illegal quarters. Such discrimination became increasingly evident in the policies of redlining implemented by banks and federal housing groups, which almost completely restricted the ability of blacks to improve their housing and encouraged white people to guard the racial divide that defined their neighborhoods. As a result, black people were often denied bank loans to obtain better housing, and interest rates and rents were unfairly inflated to prevent their moving into white neighborhoods. White residents and political leaders largely opposed the influx of black Detroiters to white neighborhoods, believing that their presence would lead to neighborhood deterioration (most predominantly black neighborhoods deteriorated due to local and federal governmental neglect). This perpetuated a cyclical exclusionary process that marginalized the agency of black Detroiters by trapping them in the unhealthiest, least safe areas of the city.[
As in other major American cities in the postwar era, construction of a federally subsidized, extensive highway and freeway system around Detroit, and pent-up demand for new housing stimulated suburbanization; highways made commuting by car for higher-income residents easier. However, this construction had negative implications for many lower-income urban residents. Highways were constructed through and completely demolished neighborhoods of poor residents and black communities who had less political power to oppose them. The neighborhoods were mostly low income, considered blighted, or made up of older housing where investment had been lacking due to racial redlining, so the highways were presented as a kind of urban renewal. These neighborhoods (such as Black Bottom and Paradise Valley) were extremely important to the black communities of Detroit, providing spaces for independent black businesses and social/cultural organizations. Their destruction displaced residents with little consideration of the effects of breaking up functioning neighborhoods and businesses.][
In 1956, Detroit's last heavily used electric streetcar line, which traveled along the length of Woodward Avenue, was removed and replaced with gas-powered buses. It was the last line of what had once been a 534-mile network of electric streetcars. In 1941, at peak times, a streetcar ran on ]Woodward Avenue
A woodward is a warden of a wood. Woodward may also refer to:
Places
;United States
* Woodward, Iowa
* Woodward, Oklahoma
* Woodward, Pennsylvania, a census-designated place
* Woodward Avenue, a street in Tallahassee, Florida, which bisects th ...
every 60 seconds.[Peter Gavrilovich & Bill McGraw (2000) ''The Detroit Almanac: 300 Years of Life in the Motor City''. p. 232]
All of these changes in the area's transportation system favored low-density, auto-oriented development rather than high-density urban development. Industry also moved to the suburbs, seeking large plots of land for single-story factories. By the 21st century, the metro Detroit area had developed as one of the most sprawling job markets in the United States; combined with poor public transport, this resulted in many new jobs being beyond the reach of urban low-income workers.
In 1950, the city held about one-third of the state's population, anchored by its industries and workers. Over the next sixty years, the city's population declined to less than 10 percent of the state's population. During the same time period, the sprawling Detroit metropolitan area, which surrounds and includes the city, grew to contain more than half of Michigan's population.[ The shift of population and jobs eroded Detroit's tax base.
In June 1963, Rev. ]Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister and activist, one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968 ...
gave a major speech as part of a civil rights march in Detroit that foreshadowed his " I Have a Dream" speech in Washington, D.C., two months later. While the civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...
gained significant federal civil rights laws in 1964 and 1965, longstanding inequities resulted in confrontations between the police and inner-city black youth who wanted change.
Longstanding tensions in Detroit culminated in the Twelfth Street riot in July 1967. Governor George W. Romney
George Wilcken Romney (July 8, 1907 – July 26, 1995) was an American businessman and politician. A member of the Republican Party, he served as chairman and president of American Motors Corporation from 1954 to 1962, the 43rd gover ...
ordered the Michigan National Guard
The Michigan National Guard consists of the Michigan Army National Guard and the Michigan Air National Guard. The State adjutant general is Major general Paul D. Rogers.
Units
Michigan Army National Guard units include:
* Recruiting Office: Ba ...
into Detroit, and President Johnson sent in U.S. Army troops. The result was 43 dead, 467 injured, over 7,200 arrests, and more than 2,000 buildings destroyed, mostly in black residential and business areas. Thousands of small businesses closed permanently or relocated to safer neighborhoods. The affected district lay in ruins for decades. According to the Chicago Tribune, it was the 3rd most costly riot in the United States.
On August 18, 1970, the NAACP filed suit against Michigan state officials, including Governor William Milliken
William Grawn Milliken (March 26, 1922 – October 18, 2019) was an American businessman and politician who served as the 44th governor of Michigan. A member of the Republican Party, he is the longest-serving governor in Michigan history, servin ...
, charging ''de facto'' public school segregation. The NAACP argued that although schools were not legally segregated, the city of Detroit and its surrounding counties had enacted policies to maintain racial segregation
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...
in public schools. The NAACP also suggested a direct relationship between unfair housing practices and educational segregation, as the composition of students in the schools followed segregated neighborhoods. The District Court held all levels of government accountable for the segregation in its ruling. The Sixth Circuit Court affirmed some of the decision, holding that it was the state's responsibility to integrate across the segregated metropolitan area. The U.S. Supreme Court took up the case February 27, 1974.[ The subsequent ''Milliken v. Bradley'' decision had nationwide influence. In a narrow decision, the US Supreme Court found schools were a subject of local control, and suburbs could not be forced to aid with the desegregation of the city's school district.
"Milliken was perhaps the greatest missed opportunity of that period", said Myron Orfield, professor of law at the ]University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...
. "Had that gone the other way, it would have opened the door to fixing nearly all of Detroit's current problems."["Squandered opportunities leave Detroit isolated"](_blank)
, Remapping Debate website. Retrieved on July 16, 2013. John Mogk, a professor of law and an expert in urban planning at Wayne State University
Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...
in Detroit, says,
Everybody thinks that it was the riots n 1967that caused the white families to leave. Some people were leaving at that time but, really, it was after Milliken that you saw mass flight to the suburbs. If the case had gone the other way, it is likely that Detroit would not have experienced the steep decline in its tax base that has occurred since then.
1970s and decline
In November 1973, the city elected Coleman Young
Coleman Alexander Young (May 24, 1918 – November 29, 1997) was an American politician who served as mayor of Detroit, Michigan, from 1974 to 1994. Young was the first African-American mayor of Detroit.
Young had emerged from the far-left ele ...
as its first black mayor. After taking office, Young emphasized increasing racial diversity in the police department, which was predominantly white. Young also worked to improve Detroit's transportation system, but the tension between Young and his suburban counterparts over regional matters was problematic throughout his mayoral term. In 1976, the federal government offered $600 million for building a regional rapid transit
Rapid transit or mass rapid transit (MRT), also known as heavy rail or metro, is a type of high-capacity public transport generally found in urban areas. A rapid transit system that primarily or traditionally runs below the surface may be ...
system, under a single regional authority. But the inability of Detroit and its suburban neighbors to solve conflicts over transit planning resulted in the region losing the majority of funding for rapid transit.
Following the failure to reach a regional agreement over the larger system, the city moved forward with construction of the elevated downtown circulator portion of the system, which became known as the Detroit People Mover
The Detroit People Mover (DPM) is a elevated automated people mover system in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The system operates in a one-way loop on a single track encircling downtown Detroit, using Intermediate Capacity Transit System ...
.
The gasoline crises of 1973
Events January
* January 1 - The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark 1973 enlargement of the European Communities, enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union.
* January 15 – Vietnam War: ...
and 1979
Events
January
* January 1
** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the '' International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the '' Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the so ...
also affected Detroit and the U.S. auto industry. Buyers chose smaller, more fuel-efficient cars made by foreign makers as the price of gas rose. Efforts to revive the city were stymied by the struggles of the auto industry, as their sales and market share declined. Automakers laid off thousands of employees and closed plants in the city, further eroding the tax base. To counteract this, the city used eminent domain
Eminent domain (United States, Philippines), land acquisition (India, Malaysia, Singapore), compulsory purchase/acquisition (Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, United Kingdom), resumption (Hong Kong, Uganda), resumption/compulsory acquisition (Austr ...
to build two large new auto assembly plants in the city.
As mayor, Young sought to revive the city by seeking to increase investment in the city's declining downtown. The Renaissance Center
The Renaissance Center (also known as the GM Renaissance Center and nicknamed the RenCen) is a group of seven connected skyscrapers in Downtown Detroit, Michigan, United States. The Renaissance Center complex is on the Detroit International Riv ...
, a mixed-use office and retail complex, opened in 1977. This group of skyscrapers was an attempt to keep businesses in downtown.[Bailey, Ruby L.(August 22, 2007). "The D is a draw: Most suburbanites are repeat visitors", ''Detroit Free Press''. Quote: A Local 4 poll conducted by Selzer and Co., finds, "nearly two-thirds of residents of suburban Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties say they at least occasionally dine, attend cultural events or take in professional games in Detroit."] Young also gave city support to other large developments to attract middle and upper-class residents back to the city. Despite the Renaissance Center and other projects, the downtown area continued to lose businesses to the automobile-dependent suburbs. Major stores and hotels closed, and many large office buildings went vacant. Young was criticized for being too focused on downtown development and not doing enough to lower the city's high crime rate and improve city services to residents.
High unemployment was compounded by middle-class flight to the suburbs, and some residents leaving the state to find work. The result for the city was a higher proportion of poor in its population, reduced tax base, depressed property values, abandoned buildings, abandoned neighborhoods, high crime rates, and a pronounced demographic imbalance.
1980s
On August 16, 1987, Northwest Airlines Flight 255
On August 16, 1987 a McDonnell Douglas MD-80#MD-82, McDonnell Douglas MD-82, operating as Northwest Airlines Flight 255, crashed shortly after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, about 8:46 pm Eastern Time Zone, EDT (00:46 UTC Augus ...
crashed near Detroit Metro airport, killing all but one of the 155 people on board, as well as two people on the ground.
1990s & 2000s
In 1993, Young retired as Detroit's longest-serving mayor, deciding not to seek a sixth term. That year the city elected Dennis Archer
Dennis Wayne Archer (born January 1, 1942) is an American lawyer, jurist and former politician from Michigan. A Democrat, Archer served as Justice on the Michigan Supreme Court and as mayor of Detroit. He later served as president of the Amer ...
, a former Michigan Supreme Court justice. Archer prioritized downtown development and easing tensions with Detroit's suburban neighbors. A referendum to allow casino gambling in the city passed in 1996; several temporary casino facilities opened in 1999, and permanent downtown casinos with hotels opened in 2007–08.
Campus Martius
The Campus Martius (Latin for the "Field of Mars", Italian ''Campo Marzio'') was a publicly owned area of ancient Rome about in extent. In the Middle Ages, it was the most populous area of Rome. The IV rione of Rome, Campo Marzio, which cove ...
, a reconfiguration of downtown's main intersection as a new park, was opened in 2004. The park has been cited as one of the best public spaces in the United States. The city's riverfront
A riverfront is a region along a river. Often in larger cities that are traversed or bordered by one or more rivers, the riverfront is lined with marinas, docks, cafes, museums, parks, or minor attractions. Today many riverfronts are a staple of ...
on the Detroit River has been the focus of redevelopment, following successful examples of other older industrial cities. In 2001, the first portion of the International Riverfront was completed as a part of the city's 300th-anniversary celebration.
2010s
In September 2008, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick
Kwame Malik Kilpatrick (born June 8, 1970) is an American former politician who served as the 72nd mayor of Detroit from 2002 to 2008. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously represented the 9th district in the Michigan House of Repres ...
(who had served for six years) resigned following felony convictions. In 2013, Kilpatrick was convicted on 24 federal felony counts, including mail fraud
Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical or electronic mail system to defraud another, and are federal crimes there. Jurisdiction is claimed by the federal government if the illegal activity ...
, wire fraud
Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical or electronic mail system to defraud another, and are federal crimes there. Jurisdiction is claimed by the federal government if the illegal activity ...
, and racketeering, and was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison. The former mayor's activities cost the city an estimated $20 million.
