Download or read book Corporate Power and Urban Crisis in Detroit written by Lynda Ann Ewen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-08 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lynda Ann Ewen offers the first thoroughgoing Marxist-Leninist analysis, based on primary research, of the structure and dynamics of class relations and corporate power in a major U.S. metropolitan area. She contends that Detroit's urban crisis is not a temporary aberration in a good system run amuck, but the logical result of years of social planning and the use of human and natural resources for the benefit of the few. In general, analyses of the problems in American society have endorsed capitalist ideals and assumptions. Nevertheless, these analyses and the reform measures that have accompanied them in the past decade have done little to alleviate the plight of the cities. To determine what action should now be taken, Professor Ewen focuses on the development of class conflict in the United States and its manifestations in Detroit. The author analyzes kinship and also ownership and control of the major firms in Detroit. The contradictions that led to the urban crisis, she concludes, are inherent in the fundamental nature of a class society, in which the social means of production are privately owned by an elite group who must produce profits at all costs. She argues that to protect its interests and prepare the way for socialism, the working class requires a grasp of its historical and present opposition to the ruling class. Originally published in 1978. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Download or read book The Origins of the Urban Crisis written by Thomas J. Sugrue and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-27 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The reasons behind Detroit’s persistent racialized poverty after World War II Once America's "arsenal of democracy," Detroit is now the symbol of the American urban crisis. In this reappraisal of America’s racial and economic inequalities, Thomas Sugrue asks why Detroit and other industrial cities have become the sites of persistent racialized poverty. He challenges the conventional wisdom that urban decline is the product of the social programs and racial fissures of the 1960s. Weaving together the history of workplaces, unions, civil rights groups, political organizations, and real estate agencies, Sugrue finds the roots of today’s urban poverty in a hidden history of racial violence, discrimination, and deindustrialization that reshaped the American urban landscape after World War II. This Princeton Classics edition includes a new preface by Sugrue, discussing the lasting impact of the postwar transformation on urban America and the chronic issues leading to Detroit’s bankruptcy.
Download or read book Green Power written by George S. Odiorne and published by Ardent Media. This book was released on 1969 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Urban Crisis written by Joseph L. Hudson and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Living Detroit written by Brandon M. Ward and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-11-03 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Living Detroit, Brandon M. Ward argues that environmentalism in postwar Detroit responded to anxieties over the urban crisis, deindustrialization, and the fate of the city. Tying the diverse stories of environmental activism and politics together is the shared assumption environmental activism could improve their quality of life. Detroit, Michigan, was once the capital of industrial prosperity and the beacon of the American Dream. It has since endured decades of deindustrialization, population loss, and physical decay – in short, it has become the poster child for the urban crisis. This is not a place in which one would expect to discover a history of vibrant expressions of environmentalism; however, in the post-World War II era, while suburban, middle-class homeowners organized into a potent force to protect the natural settings of their communities, in the working-class industrial cities and in the inner city, Detroiters were equally driven by the impulse to conserve their neighborhoods and create a more livable city, pushing back against the forces of deindustrialization and urban crisis. Living Detroit juxtaposes two vibrant and growing fields of American history which often talk past each other: environmentalism and the urban crisis. By putting the two subjects into conversation, we gain a richer understanding of the development of environmental activism and politics after World War II and its relationship to the crisis of America’s cities. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in environmental, urban, and labor history.
Download or read book Political Power and the Urban Crisis written by Alan Shank and published by Boston : Holbrook Press. This book was released on 1976 with total page 606 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Origins Of The Urban Crisis written by and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once America's "arsenal of democracy," Detroit over the last fifty years has become the symbol of the American urban crisis. In this reappraisal of racial and economic inequality in modern America, Thomas Sugrue explains how Detroit and many other once prosperous industrial cities have become the sites of persistent racialized poverty. He challenges the conventional wisdom that urban decline is the product of the social programs and racial fissures of the 1960s. Probing beneath the veneer of 1950s prosperity and social consensus, Sugrue traces the rise of a new ghetto, solidified by changes in the urban economy and labor market and by racial and class segregation. In this provocative revision of postwar American history, Sugrue finds cities already fiercely divided by race and devastated by the exodus of industries. He focuses on urban neighborhoods, where white working-class homeowners mobilized to prevent integration as blacks tried to move out of the crumbling and overcrowded inner city. Weaving together the history of workplaces, unions, civil rights groups, political organizations, and real estate agencies, Sugrue finds the roots of today's urban poverty in a hidden history of racial violence, discrimination, and deindustrialization that reshaped the American urban landscape after World War II. In a new preface, Sugrue discusses the ongoing legacies of the postwar transformation of urban America and engages recent scholars who have joined in the reassessment of postwar urban, political, social, and African American history.
