Segregation and White Flight in Detroit

Since reaching its peak population in 1950, Detroit’s population has gradually declined by more than 65 percent, as of 2020 [1].

However, this population loss is not evenly distributed across the city's demographics. According to the 1950 Census, the year of Detroit’s population peak, Detroit was predominantly white, at about 84 percent [2]. But, throughout the rest of the 20th century, the city’s white population rapidly relocated to the growing suburbs––leaving behind a predominantly Black urban core [3]. In fact, in a mere thirty years, from 1950 to 1980, the city's racial makeup completely swapped. The two scanned census tables below provide the numerical details.

The 1950 census, on the left, displays that there were nearly two million more white people than Black people in Detroit in 1950. A caveat is that the published 1950 U.S. census included a greater area of land under its definition of Detroit than following censuses, but the amount of white people outnumbered the number of Black people by more than sevenfold. The 1980 census, on the right, paints an entirely different story––now, Black Detroiters outnumber white Detroiters by over 300,000, and the white population has totally collapsed from over two million to less than half a million.

This phenomenon, known as “white flight,” was not unique to Detroit but was exacerbated by the shift of the automobile manufacturing industry out of Detroit, changing racial relations of the time, and the growing Black population migrating from the South. As of 2020, Detroit proper had the highest proportion of Black residents of any major US city, at about 78 percent [4]. However, in contrast, the entire Detroit metropolitan area, including its suburbs, is only 23 percent Black, making Detroit the most segregated urban region in the United States.

To provide further context to the census images above, the sliding map below depicts a visualization of Detroit's white flight from 1950-1980 [5]. The census tracts in 1950 and 1980 have been matched so that both maps have the exact same definition of what is considered Detroit proper.

The two maps below depict a gradient of the percentage of the white population to the total population in each tract. The map on the left is based on 1950 data, while the map on the right is based on 1980 data. Further, dark red indicates a white population of over 90%, orange indicates a white population between 50 and 90 percent, beige indicates a white population from 25 to 50 percent, and light yellow indicates a white population of less than 25 percent. Finally, by clicking any tract, various metadata pops up.

By sliding between the two maps, it is evident that there is a drastic decrease in the white population (there are significantly fewer red tracts and more orange and cream-colored tracts), especially near the center of urban Detroit. On the other hand, the percentage of the white population remains very high, at over 90 percent, in the suburbs such as Dearborn Heights, Livonia, and Beverly Hills. Although one could be skeptical of the difference in the census tables due to differing definitions of Detroit city limits, this sliding map makes it evident that there has been a significant decrease in the white population and potential white flight over the observed thirty-year time window.

In particular, federal subsidization and promotion of racially segregated suburban housing policy could be key factors in the aforementioned drastic white flight experienced in Detroit. This StoryMap will explore the relationship between federal housing policy, race relations, and white flight on Detroit’s urban decline.

During the early to mid-1900s, with the collapse of Southern agricultural employment, millions of African Americans moved from the South to Northern and Western states as part of the Second Great Migration––one of the largest voluntary internal movements of black people ever seen [6]. One of the greatest beneficiaries of this movement was Detroit: from 1910-1920, the Black community in Detroit multiplied sevenfold from 6,000 in 1910 to 41,000 in 1920. Then, from 1920 to 1930, the African American population nearly quadrupled from 41,000 to 150,000. [7]. 

This movement was directly linked to the rise of Detroit’s booming automobile manufacturing industry. In 1914, Henry Ford opened his Detroit factory’s employment opportunities to Black workers and began offering industry-high wages of $5 a day for all his factory workers, regardless of race [8]. This unique opportunity for economic equality was extremely attractive and brought a massive influx of African Americans into Detroit.

However, this influx of African Americans into the previously predominantly white population caused conflicts and racial tension. Historian Thomas Sugrue notes that, during this initial influx, “white Detroiters actively, and oftentimes violently, resisted the inclusion of black Detroiters in their neighborhoods” [9]. This desire for segregation, built off of racist theory and concerns over property values, would do nothing but exacerbate racial conflicts and increase the issues that African Americans faced as they sought equal housing and consumption of goods via their white-competitive salaries as a result of Ford’s wage policy.

In fact, real estate textbooks of the time stated that “Property values have been greatly depreciated by having a single colored family settle on a street formerly occupied exclusively by white residents” [10]. Further, these books explicitly made the correlation between Black residents and blight whereby they “implicitly pose white supremacist violence as means to protect threatened property values and thereby prevent blight” [11]. This desire for segregated housing was not merely a cultural phenomenon but one that was becoming increasingly ingrained in pseudo-economics and property values.