The city's financial crisis resulted in Michigan taking over administrative control of its government. The state governor declared a financial emergency Financial emergency is a state of receivership for the State of Michigan's local governments.
History
DateFormat = yyyy
ImageSize = width:750 height:auto barincrement:20
Period = from:1988 till:2010
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal
PlotArea ...
in March 2013, appointing Kevyn Orr as emergency manager. On July 18, 2013, Detroit became the largest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy. It was declared bankrupt by U.S. District Court on December 3, 2013, in light of the city's $18.5 billion debt and its inability to fully repay its thousands of creditors. On November 7, 2014, the city's plan for exiting bankruptcy was approved. The following month, on December 11, the city officially exited bankruptcy. The plan allowed the city to eliminate $7 billion in debt and invest $1.7 billion into improved city services.
One way the city obtained this money was through the Detroit Institute of Arts
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation and expansion project comple ...
. Holding over 60,000 pieces of art worth billions of dollars, some saw it as the key to funding this investment. The city came up with a plan to monetize the art and sell it leading to the DIA becoming a private organization. After months of legal battles, the city finally got hundreds of millions of dollars towards funding a new Detroit.
One of the largest post-bankruptcy efforts to improve city services has been to work to fix the city's broken street lighting system. At one time it was estimated that 40% of lights were not working, which resulted in public safety issues and abandonment of housing. The plan called for replacing outdated high-pressure sodium lights with 65,000 LED lights. Construction began in late 2014 and finished in December 2016; Detroit is the largest U.S. city with all LED street lighting.
In the 2010s, several initiatives were taken by Detroit's citizens and new residents to improve the cityscape by renovating and revitalizing neighborhoods. Such projects include volunteer renovation groups and various urban gardening movements. Miles of associated parks and landscaping have been completed in recent years. In 2011, the Port Authority Passenger Terminal opened, with the riverwalk connecting Hart Plaza to the Renaissance Center.
One symbol of the city's decades-long decline, the Michigan Central Station
Michigan Central Station (also known as Michigan Central Depot or MCS) is the historic former main intercity passenger rail station in Detroit, Michigan. Built for the Michigan Central Railroad, it replaced the original depot in downtown Detroit ...
, was long vacant. The city renovated it with new windows, elevators and facilities, completing the work in December 2015. In 2018, Ford Motor Company purchased the building and plans to use it for mobility testing with a potential return of train service. Several other landmark buildings have been privately renovated and adapted as condominiums, hotels, offices, or for cultural uses. Detroit is mentioned as a city of renaissance and has reversed many of the trends of the prior decades.
The city has also seen a rise in gentrification
Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more affluent residents and businesses. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and planning. Gentrification often increases the ec ...
. In downtown, for example, the construction of Little Caesars Arena
Little Caesars Arena is a multi-purpose arena in Midtown Detroit. Opened on September 5, 2017, the arena, which cost $862.9 million to construct, replaced Joe Louis Arena and The Palace of Auburn Hills as the home of the Detroit Red Wings of ...
brought with it new, high class shops and restaurants up and down Woodward Ave. Office tower and condominium construction has led to an influx of wealthy families, but also a displacement of long-time residents and culture.
Areas outside of downtown and other recently revived areas have an average household income of about 25% less than the gentrified areas, a gap that is continuing to grow. Rents and cost of living in these gentrified areas rise every year, pushing minorities and the poor out, causing more and more racial disparity and separation in the city. In 2019, the cost of a one-bedroom loft in Rivertown reached $300,000, with a five-year sale price change of over 500% and average income rising by 18%.
Geography
Metropolitan area
Detroit is the center of a three-county urban area (with a population of 3,734,090 within an area of according to the 2010 United States Census
The United States census of 2010 was the twenty-third United States national census. National Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2010. The census was taken via mail-in citizen self-reporting, with enumerators servi ...
), six-county metropolitan statistical area
In the United States, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is a geographical region with a relatively high population density at its core and close economic ties throughout the area. Such regions are neither legally incorporated as a city or tow ...
(population of 4,296,250 in an area of as of the 2010 census), and a nine-county Combined Statistical Area
Combined statistical area (CSA) is a United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB) term for a combination of adjacent metropolitan (MSA) and micropolitan statistical areas (µSA) across the 50 US states and the territory of Puerto Ric ...
(population of 5.3 million within ).
Topography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...
, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water. Detroit is the principal city in Metro Detroit
The Detroit metropolitan area, often referred to as Metro Detroit, is a major metropolitan area in the U.S. State of Michigan, consisting of the city of Detroit and its Southeast Michigan, surrounding area. There are varied definitions of the a ...
and Southeast Michigan
Southeast Michigan, also called southeastern Michigan, is a region in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan that is home to a majority of the state's businesses and industries as well as slightly over half of the state's population, most of whom are c ...
. It is situated in the Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of the United States. I ...
and the Great Lakes region
The Great Lakes region of North America is a binational Canadian–American region that includes portions of the eight U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin along with the Canadian p ...
.
The Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge
The Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge is the only international wildlife refuge in North America. Established in 2001 and managed jointly by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Canadian Wildlife Service, it is located in ...
is the only international wildlife preserve
A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or ...
in North America, and is uniquely located in the heart of a major metropolitan area. The Refuge includes islands, coastal wetlands, marshes, shoals, and waterfront lands along of the Detroit River
The Detroit River flows west and south for from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie as a strait in the Great Lakes system. The river divides the metropolitan areas of Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario—an area collectively referred to as Detro ...
and Western Lake Erie
The Western Basin of Lake Erie is the shallow flat basin that comprises the western third of the lake that borders the U.S. states of Michigan and Ohio and the Canadian province of Ontario. The shallowest section of Lake Erie is the western basin ...
shoreline.
The city slopes gently from the northwest to southeast on a till plain
Till plains are an extensive flat plain of glacial till that forms when a sheet of ice becomes detached from the main body of a glacier and melts in place, depositing the sediments it carried. Ground moraines are formed with melts out of the glaci ...
composed largely of glacial and lake clay. The most notable topographical feature in the city is the Detroit Moraine, a broad clay ridge on which the older portions of Detroit and Windsor are located, rising approximately above the river at its highest point. The highest elevation in the city is directly north of Gorham Playground on the northwest side approximately three blocks south of 8 Mile Road
8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9.
In mathematics
8 is:
* a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2.
* a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of t ...
, at a height of . Detroit's lowest elevation is along the Detroit River, at a surface height of .
Belle Isle Park
Belle Isle Park, known simply as Belle Isle (), is a island park in Detroit, Michigan, developed in the late 19th century. It consists of Belle Isle, an island in the Detroit River, as well as several surrounding islets. The U.S.-Canada border ...
is a island park in the Detroit River
The Detroit River flows west and south for from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie as a strait in the Great Lakes system. The river divides the metropolitan areas of Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario—an area collectively referred to as Detro ...
, between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario
Windsor is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, on the south bank of the Detroit River directly across from Detroit, Michigan, United States. Geographically located within but administratively independent of Essex County, it is the southe ...
. It is connected to the mainland by the MacArthur Bridge in Detroit. Belle Isle Park contains such attractions as the James Scott Memorial Fountain
The James Scott Memorial Fountain is a monument located in Belle Isle Park, in Detroit, Michigan. Designed by architect Cass Gilbert and sculptor Herbert Adams, the fountain was completed in 1925 at a cost of $500,000. The lower bowl has a diam ...
, the Belle Isle Conservatory, the Detroit Yacht Club
The Detroit Yacht Club (DYC) is a private yacht club in Detroit, Michigan, located on its own island off of Belle Isle in the Detroit River between the MacArthur Bridge and the DTE generating plant. The DYC clubhouse is a restored 1920s Mediterra ...
on an adjacent island, a half-mile (800 m) beach, a golf course, a nature center, monuments, and gardens. Both the Detroit and Windsor
Windsor may refer to:
Places Australia
* Windsor, New South Wales
** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area
* Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland
**Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...
skylines can be viewed at the island’s Sunset Point.
Three road systems cross the city: the original French template, with avenues radiating from the waterfront, and true north–south roads based on the Northwest Ordinance township system. The city is north of Windsor, Ontario
Windsor is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, on the south bank of the Detroit River directly across from Detroit, Michigan, United States. Geographically located within but administratively independent of Essex County, it is the southe ...
. Detroit is the only major city along the Canada–U.S. border in which one travels south in order to cross into Canada.
Detroit has four border crossings: the Ambassador Bridge
The Ambassador Bridge is a tolled international suspension bridge across the Detroit River that connects Detroit, Michigan, United States, with Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Opened in 1929, it is the busiest international border crossing in North ...
and the Detroit–Windsor Tunnel
The Detroit–Windsor tunnel (french: tunnel de Détroit-Windsor), also known as the Detroit–Canada tunnel, is an international highway tunnel connecting the cities of Detroit, Michigan, United States and Windsor, Ontario, Canada. It is the ...
provide motor vehicle thoroughfares, with the Michigan Central Railway Tunnel
The Michigan Central Railway Tunnel is a railroad tunnel under the Detroit River connecting Detroit, Michigan, in the United States with Windsor, Ontario, in Canada. The U.S. entrance is south of Porter and Vermont streets near Rosa Parks Bouleva ...
providing railroad access to and from Canada. The fourth border crossing is the Detroit–Windsor Truck Ferry, near the Windsor Salt Mine and Zug Island
Zug Island is a heavily industrialized island within the city of River Rouge at the southern city limits of Detroit in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located where the mouth of the River Rouge spills into the Detroit River. Zug Island is n ...
. Near Zug Island, the southwest part of the city was developed over a salt mine that is below the surface. The Detroit salt mine run by the Detroit Salt Company has over of roads within.
Climate
Detroit and the rest of southeastern Michigan have a hot-summer humid continental climate
A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freezing ...
(Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer
* Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan
* Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author and ...
: ''Dfa'') which is influenced by the Great Lakes
The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lak ...
like other places in the state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
; the city and close-in suburbs are part of USDA Hardiness zone 6b, while the more distant northern and western suburbs generally are included in zone 6a. Winters are cold, with moderate snowfall and temperatures not rising above freezing on an average 44 days annually, while dropping to or below on an average 4.4 days a year; summers are warm to hot with temperatures exceeding on 12 days. The warm season runs from May to September. The monthly daily mean temperature ranges from in January to in July. Official temperature extremes range from on July 24, 1934, down to on January 21, 1984; the record low maximum is on January 19, 1994, while, conversely the record high minimum is on August 1, 2006, the most recent of five occurrences. A decade or two may pass between readings of or higher, which last occurred July 17, 2012. The average window for freezing temperatures is October 20 thru April 22, allowing a growing season of 180 days.
Precipitation is moderate and somewhat evenly distributed throughout the year, although the warmer months such as May and June average more, averaging annually, but historically ranging from in 1963 to in 2011. Snowfall, which typically falls in measurable amounts between November 15 through April 4 (occasionally in October and very rarely in May), averages per season, although historically ranging from in 1881–82 to in 2013–14. A thick snowpack is not often seen, with an average of only 27.5 days with or more of snow cover. Thunderstorms
A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorms are somet ...
are frequent in the Detroit area. These usually occur during spring and summer.
Cityscape
Architecture
Seen in panorama, Detroit's waterfront shows a variety of architectural styles. The post modern
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...
Neo-Gothic spires of the One Detroit Center
Ally Detroit Center, formerly One Detroit Center, is a skyscraper and class-A office building located in Downtown Detroit, overlooking the Detroit Financial District. Rising , the 43-story tower is the tallest office building in Michigan and ...
(1993) were designed to refer to the city's Art Deco
Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
skyscrapers. Together with the Renaissance Center
The Renaissance Center (also known as the GM Renaissance Center and nicknamed the RenCen) is a group of seven connected skyscrapers in Downtown Detroit, Michigan, United States. The Renaissance Center complex is on the Detroit International Riv ...