Download or read book The Fifty Year Rebellion written by Scott Kurashige and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2017-07-04 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "On July 23, 1967, the eyes of the nation fixed on Detroit as thousands took to the streets to vent their frustrations with white racism, police brutality, and vanishing job prospects in the place that gave rise to the American Dream. For mainstream observers, the "riot" brought about the ruin of a once-great city, and then in 2013, the city's municipal bankruptcy served as a bailout that paved the way for Detroit to finally be rebuilt. Challenging this prevailing view, Scott Kurashige portrays the past half-century as a long "rebellion" the underlying tensions of which continue to haunt the city and the U.S. nation-state. Michigan's scandal-ridden emergency-management regime represents the most concerted effort to quell this rebellion by disenfranchising the majority black citizenry and neutralizing the power of unions. The corporate architects of Detroit's restructuring have championed the creation of a "business-friendly" city where billionaire developers are subsidized to privatize and gentrify downtown while working-class residents are squeezed out by rampant housing evictions, school closures, water shutoffs, toxic pollution, and militarized policing. From the grassroots, however, Detroit has emerged as an international model for survival, resistance, and solidarity through the creation of urban farms, freedom schools, and self-governing communities. A quintessential American story of tragedy and hope, The Fifty-Year Rebellion forces us to look in the mirror and ask, Are we succumbing to authoritarian plutocracy, or can we create a new society rooted in social justice and participatory democracy?"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book The Origins of the Urban Crisis written by Thomas J. Sugrue and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2005-08-21 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once America's "arsenal of democracy," Detroit over the last fifty years has become the symbol of the American urban crisis. In this reappraisal of racial and economic inequality in modern America, Thomas Sugrue explains how Detroit and many other once prosperous industrial cities have become the sites of persistent racialized poverty. He challenges the conventional wisdom that urban decline is the product of the social programs and racial fissures of the 1960s. Probing beneath the veneer of 1950s prosperity and social consensus, Sugrue traces the rise of a new ghetto, solidified by changes in the urban economy and labor market and by racial and class segregation. In this provocative revision of postwar American history, Sugrue finds cities already fiercely divided by race and devastated by the exodus of industries. He focuses on urban neighborhoods, where white working-class homeowners mobilized to prevent integration as blacks tried to move out of the crumbling and overcrowded inner city. Weaving together the history of workplaces, unions, civil rights groups, political organizations, and real estate agencies, Sugrue finds the roots of today's urban poverty in a hidden history of racial violence, discrimination, and deindustrialization that reshaped the American urban landscape after World War II. In a new preface, Sugrue discusses the ongoing legacies of the postwar transformation of urban America and engages recent scholars who have joined in the reassessment of postwar urban, political, social, and African American history.
Download or read book Dream City written by Conrad Kickert and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-06-11 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tracing two centuries of rise, fall, and rebirth in the heart of downtown Detroit. Downtown Detroit is in the midst of an astonishing rebirth. Its sidewalks have become a dreamland for an aspiring creative class, filled with shoppers, office workers, and restaurant-goers. Cranes dot the skyline, replacing the wrecking balls seen there only a few years ago. But venture a few blocks in any direction and this liveliness gives way to urban blight, a nightmare cityscape of crumbling concrete, barbed wire, and debris. In Dream City, urban designer Conrad Kickert examines the paradoxes of Detroit's landscape of extremes, arguing that the current reinvention of downtown is the expression of two centuries of Detroiters' conflicting hopes and dreams. Kickert demonstrates the materialization of these dreams with a series of detailed original morphological maps that trace downtown's rise, fall, and rebirth. Kickert writes that downtown Detroit has always been different from other neighborhoods; it grew faster than other parts of the city, and it declined differently, forced to reinvent itself again and again. Downtown has been in constant battle with its own offspring—the automobile and the suburbs the automobile enabled—and modernized itself though parking attrition and land consolidation. Dream City is populated by a varied cast of downtown power players, from a 1920s parking lot baron to the pizza tycoon family and mortgage billionaire who control downtown's fate today. Even the most renowned planners and designers have consistently yielded to those with power, land, and finances to shape downtown. Kickert thus finds rhyme and rhythm in downtown's contemporary cacophony. Kickert argues that Detroit's case is extreme but not unique; many other American cities have seen a similar decline—and many others may see a similar revitalization.
