Detroit and the Auto Industry have been in decline for 40+ years (Interesting article from 1961)

[Herman Munster]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,873465,00.html

If ever a city stood as a symbol of the dynamic U.S. economy, it was Detroit. It was not pretty. It was, in fact, a combination of the grey and the garish: its downtown area was a warren of dingy, twisting streets; the used-car lots along Livernois Avenue raised an aurora of neon. But Detroit cared less about how it looked than about what it did—and it did plenty. In two world wars, it served as an arsenal of democracy. In the auto boom after World War II. Detroit put the U.S. on wheels as it had never been before. Prosperity seemed bound to go on forever—but it didn't, and Detroit is now in trouble.

Detroit's decline has been going on for a long while. Auto production soared to an alltime peak in 1955—but there were already worrisome signs. In the face of growing foreign and domestic competition, auto companies merged, or quit, or moved out of town to get closer to markets. Automation began replacing workers in the plants that remained. In the past seven years, Chrysler, the city's biggest employer, has dropped from 130,000 to 50,000 workers. At the depth of the 1958 recession, when Detroit really began reeling. 20% of the city's work force was unemployed. Even today, the figure is an estimated 10%, and the U.S. Government lists Detroit as an area of "substantial and persistent unemployment.''

On the Dole. During Detroit's decay, much of the city's middle class has packed up and headed for the suburbs. Since 1950, Detroit has had a population drop of 197,568 from 1,849,568 to 1,652,000, while the suburbs, counting arrivals from elsewhere, have jumped by more than 1,000,000. Detroit's population decrease would have been even more drastic but for an influx of white and Negro workers from the South. In the past ten years, Detroit's Negro population has risen from 300,506 to 482,000.

With little education or training, Detroit's new arrivals have had to scramble for any job they could get. But in their desperation to find work at any wage, they have crowded out thousands of the city's longtime residents; more than 70% of the 61,692 persons on relief have lived in Detroit since before 1950. Children under three get an allowance of $5.50 a week for food, an active adult gets $10.60. The city also pays for fuel, rent and clothing. Counting city and state funds, welfare payments in Detroit this year will total around $28 million, compared with $8,197,000 in 1952.

[me b zola]

1. What do you find interesting about this article?

[Zookeeper]

2. As a native Detroiter....

I find it very interesting. I didn't think Detroit's decline started quite that early. But, I will bookmark the article and do a little research.

Thanks for posting the link.

[izzie]

3. Once the world started making cars it had to go down.

Or it had to have some one to work the same as they did. After WW1 and WW2 the world market was open. We may have wanted it to be our personal market but things never work out as one plans.I guess our auto corp. just kept making cars for this 5 percent of the worlds pop. where as the rest of the auto corp. saw the rest of the 95 percent and hit it right what they wanted.

[fujiyama]

4. I think what's different now

is that bust is finally hitting the suburbs. The entire state is reeling.

First the automakers were hit in the 70s and the city of Detroit pretty much collapsed. Now the suppliers which are all based in suburbs are feeling the effects (like Delphi for example). The suburbs which were a result of the white flight now have McMansions sitting around losing value in the worst housing market in the nation.

The effects are global this time as well. GM is now poised to finally lose its place as the dominant global automaker. And Ford has given up even its second place in terms of domestic market share.

But the question remains, why did the automakers sell out the US worker by moving factories abroad? Sure, some decisions were inevitable on a global scale, like closing some factories in order to compete with more efficient Japanese companies.

However, unlike the Asian companies, they did not try to instill a sense of loyalty with those that remained. What incentive was there to be loyal, when the company could lay you off without a seconds' notice to move your company to a cheaper market?

And of course, let's not forget the industry's terrible lack of foresight and and short term thinking - "Gee, SUVs are selling well. Gas prices will never go up even though it's a finite resource...Let's not bother with fuel efficient cars".

[Sherman A1]

6. Agreed

I too believe the problems were visible early and the only solution was to take the easy path and cut labor, wages, benefits, etc and crank out a continuous series of over hyped bad designs. True leadership with long term vision was lacking, there was no plan for where we want our industry including our people to be in the next 50 years beyond a few concept cars that looked like the fell out of the Jetson's Cartoon Series. It was always about shorter and shorter term profits, weaseling around government regulation and the now as opposed to the future. There was never any vision.