, these buildings form a distinctive and recognizable skyline. Examples of the Art Deco style include the Guardian Building
The Guardian Building is a landmark skyscraper in the United States, located at 500 Griswold Street in Downtown Detroit, Michigan, within the Financial District. The Guardian is a class-A office building owned by Wayne County, Michigan and ser ...
and Penobscot Building
The Greater Penobscot Building, commonly known as the Penobscot Building, is a class-A office tower in Downtown Detroit, Michigan. Constructed in 1928, the Art Deco building is located in the heart of the Detroit Financial District. The Penobs ...
downtown, as well as the Fisher Building
The Fisher Building is a landmark skyscraper located at 3011 West Grand Boulevard in the heart of the New Center area of Detroit, Michigan. The ornate 30-story building, completed in 1928, is one of the major works of architect Albert Kahn, and ...
and Cadillac Place
Cadillac Place, formerly the General Motors Building, is a landmark high-rise office complex located at 3044 West Grand Boulevard in the New Center area of Detroit, Michigan. It was renamed for the French founder of Detroit, Antoine Laumet de ...
in the New Center area near Wayne State University
Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...
. Among the city's prominent structures are United States' largest Fox Theatre, the Detroit Opera House
The Detroit Opera House is an ornate opera house located at 1526 Broadway Street in Downtown Detroit, Michigan, within the Grand Circus Park Historic District. The 2,700-seat venue is the home of productions of the Detroit Opera and a variety of ...
, and the Detroit Institute of Arts
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation and expansion project comple ...
, all built in the early 20th century.
While the Downtown and New Center areas contain high-rise buildings, the majority of the surrounding city consists of low-rise structures and single-family homes. Outside of the city's core, residential high-rises are found in upper-class neighborhoods such as the East Riverfront, extending toward Grosse Pointe
Grosse Pointe refers to an affluent coastal area next to Detroit, Michigan, United States, that comprises five adjacent individual cities. From southwest to northeast, they are:
* Grosse Pointe Park
* Grosse Pointe
* Grosse Pointe Farms
* Grosse ...
, and the Palmer Park neighborhood just west of Woodward. The University Commons-Palmer Park district in northwest Detroit, near the University of Detroit Mercy and Marygrove College, anchors historic neighborhoods including Palmer Woods, Sherwood Forest, Detroit, Sherwood Forest, and the University District, Detroit, University District.
Forty-two significant structures or sites are listed on the List of Registered Historic Places in Detroit, Michigan, National Register of Historic Places. Neighborhoods constructed prior to World War II feature the architecture of the times, with wood-frame and brick houses in the working-class neighborhoods, larger brick homes in middle-class neighborhoods, and ornate mansions in upper-class neighborhoods such as Brush Park, Woodbridge, Detroit, Woodbridge, Indian Village, Detroit, Indian Village, Palmer Woods, Boston-Edison Historic District, Boston-Edison, and others.
Some of the oldest neighborhoods are along the major Woodward and East Jefferson Avenue Residential TR, East Jefferson corridors, which formed spines of the city. Some newer residential construction may also be found along the Woodward corridor and in the far west and northeast. The oldest extant neighborhoods include West Canfield Historic District, West Canfield and Brush Park. There have been multi-million dollar restorations of existing homes and construction of new homes and condominiums here.
The city has one of the United States' largest surviving collections of late 19th- and early 20th-century buildings.[ Architecturally significant churches and cathedrals in the city include St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church, Detroit, St. Joseph's, Old St. Mary Roman Catholic Church (Detroit), St. Mary's, the Sweetest Heart of Mary Roman Catholic Church, Sweetest Heart of Mary, and the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament.]
The city has substantial activity in urban design, historic preservation, and architecture. A number of downtown redevelopment projects—of which Campus Martius Park is one of the most notable—have revitalized parts of the city. Grand Circus Park Historic District, Grand Circus Park and historic district is near the Detroit Theatre District, city's theater district; Ford Field, home of the Detroit Lions, and Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers.[ ]Little Caesars Arena
Little Caesars Arena is a multi-purpose arena in Midtown Detroit. Opened on September 5, 2017, the arena, which cost $862.9 million to construct, replaced Joe Louis Arena and The Palace of Auburn Hills as the home of the Detroit Red Wings of ...
, a new home for the Detroit Red Wings and the Detroit Pistons, with attached residential, hotel, and retail use, opened on September 5, 2017. The plans for the project call for mixed-use residential on the blocks surrounding the arena and the renovation of the vacant 14-story Eddystone Hotel. It will be a part of The District Detroit, a group of places owned by Olympia Entertainment, Olympia Entertainment Inc., including Comerica Park and the Detroit Opera House
The Detroit Opera House is an ornate opera house located at 1526 Broadway Street in Downtown Detroit, Michigan, within the Grand Circus Park Historic District. The 2,700-seat venue is the home of productions of the Detroit Opera and a variety of ...
, among others.
The Detroit International Riverfront includes a partially completed three-and-one-half-mile riverfront promenade with a combination of parks, residential buildings, and commercial areas. It extends from Hart Plaza to the MacArthur Bridge, which connects to Belle Isle Park
Belle Isle Park, known simply as Belle Isle (), is a island park in Detroit, Michigan, developed in the late 19th century. It consists of Belle Isle, an island in the Detroit River, as well as several surrounding islets. The U.S.-Canada border ...
, the largest island park in a U.S. city. The riverfront includes Tri-Centennial State Park and Harbor, Michigan's first urban state park. The second phase is a extension from Hart Plaza to the Ambassador Bridge
The Ambassador Bridge is a tolled international suspension bridge across the Detroit River that connects Detroit, Michigan, United States, with Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Opened in 1929, it is the busiest international border crossing in North ...
for a total of of parkway from bridge to bridge. Civic planners envision the pedestrian parks will stimulate residential redevelopment of riverfront properties condemned under eminent domain
Eminent domain (United States, Philippines), land acquisition (India, Malaysia, Singapore), compulsory purchase/acquisition (Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, United Kingdom), resumption (Hong Kong, Uganda), resumption/compulsory acquisition (Austr ...
.
Other major parks include River Rouge Park, River Rouge (in the southwest side), the largest park in Detroit; Palmer (north of Highland Park, Michigan, Highland Park) and Chene Park (on the east river downtown).
Neighborhoods
Detroit has a variety of neighborhood types. The revitalized Downtown, Midtown Detroit, Midtown, Corktown, New Center areas feature many historic buildings and are high density, while further out, particularly in the northeast and on the fringes,[ high vacancy levels are problematic, for which a number of solutions have been proposed. In 2007, Downtown Detroit was recognized as the best city neighborhood in which to retire among the United States' largest metro areas by CNNMoney editors.
Lafayette Park, Detroit, Lafayette Park is a Planning and development in Detroit, revitalized neighborhood on the city's East Jefferson Avenue Residential TR, east side, part of the Ludwig Mies van der Rohe residential district.][Vitullo-Martin, Julio, (December 22, 2007)]
"The Biggest Mies Collection: His Lafayette Park residential development thrives in Detroit"
''The Wall Street Journal''. Retrieved July 5, 2012. The development was originally called the Gratiot Park. Planned by Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig Hilberseimer and Alfred Caldwell it includes a landscaped, park with no through traffic, in which these and other low-rise apartment buildings are situated.[ Immigrants have contributed to the city's neighborhood revitalization, especially in southwest Detroit.] Southwest Detroit has experienced a thriving economy in recent years, as evidenced by new housing, increased business openings and the recently opened Mexicantown, Detroit, Mexicantown International Welcome Center.[Williams, Corey (February 28, 2008]
New Latino Wave Helps Revitalize Detroit
''USA Today''. Retrieved July 5, 2012.
The city has numerous neighborhoods consisting of vacant properties resulting in low inhabited density in those areas, stretching city services and infrastructure. These neighborhoods are concentrated in the northeast and on the city's fringes.[ A 2009 parcel survey found about a quarter of residential lots in the city to be undeveloped or vacant, and about 10% of the city's housing to be unoccupied.][Detroit Parcel Survey]
Retrieved on July 23, 2011. The survey also reported that most (86%) of the city's homes are in good condition with a minority (9%) in fair condition needing only minor repairs.[Associated Press (February 10, 2010)]
''Mlive.com''. Retrieved July 5, 2012.[Kavanaugh, Kelli B. (March 2, 2010]
Intensive property survey captures state of Detroit housing, vacancy
''Model D''. Retrieved July 5, 2012.
To deal with vacancy issues, the city has begun demolishing the derelict houses, razing 3,000 of the total 10,000 in 2010, but the resulting low density creates a strain on the city's infrastructure. To remedy this, a number of solutions have been proposed including resident relocation from more sparsely populated neighborhoods and converting unused space to urban agricultural use, including Hantz Woodlands, though the city expects to be in the planning stages for up to another two years.[. ''City of Detroit''. Retrieved July 5, 2012.]
Public funding and private investment have also been made with promises to rehabilitate neighborhoods. In April 2008, the city announced a $300-million stimulus plan to create jobs and revitalize neighborhoods, financed by city bonds and paid for by earmarking about 15% of the wagering tax. The city's working plans for neighborhood revitalizations include 7-Mile/Livernois, Brightmoor, Detroit, Brightmoor, East English Village, Grand River/Greenfield, North End, Detroit, North End, and Osborn, Detroit, Osborn.[ Private organizations have pledged substantial funding to the efforts.][. ''DEGA''. Retrieved on January 2, 2009.][Detroit Neighborhood Fund]
. ''Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan''. Retrieved January 2, 2009. Additionally, the city has cleared a section of land for large-scale neighborhood construction, which the city is calling the ''Far Eastside Plan''.[Rose, Judy (May 11, 2003)]
Detroit to revive 1 neighborhood at a time
''Chicago Tribune''. Retrieved November 29, 2011. In 2011, Mayor Dave Bing announced a plan to categorize neighborhoods by their needs and prioritize the most needed services for those neighborhoods.
Demographics
In the 2020 United States census, 2020 United States Census, the city had 639,111 residents, ranking it the List of United States cities by population, 27th most populous city in the United States.
2020 census
''Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race.''
Of the large shrinking cities in the United States, Detroit has had the most dramatic decline in the population of the past 70 years (down 1,210,457) and the second-largest percentage decline (down 65.4%). While the drop in Detroit's population has been ongoing since 1950, the most dramatic period was the significant 25% decline between the 2000 United States Census, 2000 and 2010 Census.
Previously a major population center and site of worldwide automobile manufacturing, Detroit has suffered a long economic decline produced by numerous factors. Like Largest cities in the United States by population by decade, many industrial American cities, Detroit's peak population was in 1950, before postwar suburbanization took effect. The peak population was 1.8 million people.
Following suburbanization, industrial restructuring, and loss of jobs (as described above), by the 2010 census, the city had less than 40 percent of that number, with just over 700,000 residents. The city has declined in population in each census since 1950. The population collapse has resulted in large numbers of abandoned homes and commercial buildings, and areas of the city hit hard by urban decay.
Detroit's 639,111 residents represent 269,445 households, and 162,924 families residing in the city. The population density was 5,144.3 people per square mile (1,895/km2). There were 349,170 housing units at an average density of 2,516.5 units per square mile (971.6/km2). Housing density has declined. The city has demolished thousands of Detroit's abandoned houses, planting some areas and in others allowing the growth of urban prairie.
Of the 269,445 households, 34.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 21.5% were married couples living together, 31.4% had a female householder with no husband present, 39.5% were non-families, 34.0% were made up of individuals, and 3.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.59, and the average family size was 3.36.
There was a wide distribution of age in the city, with 31.1% under the age of 18, 9.7% from 18 to 24, 29.5% from 25 to 44, 19.3% from 45 to 64, and 10.4% 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females, there were 89.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 83.5 males.