Although segregated housing was the initial conflict, from 1945 to 1975, there would be many more battles waged by black and white Detroiters for control of the city, and with increasing violence, riots, and deaths [12]. Black Detroiters were already residentially segregated due to redlining and restrictive covenants on housing, and white families, fearful of increased conflicts and declining property values, and, as a response to the economic shift away from automobile manufacturing, were incentivized to leave the city.

This radical segregation and white flight was not solely caused by local Detroit policy but was instead enabled and exacerbated by federal policies and priorities. 

In 1939, the federal government redlined Detroit. The government-sponsored Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) created residential maps to display the riskiness/security of mortgages for different neighborhoods in the city––the presence of colored people would render a neighborhood risky for lenders, and the neighborhood would be outlined in red [13]. These residential maps would make it difficult for African Americans to get favorable loans and would lower the property values in any mixed-race neighborhood. This federal codification of harm to property values would further harm racial relations, as white homeowners feared for the settlement of any African Americans in their neighborhood and the ensuing damage to their home’s value.

The other segment in the story of federally-enforced housing segregation is the policies of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). The HOLC successfully gave Americans low mortgage rates, longer loan terms, and low-interest terms. In response to the HOLC’s success and high demand, the FHA was launched to extend homeownership via these government resources to as many white Americans as possible [14]. The FHA covered the insurance on mortgage loan defaults, essentially removing all risk from banks––causing a massive boom in housing affordability and the expansion of the American suburban dream.

However, only white Americans could benefit from the subsidization and incentives provided by the FHA. In particular, federal segregation was codified in the FHA’s published “Underwriting Manual,” which was a guide to deciding which loans would be approved and receive federal insurance and benefits. The Underwriting Manual explicitly stated that "incompatible racial groups should not be permitted to live in the same communities” [15]––which essentially barred African Americans from getting loans, as they would be highly risky for banks because of the government’s refusal to insure them. The justification behind this policy was the following statement: “if a neighborhood is to retain stability, it is necessary that properties shall continue to be occupied by the same social and racial classes. A change in social or racial occupancy generally contributes to instability and a decline in values” [16].

To act on that policy of maintaining social and racial class in housing zones, one method recommended by the FHA’s Underwriting Manual was the strategic placement of highways to separate African Americans from white neighborhoods. The interstate highway system started in 1956, and with it, white workers no longer needed to work close to the downtown and urban core. With this increased accessibility via the road networks, “the modest suburban shopping centers of the early 20th century exploded into massive malls,” [17] allowing individuals to fully live in consumer bubbles outside the city and only enter the city when required.

Downtown Detroit is an example of how highways were used to try to break up African-American neighborhoods and promote ease of commute to the suburbs. One particular example is the Black Bottom neighborhood in downtown Detroit, which became the home of a massive interchange and was evenly divided by Interstate 375. Furthermore, the entire northern half of the city is separated from the suburbs via the Eight Mile Road––not only insulating the suburbs from the city but effectively separating white from Black.

In Detroit, segregationist policy was not just at a whole-city level but taken one step more granular––a physical wall, named the Birwood Wall, was erected to divide a white neighborhood from a neighboring Black one under the guise of maintaining property values in the white neighborhood. Due to redlining, the original Eight Mile neighborhood was predominantly housing African American, low-income individuals. The area was considered “blighted,” and after World War 2, developers viewed the area as a potential spot for redevelopment as a white neighborhood. However, the FHA viewed the development as high-risk due to its proximity and history of African-American residence and was unwilling to approve loans [18]. The only way the FHA compromised to approve federal financing was after the developer agreed to construct a six-foot-high wall on the property line that separated the black and white neighborhoods––which still stands today [19]. Rather than construct entire walls, developers soon prioritized less established developments (and redevelopments!) outside city limits, where they had more control over the racial population.

In summary, the federal government provided financing and incentives for all-white neighborhoods, which were especially possible in the relatively empty suburbs of the time, via the policies implemented by the FHA's Underwriting Manual and HOLC's redlining.

This push towards suburbanization for white Americans was not merely a federal financial incentive but a broader cultural shift. Indeed, in response to the FHA’s prioritization of white suburbs, the time period of Detroit’s white flight was home to the propagation of cultural ideals that linked homeownership and the idea of the “American Dream” in the suburbs with the middle class and the white race. Pervasive iconography of white, middle-class domesticity, such as the broad range of commercials, flyers, and advertisements published, was circulated widely and constantly reinforced mid-20th-century notions of white identity as equality to home ownership and citizenship [20]. 

