  Eric Member Username: Eric Post Number: 822 Registered: 11-2004 |
http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll /article?AID=/20070515/BLOG07/ 70515072 | ||
Drm Member Username: Drm Post Number: 1102 Registered: 10-2003 |
quote:Remember, it's all Mayor Young's fault. | ||
Gildas Member Username: Gildas Post Number: 959 Registered: 12-2004 |
Drm You are correct, during the years he was in office any continued decline would be his fault. If you can't fix the problem, don't get elected and take ownership of it. Mayor Young was useless. | ||
Track75 Member Username: Track75 Post Number: 2532 Registered: 10-2003 |
The paragraph DRM quoted was the one that really got my attention. I knew population peaked in the early 50's but to have almost one vacant home for every three occupied homes inside the Boulevard in the late 50's really surprised me. Gildas, I'm not Mayor Young's #1 fan but to pin all the blame on him during his tenure is way too simplistic. His reign was a mixed bag, some good and some bad. | ||
Paulmcall Member Username: Paulmcall Post Number: 146 Registered: 05-2004 |
He got caught up in the blame game and the heady feeling of being THE MAN. He had a great opportunity when he took office to be a healer not a divider. I think it all went downhill when his remarks about criminals hitting Eight Mile road were misinterpreted. I was excited when he took over after hearing that speech. However, bad blood and old differences caused him to close himself off and he retreated to his own inner circle. Once his pipeline to Washington was cut off, his great plans for Detroit were messed up. The old "us against the world" attitude didn't serve Detroiters well. He had his city and watched it go to hell on his watch. He wasn't to blame for a lot of what happened but he could have minimized some of it. | ||
Gistok Member Username: Gistok Post Number: 4343 Registered: 08-2004 |
Yes, CAY's calling Reagan "old Prune face" didn't help the flow of federal dollars to Detroit... | ||
Nere Member Username: Nere Post Number: 17 Registered: 04-2007 |
I'm only 20, so I wasn't alive then, and my parents hadn't moved to Detroit yet, so please give me a tad of your wisdom and memories. It seems a lot of people blame Young for the decline (or lack of improvement) of the city. So if this mayor was so horrendously bad, why is there a building named after him? What made him honorable enough to have that privilege? Oooh, I just looked him up on Wikipedia. Turns out I was alive and living in the city. But what does a girl who is seven (and younger) need politics for?  (Message edited by nere on May 21, 2007) | ||
Mayor_sekou Member Username: Mayor_sekou Post Number: 886 Registered: 09-2006 |
It is amazingly sad that even in our prime we were still a city that suffered from blight. It is like the pieces have never fit together at one time. I just hope to see the day when this city’s full potential is reached and seeing as how I am 21 and there is A LOT of work needed, I am getting skeptical. I too was young when Young was in office and alive but what I get from the older folks, he did a lot of good given the circumstances and a lot of bad as well. But one thing is for sure he remains a beacon of pride for black people, especially older ones, as a man who represented and protected his people, the citizens of Detroit. So take that as you will. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 3182 Registered: 10-2004 |
Detroit peaked in population/wealth during the 1920s, not during the 1950s. Because the Market Crash occurred before the 1930 census, nobody will ever know just how many residents there were during the late 20s--around 1928. It was thought that Detroit even had a larger population than Philly back then. It was assumed to be higher than 2 million for a short time before the Depression. So, Detroit was probably the third largest US city for a brief time. By that standard, Detroit had been in decline for over two decades before the 1950s. Notice that the skyscraper boom ended in 1928--for those with little memory or knowledge of the past... | ||
Lmichigan Member Username: Lmichigan Post Number: 5534 Registered: 10-2003 |
Detroit's population peaked in the 1950's where the census has it at 1.85 million, but it was assumed, locally, that it was much closer to 2.1 million which would have made it the third largest city, or at least tied (or nearly tied) with Philly at the time. I think you're off a few decades, Livernois. 1920 Detroit had a population of 993,678. It added another 850,000-1,100,000 by 1950. (Message edited by lmichigan on May 21, 2007) | ||
Danny Member Username: Danny Post Number: 5897 Registered: 02-2004 |
Gildas, Drm. Coleman Young just like and other blacks in Detroit was living the SEGREGATION and XENOPHOBIA. He can see and hear racism every day and one day when he become a leader he wants of eliminate the context RACIST out of the Detroit. Bring in the black hope to the city and wait as the white folks come in the join the African bandwagon. Unfortunately more white folks refused, pack up their belonging the flight the suburbs and tried to keep their property values up, rent values up and make black-folks EARN their way up starting from rock bottom. Coleman Young did his best in his power to create a better Detroit of all people, but he could get out the racial strongholds in his childhood when he grew up in Black Bottom. You all can blame him for little bit of neighborhood exploitation, but We Detroiters choose his and we paid the price. | ||
Buyamerican Member Username: Buyamerican Post Number: 98 Registered: 02-2007 |
" But one thing is for sure he remains a beacon of pride for black people, especially older ones, as a man who represented and protected his people, the citizens of Detroit." If Young protected "his people, the citizens of Detroit", then any white person in Detroit was left out in the cold because he didn't consider ALL of the Detroit population, just some. He was instrumental in the polarization of Detroit from his earliest days in office. His record of treating white employees versus black employees was obvious to anyone who worked for the City of Detroit during his tenure. | ||