Religion
According to a 2014 study, 67% of the population of the city identified themselves as Christians, with 49% professing attendance at Protestant churches, and 16% professing Roman Catholic beliefs, while 24% claim Irreligion, no religious affiliation. Other religions collectively make up about 8% of the population.
Income and employment
The loss of industrial and working-class jobs in the city has resulted in high rates of poverty and associated problems. From 2000 to 2009, the city's estimated median household income fell from $29,526 to $26,098. , the mean income of Detroit is below the overall U.S. average by several thousand dollars. Of every three Detroit residents, one lives in poverty. Luke Bergmann, author of ''Getting Ghost: Two Young Lives and the Struggle for the Soul of an American City'', said in 2010, "Detroit is now one of the poorest big cities in the country".
In the 2018 American Community Survey, median household income in the city was $31,283, compared with the median for Michigan of $56,697. The median income for a family was $36,842, well below the state median of $72,036. 33.4% of families had income at or below the federally defined poverty level. Out of the total population, 47.3% of those under the age of 18 and 21.0% of those 65 and older had income at or below the federally defined poverty line.
Oakland County, Michigan, Oakland County in Metro Detroit, once rated amongst the wealthiest US counties per household, is no longer shown in the top 25 listing of ''Forbes'' magazine. But internal county statistical methods—based on measuring per capita income for counties with more than one million residents—show Oakland is still within the top 12, slipping from the fourth-most affluent such county in the U.S. in 2004 to 11th-most affluent in 2009.[Hopkins, Carol (March 28, 2010]
Oakland still ranks among the nation's wealthiest counties
. ''Daily Tribune''. Retrieved November 27, 2011. Detroit dominates Wayne County, which has an average household income of about $38,000, compared to Oakland County's $62,000.
Race and ethnicity
Beginning with the rise of the automobile industry, Detroit's population increased more than sixfold during the first half of the 20th century as an influx of European, Middle Eastern (Lebanese Americans, Lebanese, Assyrian Americans, Assyrian/Chaldean), and Southern migrants brought their families to the city.[Baulch, Vivian M. (September 4, 1999)]
Michigan's greatest treasure – Its people
. Michigan History, ''The Detroit News''. Retrieved on October 22, 2007. With this economic boom following World War I, the African American population grew from a mere 6,000 in 1910 to more than 120,000 by 1930. This influx of thousands of African Americans in the 20th century became known as the Great Migration. Perhaps one of the most overt examples of neighborhood discrimination occurred in 1925 when African American physician Ossian Sweet found his home surrounded by an angry mob of his hostile white neighbors violently protesting his new move into a traditionally white neighborhood. Ossian Sweet, Sweet and ten of his family members and friends were put on trial for murder as one of the mob members throwing rocks at the newly purchased house was shot and killed by someone firing out of a second-floor window. Many middle-class families experienced the same kind of hostility as they sought the security of homeownership and the potential for upward mobility.
Detroit has a relatively large Mexican-American population. In the early 20th century, thousands of Mexicans came to Detroit to work in agricultural, automotive, and steel jobs. During the Mexican Repatriation of the 1930s many Mexicans in Detroit were willingly repatriated or forced to repatriate. By the 1940s much of the Mexican community began to settle what is now Mexicantown, Detroit, Mexicantown.
After World War II, many people from Appalachia also settled in Detroit. Appalachians formed communities and their children acquired southern accents. Many Lithuanians also settled in Detroit during the World War II era, especially on the city's Southwest side in the West Vernor-Junction Historic District, West Vernor area, where the renovated Lithuanian Hall reopened in 2006.
By 1940, 80% of Detroit deeds contained restrictive covenants prohibiting African Americans from buying houses they could afford. These discriminatory tactics were successful as a majority of black people in Detroit resorted to living in all-black neighborhoods such as Black Bottom, Detroit, Black Bottom and Paradise Valley. At this time, white people still made up about 90.4% of the city's population. From the Second Great Migration (African American), 1940s to the 1970s a second wave of black people moved to Detroit in search of employment and with the desire to escape the Jim Crow laws enforcing segregation in the south. However, they soon found themselves once again excluded from many opportunities in Detroit—through Racially motivated crime, violence and policy perpetuating economic discrimination (e.g., redlining). White residents attacked black homes: breaking windows, starting fires, and detonating bombs. An especially grueling result of this increasing competition between black and white people was the 1943 Detroit race riot, Riot of 1943 that had violent ramifications. This era of intolerance made it almost impossible for African Americans to be successful without access to proper housing or the economic stability to maintain their homes and the conditions of many neighborhoods began to decline. In 1948, the landmark Supreme Court case of Shelley v. Kraemer outlawed restrictive covenants and while racism in housing did not disappear, it allowed affluent black families to begin moving to traditionally white neighborhoods. Many white families with the financial ability moved to the suburbs of Detroit taking their jobs and tax dollars with them, as macrostructural processes such as "white flight" and "suburbanization
Suburbanization is a population shift from central urban areas into suburbs, resulting in the formation of (sub)urban sprawl. As a consequence of the movement of households and businesses out of the city centers, low-density, peripheral urba ...
" led to a complete population shift.
The Detroit riot of 1967 is considered to be one of the greatest racial turning points in the history of the city. The ramifications of the uprising were widespread as there were many allegations of white police brutality towards Black Americans and over $36 million of insured property was lost. Discrimination and deindustrialization in tandem with racial tensions that had been intensifying in the previous years boiled over and led to an event considered to be the most damaging in Detroit's history.
The population of Latinos significantly increased in the 1990s due to immigration from Jalisco. By 2010 Detroit had 48,679 Hispanics, including 36,452 Mexicans: a 70% increase from 1990.[Denvir, Daniel]
"The Paradox of Mexicantown: Detroit's Uncomfortable Relationship With the Immigrants it Desperately Needs"
Archive
''The Atlantic Cities''. September 24, 2012. Retrieved on January 15, 2013. While African Americans previously comprised only 13% of Michigan's population, by 2010 they made up nearly 82% of Detroit's population. The next largest population groups were white people, at 10%, and Hispanics, at 6%. In 2001, 103,000 Jews, or about 1.9% of the population, were living in the Detroit area, in both Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan, Ann Arbor.
According to the 2010 census, segregation in Detroit has decreased in absolute and relative terms and in the first decade of the 21st century, about two-thirds of the total black population in the metropolitan area resided within the city limits of Detroit. The number of integrated neighborhoods increased from 100 in 2000 to 204 in 2010. Detroit also moved down the ranking from number one most segregated city to number four. A 2011 op-ed in ''The New York Times'' attributed the decreased segregation rating to the overall exodus from the city, cautioning that these areas may soon become more segregated. This pattern already happened in the 1970s, when apparent integration was a precursor to white flight and resegregation. Over a 60-year period, white flight occurred in the city. According to an estimate of the Michigan Metropolitan Information Center, from 2008 to 2009 the percentage of non-Hispanic White residents increased from 8.4% to 13.3%. As the city has become more gentrified, some empty nesters and many young white people have moved into the city, increasing housing values and once again forcing African Americans to move.[Wisely, John]
"Number of whites living in Detroit goes up for first time in 60 years"
''Detroit Free Press'' at KSDK. September 29, 2010. Retrieved on January 7, 2013. Gentrification in Detroit has become a rather controversial issue as reinvestment will hopefully lead to economic growth and an increase in population; however, it has already forced many black families to relocate to the suburbs. Despite revitalization efforts, Detroit remains one of the most Racial segregation in the United States, racially segregated cities in the United States. One of the implications of racial segregation, which correlates with class segregation, may correlate to overall worse health for some populations.
Asians and Asian Americans
As of 2002, of all of the municipalities in the Wayne County-Oakland County, Michigan, Oakland County-Macomb County, Michigan, Macomb County area, Detroit had the second-largest Asian population. As of that year, Detroit's percentage of Asians was 1%, far lower than the 13.3% of Troy, Michigan, Troy.[Metzger, Kurt and Jason Booza]
"Asians in the United States, Michigan and Metropolitan Detroit"
Center for Urban Studies, Wayne State University
Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...
. January 2002 Working Paper Series, No. 7. p. 8. Retrieved on November 6, 2013. By 2000 Troy had the largest Asian American population in the tri-county area, surpassing Detroit.[Metzger, Kurt and Jason Booza]
"Asians in the United States, Michigan and Metropolitan Detroit"
Center for Urban Studies, Wayne State University
Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...
. January 2002 Working Paper Series, No. 7. p. 10. Retrieved on November 6, 2013.
There are four areas in Detroit with significant Asian and Asian American populations. Northeast Detroit has a population of Hmong American, Hmong with a smaller group of Lao American, Lao people. A portion of Detroit next to eastern Hamtramck includes Bangladeshi Americans, Indian Americans, and Pakistani Americans; nearly all of the Bangladeshi population in Detroit lives in that area. Many of those residents own small businesses or work in blue-collar jobs, and the population is mostly Muslim. The area north of Downtown Detroit, including the region around the Henry Ford Hospital, the Detroit Medical Center, and Wayne State University
Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...
, has transient Asian national origin residents who are university students or hospital workers. Few of them have permanent residency after schooling ends. They are mostly Chinese and Indian but the population also includes Filipinos, Koreans, and Pakistanis. In Southwest Detroit and western Detroit there are smaller, scattered Asian communities including an area in the westside adjacent to Dearborn, Michigan, Dearborn and Redford Township that has a mostly Indian Asian population, and a community of Vietnamese and Laotians in Southwest Detroit.[
, the city has one of the U.S.'s largest concentrations of Hmong Americans.] In 2006, the city had about 4,000 Hmong and other Asian immigrant families. Most Hmong live east of Coleman Young Airport near Osborn High School. Hmong immigrant families generally have lower incomes than those of suburban Asian families.[Archambault, Dennis]
"Young and Asian in Detroit"
Archive
''Model D Media''. Issue Media Group, LLC. Tuesday November 14, 2006. Retrieved on November 5, 2012.
Crime
Detroit has gained notoriety for its high amount of crime, having struggled with it for decades. The number of homicides peaked in 1974 at 714 and again in 1991 with 615. The murder rate for the city has gone up and down throughout the years averaging over 400 murders with a population of over 1,000,000 residents. The crime rate, however, has been above the national average since the 1970s.
Crime has since decreased and, in 2014, the murder rate was 43.4 per 100,000, lower than in St. Louis.
The city's downtown typically has lower crime than national and state averages.[Booza, Jason C. (July 23, 2008]
Reality v. Perceptions: An Analysis of Crime and Safety in Downtown Detroit
Archive
Michigan Metropolitan Information Center, ''Wayne State University
Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...
Center for Urban Studies''. Retrieved August 14, 2011. According to a 2007 analysis, Detroit officials note about 65 to 70 percent of homicides in the city were drug related, with the rate of unsolved murders roughly 70%.[
Although the rate of violent crime dropped 11% in 2008, violent crime in Detroit has not declined as much as the national average from 2007 to 2011.] The violent crime rate is one of the highest in the United States. Neighborhoodscout.com reported a crime rate of 62.18 per 1,000 residents for property crimes, and 16.73 per 1,000 for violent crimes (compared to national figures of 32 per 1,000 for property crimes and 5 per 1,000 for violent crime in 2008).
In 2012, crime in the city was among the reasons for more expensive car insurance.
About half of all murders in Michigan
Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...
in 2015 occurred in Detroit. Annual statistics released by the Detroit Police Department for 2016 indicate that while the city's overall crime rate declined that year, the murder rate rose from 2015.[Williams, Corey (January 3, 2017)]
"Crime in Detroit is down overall in 2016; homicide up by 7"
''Detroit Free Press''. Retrieved January 13, 2017. In 2016 there were 302 homicides in Detroit, a 2.37% increase in the number of murder victims from the preceding year.
