The Full Story of Detroit's Decline: The Shunning

Peter Saunders writes:

Fifty years ago today, the violent conflict that virtually defined Detroit finally began to wane, after five tension-filled days.  Since that conflict Detroit has suffered immeasurably, far beyond what economic loss could do alone.  Over the last decade or so, Detroit has finally become able to move on from the specter of the unrest.  The city’s long era of ostracization is over, and it’s slowly reconnecting with the family of cities in America and around the world.

Saunders says the events of the summer of 1967 (depicted in the new movie Detroit, directed by Oscar winner Kathryn Bigelow) left a stigma on the city. The "shunning" of Detroit wasn't uncommon around the country.

The shunning suffered by Detroit and a handful of other cities that experienced similar unrest is often understood as “white flight”, but is indeed far deeper.  White flight can describe many things.  It can describe the aspirational lure of city residents seeking more space and comfort in greener suburban pastures.  Yet it can also obscure more nefarious reasons for moving – motivated by fear of rising crime and falling property values.  The former is a shining aspect of the American Dream; the latter can be viewed as an act of desperation and self-preservation.

The concept Saunders drives home to the reader is the aforementioned shunning, and the article includes a lot of evidence that describes the scope of the shunning's effects, along with calling out some of the ways that suburban leaders around Detroit enacted the shunning as official public policy. Though Saunders acknowledges that the shunning has ended, there is still a great deal of skepticism about the city's ongoing recovery.