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed Post Number: 805 Registered: 04-2006 |
IMO, CAY has been the scapegoat for his predecessors (at the state and local level) misguided urban renewal efforts. Why did the mass transit system that was planned in the 70s (about the same time as DC and SF's, no?) fail to come to play? CAY was probably the biggest proponent of the system, and the only part of the system to come into reality (the DPM) did so under his jurisdiction. | ||
Dexterpointing Member Username: Dexterpointing Post Number: 40 Registered: 05-2007 |
Detroit should make a drastic measure I don't think has been done before. Get rid of this administration and ask Bloomburg to help out. The man/s mind is business and nothing but. I think if asked he would help make the turn around lightning fast with his influence. | ||
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed Post Number: 806 Registered: 04-2006 |
I think Bloomberg is a great mayor for the city of New York. I think Detroit needs a local who loves the city as much as Bloomberg loves New York. Also, have a lot more people around who aren't career politicians might be a good idea. Archer wasn't a career politician and love him or hate him, he at least got the ball to start creeking towards progress. | ||
Dexterpointing Member Username: Dexterpointing Post Number: 41 Registered: 05-2007 |
good point HEART, should be a brilliant business person also. Think Illich might fit that bill? I mean hes got enough now ,I dont think he's so greedy that he would hurt Detroit. His mind is probably just as good as bloomburg, gates and buffet. Maybe we should ask him | ||
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed Post Number: 809 Registered: 04-2006 |
Illitch's personal interests are very much tied into the politics of Detroit. | ||
Burnsie Member Username: Burnsie Post Number: 986 Registered: 11-2003 |
For Detroit to have had more people just before the Depression than during the 1930 census, the city would have had to lose some 280,000 people in a year. I really doubt that. From http://www.census.gov/populati on/www/documentation/twps0027. html Detroit: 1920: 993,078 1930: 1,568,662 1940: 1,623,452 1950: 1,849,568 Various sources say it kept growing (some say until 1953, others at late as 1955), then quickly plunged into its seemingly permanent decline. By 1960 it was 1,670,144. | ||
Izzadore Member Username: Izzadore Post Number: 25 Registered: 11-2006 |
It's not pretty and could take a LONG time but eventually good neighborhoods will emanate from the downtown revitalization. It'll be a block(s) at a time transformation. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 3183 Registered: 10-2004 |
There are claims that Detroit's population swelled and peaked during the 1920s prior to the onset of the Depression. Among them were, supposedly, many transient residents who were living with friends and relatives until they had the means to live on their own. It would stand to reason that many of these were not counted among the permanent residents by 1930 because they had no job prospects whatsoever and already departed. Unfortunately for many of them during the late 20s, they lost their jobs (or were unsuccessful altogether and didn't find any work) and left an already declining Detroit. Remember, there were essentially no welfare and unemployment systems back then to fall back on. If you didn't find work in Detroit back then, you left for places not as poor off--unlike today when there still is a permanent welfare class. Schools such as Ste. Hedwigs had 1200 kids in 16 classrooms during the mid 1920s, but its enrollment had dropped substantially only a few years later. Other Catholic schools were likewise crowded then. (Message edited by Livernoisyard on May 21, 2007) | ||
Lmichigan Member Username: Lmichigan Post Number: 5537 Registered: 10-2003 |
The claims are largely unfounded besides those anecdotal claims. The census shows for Detroit to have nearly doubled in size from the 20's to the 50's. For Detroit to have peaked in the 20's, you'd have to say that all of the housing built all the way out to the borders by the 50's was filled by no one else but those already in the city, and that's just not the case. I think you simply got the dates mixed up, as a simple map of urban development would show there is no possible way Detroit went from 465,766 in 1910 to 2 million by the 1920's. The theory is just unfounded and whacky, at best. | ||
Michigan Member Username: Michigan Post Number: 306 Registered: 04-2007 |
That is really interesting LY. I had never heard this before. And it is really interesting to think why the market downturn hit Detroit so hard. It seems that the current situation might not be the first time that reliance on the auto industry left Detroit in a bad spot. I would like to know more if you have references to share. | ||
Paulmcall Member Username: Paulmcall Post Number: 147 Registered: 05-2004 |
Detroit's population peaked after the war. Get your facts straight. | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 928 Registered: 07-2004 |
Yes, look at the old city directories. They're all in the Burton Collection. Just go to the back, where they list the people who live in buildings or the businesses there. In the 1920s, you start to see the names change (ending more in vowels) and the businesses start to get tacky, dry goods stores and clothiers giving way to tire repair shops and filling stations and the like. In the 1930s you see vacant properties start to crop up with regularity. Only during World War Two do you see vacancies disappear, and it's only for four short years. Then, after the war, it's as though the people with means simply pack up and leave, without a care about what'll happen to their former neighborhoods. That's when you start to see vacancies in large number. And I'm not talking late '50s, I'm talking 1947 and before. | ||
Detroitplanner Member Username: Detroitplanner Post Number: 1248 Registered: 04-2006 |
I think that there is a widening gap between neighborhoods and downtown. Downtown and upper income neighborhoods get property tax breaks. Those of us who have owned homes in more modest neighborhoods get to share police precients and get whacked by a $300 garbage fee. |