Areas of the city adjacent to the Detroit River
The Detroit River flows west and south for from Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie as a strait in the Great Lakes system. The river divides the metropolitan areas of Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario—an area collectively referred to as Detro ...
are also patrolled by the United States Border Patrol.
Economy
Several major corporations are based in the city, including three Fortune 500 companies. The most heavily represented sectors are manufacturing (particularly automotive), finance, technology, and health care. The most significant companies based in Detroit include General Motors, Quicken Loans, Ally Financial, Compuware, Shinola Detroit, Shinola, American Axle, Little Caesars, DTE Energy, Lowe Campbell Ewald, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, and Rossetti Architects.
About 80,500 people work in downtown Detroit, comprising one-fifth of the city's employment base.[The Urban Markets Initiative, Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program, The Social Compact Inc., University of Michigan Graduate Real Estate Program, (October 2006]
Downtown Detroit in Focus: A Profile of Market Opportunity
. ''Detroit Economic Growth Corporation'' and ''Downtown Detroit Partnership''. Retrieved on June 14, 2008. Aside from the numerous Detroit-based companies listed above, downtown contains large offices for Comerica, Chrysler, Fifth Third Bank, HP Enterprise Services, HP Enterprise, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, and Ernst & Young. Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobi ...
is in the adjacent city of Dearborn, Michigan, Dearborn.
Thousands of more employees work in Midtown, north of the central business district. Midtown's anchors are the city's largest single employer Detroit Medical Center, Wayne State University
Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...
, and the Henry Ford Health System in New Center. Midtown is also home to watchmaker Shinola Detroit, Shinola and an array of small and startup company, startup companies. New Center bases Tech Town (Detroit), TechTown, a research and business incubator hub that is part of the WSU system. Like downtown, Corktown, Detroit, Corktown Is experiencing growth with the new Ford Corktown Campus under development.
Midtown also has a fast-growing retailing and restaurant scene.
A number of the city's downtown employers are relatively new, as there has been a marked trend of companies moving from satellite suburbs around Metropolitan Detroit into the downtown core. Compuware completed its Compuware World Headquarters, world headquarters in downtown in 2003. OnStar, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and HP Enterprise Services are at the Renaissance Center
The Renaissance Center (also known as the GM Renaissance Center and nicknamed the RenCen) is a group of seven connected skyscrapers in Downtown Detroit, Michigan, United States. The Renaissance Center complex is on the Detroit International Riv ...
. PricewaterhouseCoopers Plaza offices are adjacent to Ford Field, and Ernst & Young completed its office building at One Kennedy Square in 2006. Perhaps most prominently, in 2010, Quicken Loans, one of the largest mortgage lenders, relocated its world headquarters and 4,000 employees to downtown Detroit, consolidating its suburban offices.[Howes, Daniel (November 12, 2007)]
Quicken moving to downtown Detroit
''The Detroit News''. Retrieved on November 12, 2007. In July 2012, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office opened its Elijah J. McCoy Satellite Office in the Rivertown/Warehouse District as its first location outside Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
's metropolitan area.
In April 2014, the United States Department of Labor reported the city's unemployment rate at 14.5%.
The city of Detroit and other public–private partnerships have attempted to catalyze the region's growth by facilitating the building and historical rehabilitation of residential high-rises in the downtown, creating a zone that offers many business tax incentives, creating recreational spaces such as the Detroit RiverWalk, Campus Martius Park, Dequindre Cut Greenway, and Green Alleys in Midtown. The city itself has cleared sections of land while retaining a number of historically significant vacant buildings in order to spur redevelopment;[Morice, Zach (September 21, 2007]
Planting community in fallow fields
. American Institute of Architects. Retrieved on December 23, 2009. even though it has struggled with finances, the city issued bonds in 2008 to provide funding for ongoing work to demolish blighted properties. Two years earlier, downtown reported $1.3 billion in restorations and new developments which increased the number of construction jobs in the city. In the decade prior to 2006, downtown gained more than $15 billion in new investment from private and public sectors.[The Urban Markets Initiative, Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program The Social Compact, Inc. University of Michigan Graduate Real Estate Program (October 2006]
. Downtown Detroit Partnership. Retrieved on July 10, 2010.
Despite the city's recent financial issues, many developers remain unfazed by Detroit's problems. Midtown is one of the most successful areas within Detroit to have a residential occupancy rate of 96%. Numerous Planning and development in Detroit, developments have been recently completed or are in various stages of construction. These include the $82 million reconstruction of downtown's David Whitney Building (now an Aloft Hotel and luxury residences), the Woodward Garden Block Development in Midtown, the residential conversion of the David Broderick Tower in downtown, the rehabilitation of the Book Cadillac Hotel (now a Westin and luxury condos) and Fort Shelby Hotel (now Doubletree) also in downtown, and various smaller projects.
Downtown's population of young professionals is growing and retail is expanding.[ A study in 2007 found out that Downtown's new residents are predominantly young professionals (57% are ages 25 to 34, 45% have bachelor's degrees, and 34% have a master's or professional degree),][ a trend which has hastened over the last decade. Since 2006, $9 billion has been invested in downtown and surrounding neighborhoods; $5.2 billion of which has come in 2013 and 2014. Construction activity, particularly rehabilitation of historic downtown buildings, has increased markedly. The number of vacant downtown buildings has dropped from nearly 50 to around 13.]
On July 25, 2013, Meijer, a midwestern retail chain, opened its first supercenter store in Detroit; this was a $20 million, 190,000-square-foot store in the northern portion of the city and it also is the centerpiece of a new $72 million shopping center named Gateway Marketplace. On June 11, 2015, Meijer opened its second supercenter store in the city. On June 26, 2019, JPMorgan Chase announced plans to invest $50 million more in affordable housing, job training and entrepreneurship by the end of 2022, growing its investment to $200 million.
Arts and culture
In the central portions of Detroit, the population of young professionals, artists, and other transplants is growing and retail is expanding.[Harrison, Sheena (June 25, 2007)]
DEGA enlists help to spur Detroit retail
. ''Crain's Detroit Business''. Retrieved on November 28, 2007. "New downtown residents are largely young professionals according to Social Compact". This dynamic is luring additional new residents, and former residents returning from other cities, to the city's Downtown along with the revitalized Midtown Detroit, Midtown and New Center areas.[Reppert, Joe (October 2007]
Detroit Neighborhood Market Drill Down
. ''Social Compact''. Retrieved on July 10, 2010.
A desire to be closer to the urban scene has also attracted some young professionals to reside in inner ring suburbs such as Ferndale, Michigan, Ferndale and Royal Oak, Michigan, Royal Oak, Michigan. Detroit's proximity to Windsor, Ontario
Windsor is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, on the south bank of the Detroit River directly across from Detroit, Michigan, United States. Geographically located within but administratively independent of Essex County, it is the southe ...
, provides for views and nightlife, along with Ontario's minimum drinking age of 19. A 2011 study by Walk Score recognized Detroit for its above average walkability among large U.S. cities. About two-thirds of suburban residents occasionally dine and attend cultural events or take in professional games in the city of Detroit.[Bailey, Ruby L (August 22, 2007). The D is a draw: Most suburbanites are repeat visitors. ''Detroit Free Press''. New Detroit Free Press-Local 4 poll conducted by Selzer and Co., finds, "nearly two-thirds of residents of suburban Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties say they at least occasionally dine, attend cultural events or take in professional games in Detroit."]
Nicknames
Known as the world's automotive center, "Detroit" is a Metonymy, metonym for Automotive industry in the United States, that industry. Detroit's auto industry, some of which was converted to wartime defense production, was an important element of the American "Arsenal of Democracy
"Arsenal of Democracy" was the central phrase used by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a radio broadcast on the threat to national security, delivered on December 29, 1940—nearly a year before the United States entered the Second Worl ...
" supporting the Allied powers during World War II. It is an important source of popular music legacies celebrated by the city's two familiar nicknames, the ''Motor City'' and '' Motown''. Other nicknames arose in the 20th century, including ''City of Champions'', beginning in the 1930s for its successes in individual and team sport;[ ''The D''; ''Hockeytown'' (a trademark owned by the city's National Hockey League, NHL club, the Detroit Red Wings, Red Wings); ''Rock City'' (after the Kiss (band), Kiss song "Detroit Rock City"); and ''The Area code 313, 313'' (its telephone area code).][
]
Music
Live music has been a prominent feature of Detroit's nightlife since the late 1940s, bringing the city recognition under the nickname "Motown". The metropolitan area has many nationally prominent Theatre in Detroit, live music venues. Concerts hosted by Live Nation perform throughout the Detroit area. Large concerts are held at DTE Energy Music Theatre. The city's Theatre in Detroit, theatre venue circuit is the United States' second largest and hosts Broadway theatre, Broadway performances.
The city of Detroit has a rich musical heritage and has contributed to a number of different genres over the decades leading into the new millennium.[ Important music events in the city include the Detroit International Jazz Festival, the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, the Motor City Music Conference (MC2), the Urban Organic Music Conference, the Concert of Colors, and the hip-hop Summer Jamz festival.][
In the 1940s, Detroit blues artist John Lee Hooker became a long-term resident in the city's southwest Delray, Detroit, Delray neighborhood. Hooker, among other important blues musicians, migrated from his home in Mississippi, bringing the Delta blues to northern cities like Detroit. Hooker recorded for Fortune Records, the biggest pre-Motown blues/soul label. During the 1950s, the city became a center for jazz, with stars performing in the Black Bottom, Detroit, Black Bottom neighborhood.][ Prominent emerging jazz musicians included trumpeter Donald Byrd, who attended Cass Tech and performed with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers early in his career, and saxophonist Pepper Adams, who enjoyed a solo career and accompanied Byrd on several albums. The Graystone International Jazz Museum documents jazz in Detroit.
Other prominent Motor City R&B stars in the 1950s and early 1960s were Nolan Strong, Andre Williams (musician), Andre Williams and Nathaniel Mayer – who all scored local and national hits on the Fortune Records label. According to Smokey Robinson, Strong was a primary influence on his voice as a teenager. The Fortune label, a family-operated label on Third Avenue in Detroit, was owned by the husband-and-wife team of Jack Brown and Devora Brown. Fortune, which also released country, gospel and rockabilly LPs and 45s, laid the groundwork for Motown, which became Detroit's most legendary record label.]
Berry Gordy, Jr. founded Motown Records, which rose to prominence during the 1960s and early 1970s with acts such as Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Diana Ross & The Supremes, the The Jackson 5, Jackson 5, Martha and the Vandellas, The Spinners (American R&B group), The Spinners, Gladys Knight & the Pips, The Marvelettes, The Elgins, The Monitors (American band), The Monitors, The Velvelettes and Marvin Gaye. Artists were backed by in-house vocalists The Andantes and The Funk Brothers, the Motown house band that was featured in Paul Justman's 2002 documentary film ''Standing in the Shadows of Motown'', based on Allan Slutsky's book of the same name.
The Motown Sound played an important role in the crossover appeal with popular music, since it was the first African American–owned record label to primarily feature African-American artists. Gordy moved Motown to Los Angeles in 1972 to pursue film production, but the company has since returned to Detroit. Aretha Franklin, another Detroit R&B star, carried the Motown Sound; however, she did not record with Berry's Motown label.[
Local artists and bands rose to prominence in the 1960s and '70s, including the MC5, Glenn Frey, The Stooges, Bob Seger, Amboy Dukes featuring Ted Nugent, Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels, Rare Earth (band), Rare Earth, Alice Cooper, and Suzi Quatro. The group Kiss (band), Kiss emphasized the city's connection with rock in the song "Detroit Rock City" and the movie produced in 1999. In the 1980s, Detroit was an important center of the hardcore punk rock underground with many nationally known bands coming out of the city and its suburbs, such as The Necros, The Meatmen, and Negative Approach.]
