The Economic History & Urban Geography of Race Relations in Detroit: Movement of Capital, White Resistance and Immobility of Black Labor

Detroit's intertwined history of deindustrialization and racial segregation is often explored separately. In The Origins of the Urban Crises (1996), Thomas Sugrue examines post-WWII job losses and housing discrimination without elucidating why and how the city came to experience the abrupt flight of capital in that period. Conversely, Murray and Schwartz's Wrecked (2019) details the catalysts for Detroit's deindustrialization but neglects its impact on the African-American community. This paper aims to bridge these perspectives by utilizing various secondary sources and archival evidence to analyze how concurrent discrimination and economic decline have maintained the persistent segregation between Detroit and its suburbs.