[Clark2008]

7. Mostly I agree, except for the part about loyalty.

Maybe it's a Southern thing, but people here are very loyal to brands. My family, for instance, wouldn't dream of owning anything but a Ford. My neighbors now are all also Ford families. My former neighbors were just American-car owners, no matter the brand. My other neighbors were a Buick family. Very few people in my union, working-class neighborhood own anything but American cars (it was drilled into our heads, even through the lean years of the late 70s and early 80s when American cars were gas-guzzling tanks).

Now, if auto makers - all of them - would start making attractive hybrids or hybrids that didn't look like SUVs. I really don't like any of them. I think the Prius is ugly and all the other choices are pretty much SUV-looking. Give me a hybrid sports or family car, please. :)

[fujiyama]

10. Regarding the last comment

Toyota has a Camry Hybrid as well as a Corolla Hybrid. Honda has the Civic and Accord in Hybrid models as well I believe.

Ford had one decent midsize in the Taurus and they simply killed it. That's where a large difference lies. Ford had a good car, and simply put no money into it, eventually killing it. Toyota has the Camry and has constantly improved upon it year after year (often using previous Lexus models' features in them).

Oh if you want a fuel efficient sports car, you might find the Tesla Motors Roadster interesting.

Unfortunately, its price tag is pretty steep as well (at around $90k+), but its amazing because they have already sold out preorders on the model. It has a Lotus body to it. Here's the website.

http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php?js_enabled=1

[longship]

5. Nearly a million people have left my home town--Detroit.

The official 2005 population in Detroit was 886,671

It started in the early sixties. While JFK was speaking so eloquently about civil rights, and while LBJ signed the most sweeping civil rights legislation in our history into law, a few blacks would move into a previously all-white neighborhood and all the whites would panic and move out. My family watched in horror as it happened in our neighborhood, near Southfield and Schoolcraft in NW Detroit. By the late 1970's my family, and our next door neighbors were the only whites left in the neighborhood.

The results of this white-flight have been devastating. It goes much more than the loss of hundreds of thousands of people, all whom helped make Detroit a wonderful place to live. This is about the hundreds of thousands of Detroiters who haven't given up on the city, who have stayed there for whatever reason.

Yes, my parents left the city, too. But the reason they left is because my father, after 35 years working for the same tool and die company lost his job. His bosses sold the family-owned business to a corporation. The new company wanted *our own people* in as management, so my father had to go. He lost every penny of his promised pension. It destroyed him. That's when my parents left Detroit, when there was nothing left there for them. My father retired early, my mother did, too. They picked up and moved to the country, Newaygo County, the least populated county in the L.P.

Both my parents are gone--some years ago. But at times like this, I miss them terribly. I still have that house in the country in Newaygo County. Next month I'm going to go back and live there. I'll undoubtedly go to Detroit, too, because I have so damned many good memories there. But none of my friends live there any more. So few people do. I'll stay in the country, buy a telescope to watch the night sky, read, and bring broadband to rural Michigan.

[Broadslidin]

8. White Cloud; Newaygo Cty Seat - 22% subsisting below the poverty line.

White Cloud Population: 1420
Median Reported Income: $12,369
Neither a Wal-Mart nor a Mc Do Do show up within the area's
satellite image.

Broadband?
As an outsider "city slicker",
best not to act to 'Uppity'.... :hide:

[longship]

9. The Walmart is in Big Rapids

A few years ago they converted it to a Super Walmart.

Half the grocers in town closed their doors.
Many of the shops in Big Rapids' downtown closed, too.

BTW, it's "too uppity" not "to uppity".
:yoiks:

[fujiyama]

11. I don't know where the other poster acted "uppity"

but your stats prove the point that the entire state is facing some very tough times.

[Kenergy]

12. Thank you for that candid post

I used to live in Livonia and I was thinking about moving back.

[Zookeeper]

13. I watched that happen on the east side of Detroit....

and distinctly remember looking down Jefferson Avenue and seeing smoke during the '67 riots.

I have wonderful childhood memories of Detroit, like picnics at Belle Isle, the Thanksgiving Day Parade, going to the old Hudson's department store downtown....even haunting the Detroit Art Institute as a teen.

But, it was pretty clear by the late '70's that Detroit, and by extension, Michigan, was in serious economic trouble. (I moved to northern California because it felt like there was no reason to stay in MI besides nostalgia.)

Good luck with your move. Let us know how it goes!