In the 1990s and the new millennium, the city has produced a number of influential hip hop music, hip hop artists, including Eminem, the hip-hop artist with the highest cumulative sales, his rap group D12, hip-hop rapper and producer Royce da 5'9", hip-hop producer Denaun Porter, hip-hop producer J Dilla, rapper and musician Kid Rock and rappers Big Sean and Danny Brown (rapper), Danny Brown. The band Sponge (band), Sponge toured and produced music. The city also has an active garage rock scene that has generated national attention with acts such as The White Stripes, The Von Bondies, The Detroit Cobras, The Dirtbombs, Electric Six, and The Hard Lessons.[
Detroit is cited as the birthplace of techno music in the early 1980s.] The city also lends its name to an early and pioneering genre of electronic dance music, "Detroit techno". Featuring science fiction imagery and robotic themes, its futuristic style was greatly influenced by the geography of Detroit's urban decline and its industrial past. Prominent Detroit techno artists include Juan Atkins, Derrick May (musician), Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, and Jeff Mills. The Detroit Electronic Music Festival, now known as Movement, occurs annually in late May on Memorial Day Weekend, and takes place in Hart Plaza. In the early years (2000–2002), this was a landmark event, boasting over a million estimated attendees annually, coming from all over the world to celebrate techno music in the city of its birth.
Entertainment and performing arts
Major theaters in Detroit include the Fox Theatre (5,174 seats), Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts (1,770 seats), the Gem Theatre (451 seats), Detroit Masonic Temple, Masonic Temple Theatre (4,404 seats), the Detroit Opera House
The Detroit Opera House is an ornate opera house located at 1526 Broadway Street in Downtown Detroit, Michigan, within the Grand Circus Park Historic District. The 2,700-seat venue is the home of productions of the Detroit Opera and a variety of ...
(2,765 seats), the Fisher Theatre (2,089 seats), The Fillmore Detroit (2,200 seats), Saint Andrew's Hall, the Majestic Theater (Detroit, Michigan), Majestic Theater, and Orchestra Hall (Detroit), Orchestra Hall (2,286 seats), which hosts the renowned Detroit Symphony Orchestra. The Nederlander Organization, the largest controller of Broadway productions in New York City, originated with the purchase of the Detroit Opera House
The Detroit Opera House is an ornate opera house located at 1526 Broadway Street in Downtown Detroit, Michigan, within the Grand Circus Park Historic District. The 2,700-seat venue is the home of productions of the Detroit Opera and a variety of ...
in 1922 by the Nederlander family.
Motown Motion Picture Studios with produces movies in Detroit and the surrounding area based at the Pontiac Centerpoint Business Campus for a film industry expected to employ over 4,000 people in the metro area.
Tourism
Because of its Culture of Detroit, unique culture, Architecture of metropolitan Detroit, distinctive architecture, and Planning and development in Detroit, revitalization and urban renewal efforts in the 21st century, Detroit has enjoyed increased prominence as a tourist destination in recent years. ''The New York Times'' listed Detroit as the ninth-best destination in its list of ''52 Places to Go in 2017'',["52 Places to Go in 2017"](_blank)
NYT Travel, ''The New York Times''. January 4, 2017. Retrieved on February 7, 2018. while travel guide publisher ''Lonely Planet'' named Detroit the second-best city in the world to visit in 2018.["Top 10 cities to visit in 2018"](_blank)
Lonely Planet. Retrieved on February 7, 2018.
Many of the area's prominent museums are in the historic Detroit Cultural Center, cultural center neighborhood around Wayne State University
Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...
and the College for Creative Studies. These museums include the Detroit Institute of Arts
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation and expansion project comple ...
, the Detroit Historical Museum, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, the Detroit Science Center, as well as the main branch of the Detroit Public Library. Other cultural highlights include Hitsville U.S.A., Motown Historical Museum, the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant museum, the Pewabic Pottery studio and school, the Tuskegee Airmen Museum, Fort Wayne (Detroit), Fort Wayne, the Dossin Great Lakes Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD), the Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit (CAID), and the Belle Isle Conservatory.
In 2010, the G.R. N'Namdi Gallery opened in a complex in Midtown. Important history of America and the Detroit area are exhibited at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan, Dearborn, the United States' largest indoor-outdoor museum complex. The Detroit Historical Society provides information about tours of area churches, skyscrapers, and mansions. Inside Detroit, meanwhile, hosts tours, educational programming, and a downtown welcome center. Other sites of interest are the Detroit Zoo in Royal Oak, Michigan, Royal Oak, the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Bloomfield Hills, the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory on Belle Isle Park, Belle Isle, and Walter P. Chrysler Museum in Auburn Hills, Michigan, Auburn Hills.[
The city's Greektown Historic District, Greektown and three downtown casino resort hotels serve as part of an entertainment hub. The Eastern Market Historic District, Eastern Market farmer's distribution center is the largest open-air flowerbed market in the United States and has more than 150 foods and specialty businesses. On Saturdays, about 45,000 people shop the city's historic Eastern Market Historic District, Eastern Market.][. ''Model D Media'' (April 5, 2008). Retrieved January 24, 2011.] The Midtown, Detroit, Midtown and the New Center area are centered on Wayne State University
Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...
and Henry Ford Hospital. Midtown has about 50,000 residents and attracts millions of visitors each year to its museums and cultural centers;[. ''Model D Media'' (April 4, 2008). Retrieved on January 24, 2011.] for example, the Detroit Festival of the Arts in Midtown draws about 350,000 people.[
]
Annual summer events include the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, Electronic Music Festival, Detroit International Jazz Festival, International Jazz Festival, the Woodward Dream Cruise, the African World Festival, the country music Hoedown, Noel Night, and Dally in the Alley. Within downtown, Campus Martius Park hosts large events, including the annual Motown Winter Blast. As the world's traditional automotive center, the city hosts the North American International Auto Show. Held since 1924, America's Thanksgiving Parade is one of the nation's largest. River Days, a five-day summer festival on the International Riverfront lead up to the Windsor–Detroit International Freedom Festival fireworks, which draw super sized-crowds ranging from hundreds of thousands to over three million people.[Fifth Third Bank rocks the Winter Blast. ''Michigan Chronicle''. (March 14, 2006).]
An important civic sculpture in Detroit is ''The Spirit of Detroit'' by Marshall Fredericks at the Coleman Young Municipal Center. The image is often used as a symbol of Detroit and the statue itself is occasionally dressed in sports jerseys to celebrate when a Detroit team is doing well. A Monument to Joe Louis, memorial to Joe Louis at the intersection of Jefferson and Woodward Avenues was dedicated on October 1, 1986. The sculpture, commissioned by ''Sports Illustrated'' and executed by Robert Graham (sculptor), Robert Graham, is a long arm with a fisted hand suspended by a pyramidal framework.
Artist Tyree Guyton created the controversial street art exhibit known as the Heidelberg Project in 1986, using found objects including cars, clothing and shoes found in the neighborhood near and on Heidelberg Street on the near East Side of Detroit.[
''Time'' named Detroit as one of the fifty World's Greatest Places of 2022 to explore.]
Sports
Detroit is one of 13 U.S. metropolitan areas that are home to professional teams representing the four major sports in North America. Since 2017, all of these teams play in the city limits of Detroit itself, a distinction shared with only three other U.S. cities. Detroit is the only U.S. city to have its four major sports teams play within its downtown district.
There are three active major sports venues in the city: Comerica Park (home of the Major League Baseball team Detroit Tigers), Ford Field (home of the National Football League, NFL's Detroit Lions), and Little Caesars Arena
Little Caesars Arena is a multi-purpose arena in Midtown Detroit. Opened on September 5, 2017, the arena, which cost $862.9 million to construct, replaced Joe Louis Arena and The Palace of Auburn Hills as the home of the Detroit Red Wings of ...
(home of the National Hockey League, NHL's Detroit Red Wings and the National Basketball Association, NBA's Detroit Pistons). A 1996 marketing campaign promoted the nickname "Hockeytown".[
]
The Detroit Tigers have won four World Series titles (1935 World Series, 1935, 1945 World Series, 1945, 1968 World Series, 1968, and 1984 World Series, 1984). The Detroit Red Wings have won 11 Stanley Cups (1936 Stanley Cup Finals, 1935–36, 1937 Stanley Cup Finals, 1936–37, 1943 Stanley Cup Finals, 1942–43, 1950 Stanley Cup Finals, 1949–50, 1952 Stanley Cup Finals, 1951–52, 1954 Stanley Cup Finals, 1953–54, 1955 Stanley Cup Finals, 1954–55, 1997 Stanley Cup Finals, 1996–97, 1998 Stanley Cup Finals, 1997–98, 2002 Stanley Cup Finals, 2001–02, 2008 Stanley Cup Finals, 2007–08) (the most by an American NHL franchise). The Detroit Lions have won 4 NFL titles (1935 NFL Championship Game, 1935, 1952 NFL Championship Game, 1952, 1953 NFL Championship Game, 1953, 1957 NFL Championship Game, 1957) . The Detroit Pistons have won three NBA titles (1989 NBA Finals, 1989, 1990 NBA Finals, 1990, 2004 NBA Finals, 2004).[ With the Pistons' first of three NBA titles in 1989, the city of Detroit has won titles in all four of the major professional sports leagues. Two new downtown stadiums for the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Lions opened in 2000 and 2002, respectively, returning the Lions to the city proper.
In college sports, Detroit's central location within the Mid-American Conference has made it a frequent site for the league's championship events. While the MAC Basketball Tournament moved permanently to Cleveland, Ohio, Cleveland starting in 2000, the MAC Football Championship Game has been played at Ford Field in Detroit since 2004, and annually attracts 25,000 to 30,000 fans. The University of Detroit Mercy has an NCAA Division I program, and ]Wayne State University
Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...
has both NCAA Division I and NCAA Division II, II programs. The NCAA football Quick Lane Bowl is held at Ford Field each December.
Detroit's professional soccer team is Detroit City FC. Founded in 2012 as a semi-professional soccer club, the team now plays professional soccer in the USL Championship (USLC). Nicknamed, ''Le Rouge'', the club are two-time champions of NISA since joining in 2020. They play their home matches in Keyworth Stadium, which is located in the Detroit enclave of Hamtramck.
The city hosted the 2005 MLB All-Star Game, 2006 Super Bowl XL, both the 2006 World Series, 2006 and 2012 World Series, WrestleMania 23 in 2007, and the NCAA Final Four (college basketball), Final Four in April 2009.
The city hosted the Detroit Indy Grand Prix on Belle Isle Park (Michigan), Belle Isle Park from 1989 to 2001, 2007 to 2008, and 2012 and beyond. In 2007, open-wheel racing returned to Belle Isle with both Indy Racing League and American Le Mans Series Racing. From 1982 to 1988, Detroit held the Detroit Grand Prix, at the Detroit street circuit.
Detroit is one of eight American cities to have won titles in all four major leagues (MLB, NFL, NHL and NBA), though of the eight it is the only one to have not won a Super Bowl title (all of the Lions' titles came prior to the start of the Super Bowl era). In the years following the mid-1930s, Detroit was referred to as the "City of Champions" after the Tigers, Lions, and Red Wings captured the three major professional sports championships in existence at the time in a seven-month period of time (the Tigers won the World Series in October 1935; the Lions won the NFL championship in December 1935; the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup in April 1936). In 1932, Eddie "The Midnight Express" Tolan from Detroit won the 100- and 200-meter races and two gold medals at the 1932 Summer Olympics. Joe Louis won the heavyweight championship of the world in 1937.