Furthermore, this would eventually lead to the concept of whiteness as property––the idea that the identity of whiteness can be viewed as a set of property that is preserved and provides tangible benefits. In relationship to Detroit, Professor Cheryl Harris (the author of Whiteness as Property) discusses a court case that determined that there was “no evidence that suburban school districts had directly caused or substantially contributed to the segregation of Detroit's school system,” effectively rejecting the proposal of an interdistrict, metropolitan desegregation plan [21]. The education system in the suburbs is significantly better than the schools in Detroit proper, and with this outcome, the courts decided to preserve that hierarchy. This hierarchy, in turn, incentivizes increased flight of families to the suburbs in search of better education for their children. Further, this lawsuit shows how whiteness is preserved as the suburbs are further strengthened, at the cost of the urban core, and the segregating city lines of Detroit proper versus the greater Detroit metropolitan area grow stronger.

The economic consequences of white flight have hurt the city tremendously. As the middle class left for the suburbs, the tax base shrank, causing deficits in the education system, hospitals, and various public services. In 2013, Detroit filed for bankruptcy––the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history [22].

As a result of the massive exodus, property values in predominantly Black neighborhoods also crashed, with eventual high vacancy rates and claims of “blight,” which would further decrease property values and, in turn, the property taxes the government receives. However, despite the crashing urban core, the suburbs saw increased investment and rising property values.

Detroit’s white flight was not an isolated phenomenon but was a consequence of deliberate federal policies that exacerbated racial tensions and then incentivized and subsidized white suburban development while neglecting the Black urban center. Only with effective inclusive urban planning that desegregates the city of Detroit and provides equal opportunity can the city hope to revitalize and save itself from its year-over-year decline in population.

Word Count: 2179

1. Quoted in World Population Review, “Detroit, Michigan Population.”
2. Taken from U.S. 1950 Census:  https://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/41557421v3p2ch02.pdf 
3. Old Reford History, “Riots and Renaissance.”
4. Othering & Belonging Institute, “City Snapshot: Detroit.”
5. Created via ArcGIS using digital U.S. Census Data and GIS Shapefiles.
6. African American Migration Experience: The Second Great Migration.
7. Fore, “A Mighty Long Way: How Black People Moved in & Out and Around Detroit - New Detroit.”
8. Fore, “A Mighty Long Way: How Black People Moved in & Out and Around Detroit - New Detroit.”
9. Quoted in Sugrue, “The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit.”
10. Quoted in Herscher, “Black and Blight,” 297.
11. Herscher, “Black and Blight,” 297.
12. Thompson, “Rethinking the Politics of White Flight in the Postwar City,” 168.
13. Herscher, “Black and Blight,” 301.
14. JoCoMuseum, “The FHA and Suburbia.” 
15. Quoted in Gross, “A ‘Forgotten History’ of How the U.S. Government Segregated America.”
16. Quoted in JoCoMuseum, “The FHA and Suburbia.” 
17. Quoted in Lang et al., “The Six Suburban Eras of the United States,” 68.
18. Einhorn & Lewis, “Detroit segregation wall still stands, a stark reminder of racial divisions.”
19. Sugrue, “The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit.”
20. Casey‐Leininger, “Little White Houses: How the Postwar Home Constructed Race in America,” 12.
21. Quoted in Harris, “Whiteness as Property,” 1756.
22. Coleman, “On This Day in 2013: The City of Detroit Files for Bankruptcy.”

1. Skyrise Cities, https://skyrisecities.com/news/2016/08/cityscape-journey-through-shrinking-city-detroit.22170
2. 1950 and 1980 U.S. Census of Population, scanned from Princeton University’s Stokes Library.
3. Created via ArcGIS using digital U.S. Census Data and GIS Shapefiles.
4. Henry Ford Official Site, https://www.thehenryford.org/explore/blog/african-american-workers-at-ford-motor-company.
5. Brittanica, https://www.britannica.com/event/Detroit-Riot-of-1967.
6. History, https://www.history.com/topics/1960s/1967-detroit-riots.
7. Wikimedia, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Home_Owners'_Loan_Corporation's_Map_of_Detroit_-_1939.jpg.
8. Williamstown Theatre Festival, https://wtfestival.org/between-the-lines-detroit-1949/.
9. Detroit Historical Society Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/DetroitHistoricalSociety/posts/on-march-22-1954-northland-mall-opened-in-southfield-it-was-designed-by-austrian/10165974547745510/?locale=hi_IN.
10. Detroit Historical Society, https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2020/07/05/detroit-freeways-racism-segregation-white-flight/5366081002/.
11. Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/16/how-railroads-highways-and-other-man-made-lines-racially-divide-americas-cities/.
12. NBC, https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/detroit-segregation-wall/.
13. NBC, https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/detroit-segregation-wall/.
14. Duke Repository, https://repository.duke.edu/dc/adaccess/T2463.
15. Substack, https://avatars.substack.com/p/8-self-expression-spirituality-and.
16. Daily Bulletin, https://www.dailybulletin.com/2018/05/25/segregations-legacy-persists-across-southern-california-real-estate-report-shows.