Detroit has made the most bids to host the Summer Olympics without ever being awarded the games, with seven unsuccessful bids for the 1944 Summer Olympics, 1944, 1952 Summer Olympics, 1952, 1956 Summer Olympics, 1956, 1960 Summer Olympics, 1960, 1964 Summer Olympics, 1964, 1968 Summer Olympics, 1968, and 1972 Summer Olympics, 1972 summer games.[
]
Government
The city is governed pursuant to the ''home rule Charter of the City of Detroit''. The government of Detroit is run by a mayor, the nine-member Detroit City Council, the eleven-member Detroit Board of Police Commissioners, Board of Police Commissioners, and a clerk. All of these officers are elected on a nonpartisan ballot, with the exception of four of the police commissioners, who are appointed by the mayor. Detroit has a "Mayor–council government, strong mayoral" system, with the mayor approving departmental appointments. The council approves budgets, but the mayor is not obligated to adhere to any earmarking. The city clerk supervises elections and is formally charged with the maintenance of municipal records. City ordinances and substantially large contracts must be approved by the council.[Ward, George E. (July 1993)]
Detroit Charter Revision – A Brief History
. ''Citizens Research Council of Michigan'' (pdf file). The ''Detroit City Code'' is the codification (law), codification of Detroit's local ordinances.
The city clerk supervises elections and is formally charged with the maintenance of municipal records. Municipal elections for mayor, city council and city clerk are held at four-year intervals, in the year after presidential elections. Following a November 2009 referendum, seven council members will be elected from districts beginning in 2013 while two will continue to be elected at-large.[Nelson, Gabe (November 3, 2009]
Voters overwhelmingly approve Detroit Proposal D
''Crains Detroit Business''. Retrieved on December 23, 2009.
Detroit's courts are state-administered and elections are nonpartisan. The Probate Court for Wayne County is in the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in downtown Detroit. The Circuit Court is across Gratiot Avenue in the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, in downtown Detroit. The city is home to the Thirty-Sixth District Court, as well as the First District of the Michigan Court of Appeals and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. The city provides law enforcement through the Detroit Police Department and emergency services through the Detroit Fire Department.
Politics
Beginning with its incorporation in 1802, Detroit has had a total of List of mayors of Detroit, Michigan, 74 mayors. Detroit's last mayor from the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party was Louis Miriani, who served from 1957 to 1962. In 1973, the city elected its first black mayor, Coleman Young
Coleman Alexander Young (May 24, 1918 – November 29, 1997) was an American politician who served as mayor of Detroit, Michigan, from 1974 to 1994. Young was the first African-American mayor of Detroit.
Young had emerged from the far-left ele ...
. Despite development efforts, his combative style during his five terms in office was not well received by many suburban residents. Mayor Dennis Archer
Dennis Wayne Archer (born January 1, 1942) is an American lawyer, jurist and former politician from Michigan. A Democrat, Archer served as Justice on the Michigan Supreme Court and as mayor of Detroit. He later served as president of the Amer ...
, a former Michigan Supreme Court Justice, refocused the city's attention on redevelopment with a plan to permit three casinos downtown. By 2008, three major casino resort hotels established operations in the city.
In 2000, the city requested an investigation by the United States Justice Department into the Detroit Police Department which was concluded in 2003 over allegations regarding its use of force and civil rights violations. The city proceeded with a major reorganization of the Detroit Police Department.
In 2013, felony bribery charges were brought against seven building inspectors. In 2016, further corruption charges were brought against 12 principals, a former school superintendent and supply vendor for a $12 million kickback scheme. However, law professor Peter Henning argues Detroit's corruption is not unusual for a city its size, especially when compared with Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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.
Detroit is sometimes referred to as a sanctuary city because it has "anti-profiling ordinances that generally prohibit local police from asking about the immigration status of people who are not suspected of any crime".
The city in recent years has been a stronghold for the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, with around 94% of votes in the city going to Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate in the 2020 United States presidential election, 2020 Presidential election.
Public finances
Detroit's protracted decline has resulted in severe urban decay, with thousands of empty buildings around the city, referred to as greyfield land, greyfield. Some parts of Detroit are so sparsely populated the city has difficulty providing municipal services. The city has demolished abandoned homes and buildings, planting grass and trees, and considered removing street lighting from large portions of the city, in order to encourage the small population in certain areas to move to more populated areas. Roughly half of the owners of Detroit's 305,000 properties failed to pay their 2011 tax bills, resulting in about $246 million in taxes and fees going uncollected, nearly half of which was due to Detroit. The rest of the money would have been earmarked for Wayne County, Detroit Public Schools, and the library system.
In March 2013, Governor of Michigan, Governor Rick Snyder declared a financial emergency in the city, stating the city had a $327 million budget deficit and faced more than $14 billion in long-term debt. It has been making ends meet on a month-to-month basis with the help of bond money held in a state escrow account and has instituted mandatory unpaid days off for many city workers. Those troubles, along with underfunded city services, such as police and fire departments, and ineffective turnaround plans from Mayor Bing and the City Council led the state of Michigan to appoint an emergency manager for Detroit on March 14, 2013. On June 14, 2013, Detroit defaulted on $2.5 billion of debt by withholding $39.7 million in interest payments, while Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr met with bondholders and other creditors in an attempt to restructure the city's $18.5 billion debt and avoid bankruptcy. On July 18, 2013, the City of Detroit filed for Chapter 9, Title 11, United States Code, Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection. It was declared bankrupt by U.S. judge Stephen Rhodes on December 3, with its $18.5 billion debt; he said in accepting the city's contention it is broke and negotiations with its thousands of creditors were infeasible. The city levies an income tax of 2.4 percent on residents and 1.2 percent on nonresidents.
Education
Colleges and universities
Detroit is home to several institutions of higher learning including Wayne State University
Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...
, a national research university with medical and Wayne State University Law School, law schools in the Midtown, Detroit, Midtown area offering hundreds of academic degrees and programs. The University of Detroit Mercy, in Northwest Detroit in the University District, Detroit, University District, is a prominent Catholic Church, Roman Catholic Mixed-sex education, co-educational university affiliated with the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) and the Sisters of Mercy. The University of Detroit Mercy offers more than a hundred academic degrees and programs of study including business, dentistry, law school, law, engineering, architecture, nursing and allied health professions. The University of Detroit Mercy School of Law is Downtown across from the Renaissance Center
The Renaissance Center (also known as the GM Renaissance Center and nicknamed the RenCen) is a group of seven connected skyscrapers in Downtown Detroit, Michigan, United States. The Renaissance Center complex is on the Detroit International Riv ...
.
Grand Valley State University's Detroit Center host workshops, seminars, professional development, and other large gatherings in the building. Located in the heart of downtown next to Comerica Park and the Detroit Athletic Club, the center has become a key component for educational activity in the city.
Sacred Heart Major Seminary, founded in 1919, is affiliated with Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, ''Angelicum'' in Rome and offers pontifical degrees as well as civil undergraduate and graduate degrees. Sacred Heart Major Seminary offers a variety of academic programs for both clerical and lay students. Other institutions in the city include the College for Creative Studies and Wayne County Community College. Marygrove College was a Catholic institution formerly based in Detroit before it closed in 2019. In June 2009, the Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine which is based in East Lansing, Michigan, East Lansing opened a satellite campus at the Detroit Medical Center. The University of Michigan was established in 1817 in Detroit and later moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, Ann Arbor in 1837.
Primary and secondary schools
many K-12 students in Detroit frequently change schools, with some children having been enrolled in seven schools before finishing their K-12 careers. There is a concentration of senior high schools and charter schools in the Downtown Detroit area, which had wealthier residents and more gentrification relative to other parts of Detroit: Downtown, northwest Detroit, and northeast Detroit have 1,894, 3,742, and 6,018 students of high school age each, respectively, while they have 11, three, and two high schools each, respectively.
because of the lack of public transportation and the lack of school bus services, many Detroit families have to rely on themselves to transport children to school.[
]
Public schools and charter schools
With about 66,000 public school students (2011–12), the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) district is the largest school district in Michigan. Detroit has an additional 56,000 charter school students for a combined enrollment of about 122,000 students.[Dawsey, Chastity Pratt (October 20, 2011). Detroit Public Schools hits enrollment goal. ''Detroit Free Press''] there are about as many students in charter schools as there are in district schools. DPS continues to have the majority of the special education pupils. In addition, some Detroit students, as of 2016, attend public schools in other municipalities.[
In 1999, the Michigan Legislature removed the locally elected board of education amid allegations of mismanagement and replaced it with a reform board appointed by the mayor and governor. The elected board of education was re-established following a city referendum in 2005. The first election of the new 11-member board of education occurred on November 8, 2005.
Due to growing Detroit charter schools enrollment as well as a continued exodus of population, the city planned to close many public schools.][Hing, Julianne (March 17, 2010]
Where Have All The Students Gone?
. ''Color Lines.com''. Retrieved on August 19, 2010. State officials report a 68% graduation rate for Detroit's public schools adjusted for those who change schools.[Detroit Public Schools news](_blank)
(June 15, 2007). Retrieved February 13, 2017. Traditional public and charter school students in the city have performed poorly on standardized tests. Circa 2009 and 2011, while Detroit traditional public schools scored a record low on national tests, the publicly funded charter schools did even worse than the traditional public schools. there were 30,000 excess openings in Detroit traditional public and charter schools, bearing in mind the number of K-12-aged children in the city. In 2016, Kate Zernike of ''The New York Times'' stated school performance did not improve despite the proliferation of charters, describing the situation as "lots of choice, with no good choice".[
Detroit public schools students scored the lowest on tests of reading and writing of all major cities in the United States in 2015. Among eighth-graders, only 27% showed basic proficiency in math and 44% in reading. Nearly half of Detroit's adults are Functional illiteracy, functionally illiterate.
]
Private schools
Detroit is served by various private schools, as well as parochial Roman Catholic schools operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit, Archdiocese of Detroit. there are four Catholic grade schools and three Catholic high schools in the City of Detroit, with all of them in the city's west side.[Detroit area's Catholic schools shrink, but tradition endures]
Archive
. ''Detroit Free Press''. February 1, 2013. Retrieved on September 13, 2014. The Archdiocese of Detroit lists a number of primary and secondary schools in the metro area as Catholic education has emigrated to the suburbs. Of the three Catholic high schools in the city, two are operated by the Society of Jesus and the third is co-sponsored by the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Congregation of St. Basil.
In the 1964–1965 school year there were about 110 Catholic grade schools in Detroit, Hamtramck, and Highland Park, Michigan, Highland Park and 55 Catholic high schools in those three cities. The Catholic school population in Detroit has decreased due to the increase of charter schools, increasing tuition at Catholic schools, the small number of African-American Catholics, White Catholics moving to suburbs, and the decreased number of teaching nuns.[
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Media
The ''Detroit Free Press'' and ''The Detroit News
''The Detroit News'' is one of the two major newspapers in the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan. The paper began in 1873, when it rented space in the rival ''Detroit Free Press'' building. ''The News'' absorbed the ''Detroit Tribune'' on Februar ...
'' are the major daily newspapers, both broadsheet publications published together under a joint operating agreement called the Detroit Newspaper Partnership. Media philanthropy includes the ''Detroit Free Press'' high school journalism program and the Old Newsboys' Goodfellow Fund of Detroit. In March 2009, the two newspapers reduced home delivery to three days a week, print reduced newsstand issues of the papers on non-delivery days and focus resources on Internet-based news delivery. The ''Metro Times'', founded in 1980, is a weekly publication, covering news, arts & entertainment.
Also founded in 1935 and based in Detroit, the ''Michigan Chronicle'' is one of the oldest and most respected African-American weekly newspapers in America, covering politics, entertainment, sports and community events. The Detroit television market is the 11th largest in the United States;[Nielsen Media Research Local Universe Estimates (September 24, 2005)]
''The Nielson Company'' according to estimates that do not include audiences in large areas of Ontario, Canada (Windsor
Windsor may refer to:
Places Australia
* Windsor, New South Wales
** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area
* Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland
**Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...
and its surrounding area on broadcast and cable TV, as well as several other cable markets in Ontario, such as the city of Ottawa) which receive and watch Detroit television stations.[
Detroit has the 11th largest radio market in the United States,] though this ranking does not take into account Canadian audiences.[ Nearby Canadian stations such as Windsor's CKLW (whose jingles formerly proclaimed "CKLW-the Motor City") are popular in Detroit.
]
Infrastructure
Health systems
Within the city of Detroit, there are over a dozen major hospitals, which include the Detroit Medical Center (DMC), Henry Ford Hospital, Henry Ford Health System, St. John Health, St. John Health System, and the John D. Dingell VA Medical Center. The DMC, a regional Level I trauma center, consists of Detroit Receiving Hospital and University Health Center, Children's Hospital of Michigan, Harper University Hospital, Hutzel Women's Hospital, Kresge Eye Institute, Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, Sinai-Grace Hospital, and the Karmanos Cancer Institute. The DMC has more than 2,000 licensed beds and 3,000 affiliated physicians. It is the largest private employer in the City of Detroit.[ ''Wayne State University'' Retrieved January 24, 2011.] The center is staffed by physicians from the Wayne State University School of Medicine, the largest single-campus medical school in the United States, and the United States' fourth largest medical school overall.[
]
Detroit Medical Center formally became a part of Vanguard Health Systems on December 30, 2010, as a for-profit corporation. Vanguard has agreed to invest nearly $1.5 B in the Detroit Medical Center complex, which will include $417 M to retire debts, at least $350 M in capital expenditures and an additional $500 M for new capital investment.[Anstett, Patricia (March 20, 2010]
$1.5 billion for new DMC
''Detroit Free Press''. DMC.org. Retrieved on June 12, 2010. Vanguard has agreed to assume all debts and pension obligations. The metro area has many other hospitals including William Beaumont Hospital, St. Joseph's, and University of Michigan Health System, University of Michigan Medical Center.
In 2011, Detroit Medical Center and Henry Ford Health System substantially increased investments in medical research facilities and hospitals in the city's Midtown Detroit, Midtown and New Center.[Greene, Jay (April 5, 2010]
Henry Ford Health System plans $500 million expansion
''Crains Detroit Business''. Retrieved on June 12, 2010.
In 2012, two major construction projects were begun in New Center. The Henry Ford Health System started the first phase of a $500 million, 300-acre revitalization project, with the construction of a new $30 million, 275,000-square-foot, ''Medical Distribution Center'' for Cardinal Health, Inc. and Wayne State University
Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...
started construction on a new $93 million, 207,000-square-foot, Integrative Biosciences Center (IBio).[Henderson, Tom (April 15, 2012]
WSU to build $93M biotech hub
''Crains Detroit Business''. Retrieved on March 15, 2015. As many as 500 researchers and staff will work out of the IBio Center.
Transportation
With its proximity to Canada and its facilities, ports, major highways, rail connections and international airports, Detroit is an important transportation hub. The city has three international border crossings, the Ambassador Bridge
The Ambassador Bridge is a tolled international suspension bridge across the Detroit River that connects Detroit, Michigan, United States, with Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Opened in 1929, it is the busiest international border crossing in North ...
, Detroit–Windsor Tunnel
The Detroit–Windsor tunnel (french: tunnel de Détroit-Windsor), also known as the Detroit–Canada tunnel, is an international highway tunnel connecting the cities of Detroit, Michigan, United States and Windsor, Ontario, Canada. It is the ...
and Michigan Central Railway Tunnel
The Michigan Central Railway Tunnel is a railroad tunnel under the Detroit River connecting Detroit, Michigan, in the United States with Windsor, Ontario, in Canada. The U.S. entrance is south of Porter and Vermont streets near Rosa Parks Bouleva ...
, linking Detroit to Windsor, Ontario
Windsor is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, on the south bank of the Detroit River directly across from Detroit, Michigan, United States. Geographically located within but administratively independent of Essex County, it is the southe ...
. The Ambassador Bridge is the single busiest border crossing in North America, carrying 27% of the total trade between the U.S. and Canada.
On February 18, 2015, Canadian Transport Minister Lisa Raitt announced Canada has agreed to pay the entire cost to build a $250 million U.S. Customs plaza adjacent to the planned new Detroit–Windsor bridge, now the Gordie Howe International Bridge
The Gordie Howe International Bridge (french: Pont International Gordie-Howe), known during development as the Detroit River International Crossing and the New International Trade Crossing, is a cable-stayed international bridge across the De ...
. Canada had already planned to pay for 95% of the bridge, which will cost $2.1 billion, and is expected to open in 2024. "This allows Canada and Michigan to move the project forward immediately to its next steps which include further design work and property acquisition on the U.S. side of the border", Raitt said in a statement issued after she spoke in the House of Commons.
Transit systems
Mass transit in the region is provided by bus services. The Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT) provides service within city limits up to the outer edges of the city. From there, the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation, Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART) provides service to the suburbs and the city regionally with local routes and SMART's FAST service. FAST is a new service provided by SMART which offers limited stops along major corridors throughout the Detroit metropolitan area connecting the suburbs to downtown. The new high-frequency service travels along three of Detroit's busiest corridors, Gratiot, Woodward, and Michigan, and only stops at designated FAST stops. Cross border service between the downtown areas of Windsor and Detroit is provided by Transit Windsor via the Tunnel Bus.
An elevated rail system known as the Detroit People Mover, People Mover, completed in 1987, provides daily service around a loop downtown. The QLINE serves as a link between the Detroit People Mover
The Detroit People Mover (DPM) is a elevated automated people mover system in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The system operates in a one-way loop on a single track encircling downtown Detroit, using Intermediate Capacity Transit System ...
and Detroit (Amtrak station), Detroit Amtrak station via Woodward Avenue. The SEMCOG Commuter Rail line will extend from Detroit's New Center, connecting to Ann Arbor, Michigan, Ann Arbor via Dearborn, Michigan, Dearborn, Wayne, Michigan, Wayne, and Ypsilanti, Michigan, Ypsilanti when it is opened.[Ann Arbor – Detroit Regional Rail Project]
''SEMCOG''. Retrieved on February 4, 2010.
The Regional Transit Authority of Southeast Michigan, Regional Transit Authority (RTA) was established by an act of the Michigan legislature in December 2012 to oversee and coordinate all existing regional mass transit operations, and to develop new transit services in the region. The RTA's first project was the introduction of RelfeX, a limited-stop, cross-county bus service connecting downtown and midtown Detroit with Oakland county via Woodward avenue.
Amtrak provides service to Detroit, operating its ''Wolverine (Amtrak train), Wolverine'' service between Chicago and Pontiac, Michigan, Pontiac. The Amtrak station is in New Center north of downtown. The ''J. W. Westcott II'', which delivers mail to lake freighters on the Detroit River, is a floating post office.
Car ownership
The city of Detroit has a higher than average percentage of households without a car. In 2016, 24.7 percent of Detroit households lacked a car, much higher than the national average of 8.7. Detroit averaged 1.15 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8.
Freight railroads
Freight railroad operations in the city of Detroit are provided by Canadian National Railway, Canadian Pacific Railway, Conrail Shared Assets, CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern Railway, each of which have local yards within the city. Detroit is also served by the Delray Connecting Railroad and Detroit Connecting Railroad shortlines.
Airports
Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW), the principal airport serving Detroit, is in nearby Romulus, Michigan, Romulus. DTW is a primary hub for Delta Air Lines (following its acquisition of Northwest Airlines), and a secondary hub for Spirit Airlines. The airport is connected to Downtown Detroit by the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation, Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART) FAST Michigan route.
Coleman A. Young International Airport (DET), previously called Detroit City Airport, is on Detroit's northeast side; the airport now maintains only charter service and general aviation. Willow Run Airport, in far-western Wayne County near Ypsilanti, Michigan, Ypsilanti, is a general aviation and cargo airport.
Freeways
Metro Detroit has an extensive toll-free network of freeways administered by the Michigan Department of Transportation. Four major Interstate Highway System, Interstate Highways surround the city. Detroit is connected via Interstate 75 in Michigan, Interstate 75 (I-75) and Interstate 96, I-96 to Ontario Highway 401, Kings Highway 401 and to major Southern Ontario cities such as London, Ontario and the Greater Toronto Area. I-75 (Chrysler and Fisher freeways) is the region's main north–south route, serving Flint, Michigan, Flint, Pontiac, Michigan, Pontiac, Troy, Michigan, Troy, and Detroit, before continuing south (as the Detroit–Toledo and Seaway Freeways) to serve many of the communities along the shore of Lake Erie.
Interstate 94 in Michigan, I-94 (Edsel Ford Freeway) runs east–west through Detroit and serves Ann Arbor to the west (where it continues to Chicago) and Port Huron to the northeast. The stretch of the I-94 freeway from Ypsilanti to Detroit was one of America's earlier limited-access highways. Henry Ford
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that ...
built it to link the factories at Willow Run and Dearborn during World War II. A portion was known as the Willow Run Expressway. The Interstate 96 in Michigan, I-96 freeway runs northwest–southeast through Livingston, Oakland and Wayne counties and (as the Jeffries Freeway through Wayne County) has its eastern terminus in downtown Detroit.
Interstate 275 (Michigan), I-275 runs north–south from I-75 in the south to the junction of I-96 and Interstate 696, I-696 in the north, providing a bypass through the western suburbs of Detroit. Interstate 375 (Michigan), I-375 is a short spur route in downtown Detroit, an extension of the Chrysler Freeway. I-696 (Reuther Freeway) runs east–west from the junction of I-96 and I-275, providing a route through the northern suburbs of Detroit. Taken together, I-275 and I-696 form a semicircle around Detroit. Michigan state highways designated with the letter M serve to connect major freeways.
Floating post office
Detroit has a floating post office, the ''J. W. Westcott II'', which serves lake freighters along the Detroit River. Its ZIP Code is 48222. The ZIP Code is used exclusively for the ''J. W. Westcott II'', which makes is the only floating ZIP Code in the United States. It has a land-based office at 12 24th Street, just south of the Ambassador Bridge. The J.W. Westcott Company was established in 1874 by Captain John Ward Westcott as a maritime reporting agency to inform other vessels about port conditions, and the ''J. W. Westcott II'' vessel began service in 1949 and is still in operation today.
Notable people
Sister cities
Detroit's Sister city, sister cities are:
* Chongqing, China
* Dubai, United Arab Emirates
* Kitwe, Zambia
* Minsk, Belarus
* Nassau, Bahamas, Nassau, Bahamas
* Toyota, Aichi, Toyota, Japan
* Turin, Italy
Notes
References
Further reading
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* Barrow, Heather B. ''Henry Ford's Plan for the American Suburb: Dearborn and Detroit''. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2015.
* Bates, Beth Tompkins. ''The Making of Black Detroit in the Age of Henry Ford''. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2012.
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Farmer, Silas. (1884) (July 1969) ''The history of Detroit and Michigan, or, The metropolis illustrated: a chronological cyclopaedia of the past and present: including a full record of territorial days in Michigan, and the annuals of Wayne County'', in various formats at
Open Library.
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* Galster, George. (2012). ''Driving Detroit: The Quest for Respect in the Motor City'' University of Pennsylvania Press
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* Philp, Drew (2017).
A $500 house in Detroit: rebuilding an abandoned home and an American city.
' Scribner.
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* Powell, L. P (1901). "Detroit, the Queen City", ''Historic Towns of the Western States'' (New York).
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Primary sources
* Moon, Elaine Latzman. ''Untold tales, unsung heroes: an oral history of Detroit's African American community, 1918-1967'' (1994
online
External links
Municipal government and local Chamber of Commerce
Official website
Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau
Detroit Regional Chamber
*
Historical research and current events
Labor, Urban Affairs and Detroit History archival collections
at the Walter P. Reuther Library
Virtual Motor City Collection
at Wayne State University
Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...
Library, contains over 30,000 images of Detroit from 1890 to 1980
"In Energized Detroit, Savoring an Architectural Legacy"
''The New York Times''. March 26, 2018.
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