Download or read book Reinventing Detroit written by Michael Peter Smith and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-28 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Introduction-Reinventing Detroit: Urban Decline and the Politics of Possibility -- Part I: Theoretical and Epistemological Frameworks -- 1 Rereading Detroit: Toward a Polanyian Methodology -- 2 The Spontaneous Sociology of Detroit's Hyper-Crisis -- 3 Learning from Detroit: How Research on a Declining City Enriches Urban Studies -- Part II: How We Got Here: Cities, the State, and Markets -- 4 National Urban Policy and the Fate of Detroit -- 5 The Normalization of Market Fundamentalism in Detroit: The Case of Land Abandonment -- Part III: Where We Are: Fiscal Crisis, Local Democracy, and Neoliberal Austerity -- 6 Detroit in Bankruptcy -- 7 Democracy vs. Efficiency in Detroit -- 8 Ritual and Redistribution in De-democratized Detroit -- 9 Framing Detroit -- Part IV: Where We Are Going: Pitfalls and Possibilities -- 10 Detroit Prospects: Why Recovery is Elusive -- 11 A Community Wealth-Building Vision for Detroit-and Beyond -- 12 The Cooperative City: New Visions for Urban Futures -- 13 Which Way, "Detroit"? -- About the Contributors -- Index
Download or read book Toxic Debt written by Josiah Rector and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2022-02-17 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the mid-nineteenth until the mid-twentieth century, environmentally unregulated industrial capitalism produced outsized environmental risks for poor and working-class Detroiters, made all the worse for African Americans by housing and job discrimination. Then as the auto industry abandoned Detroit, the banking and real estate industries turned those risks into disasters with predatory loans to African American homebuyers, and to an increasingly indebted city government. Following years of cuts in welfare assistance to poor families and a devastating subprime mortgage meltdown, the state of Michigan used municipal debt to justify suspending democracy in majority-Black cities. In Detroit and Flint, austerity policies imposed under emergency financial management deprived hundreds of thousands of people of clean water, with lethal consequences that most recently exacerbated the spread of COVID-19. Toxic Debt is not only a book about racism, capitalism, and the making of these environmental disasters. It is also a history of Detroit's environmental justice movement, which emerged from over a century of battles over public health in the city and involved radical auto workers, ecofeminists, and working-class women fighting for clean water. Linking the histories of urban political economy, the environment, and social movements, Toxic Debt lucidly narrates the story of debt, environmental disaster, and resistance in Detroit.
Download or read book The Unreal Estate Guide to Detroit written by Andrew Herscher and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2012-11-14 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intense attention has been paid to Detroit as a site of urban crisis. This crisis, however, has not only yielded the massive devaluation of real estate that has so often been noted; it has also yielded an explosive production of seemingly valueless urban property that has facilitated the imagination and practice of alternative urbanisms. The first sustained study of Detroit’s alternative urban cultures, The Unreal Estate Guide to Detroit initiates a new focus on Detroit as a site not only of urban crisis but also of urban possibility. The Guide documents art and curatorial practices, community and guerilla gardens, urban farming and forestry, cultural platforms, living archives, evangelical missions, temporary public spaces, intentional communities, furtive monuments, outsider architecture, and other work made possible by the ready availability of urban space in Detroit. The Guide poses these spaces as “unreal estate”: urban territory that has slipped through the free- market economy and entered other regimes of value, other contexts of meaning, and other systems of use. The appropriation of this territory in Detroit, the Guide suggests, offers new perspectives on what a city is and can be, especially in a time of urban crisis.
Download or read book Power and Crisis in the City written by Roger Friedland and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Sustaining Hand written by Bryan D. Jones and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: this book seeks to uncover the linkages between business leaders (motivated by profit) and political decision makers (motivated by electoral gain) by examining the responses of public officials in three Michigan "auto cities"--Detroit, Flint, and Pontiac--to plant-location choices made by General Motors and Chrysler. Throughout, the authors focus on three issues--the relationship between the local industrial economy and the local political system, the structure of urban politics, and the degree of independence of political decision makers in urban affairs.
Download or read book A Crisis of People written by New Detroit Committee and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Experts of Crisis Exclusive Planning Discourse and Community Resistance in Detroit written by Lisa Katarina Berglund and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Often regarded as exceptional in its degree of economic decline, conditions of abandonment and population loss, the city of Detroit has garnered the attention of media, academics and planning professionals. Significant to this draw is the role of development 'expertise' and its hopes of mitigating the challenges of the city through largely economically motivated development strategies. A number of scholars contributing to the literature on political economy have related expertise to neoliberal agendas, contending that the status of experts relies on the economic rationalization of policy decisions. In the context of Detroit, I will explore the role of development experts (practitioners formally trained in development professions) at a time of economic restructuring, and the discursive practices employed to reproduce their status as experts; I will also explore the communities that resist such expertise. I used discourse analysis to compare the values and rationale for redevelopment strategies as presented in four discourses: 1) urban planning academia; 2) media; 3) development professionals and 4) community groups. More specifically, I aim to understand how the narratives within differently situated development discourses frame problems and prescribe solutions and how such narratives relate to worsening disparity across race and class groups. In addition to exploring the narratives that give leverage to the economically motivated and state sanctioned development strategies that dominate planning discourse, this work focuses on the resistance to these strategies through political mobilization of community groups. These explorations focus primarily on two disparate development landscapes: Downtown-Midtown, an area of burgeoning, state-subsidized private investment, and the 48217 zip code, an area with some of the worst air quality in the state, undergoing state supported expansion of noxious industries. From these explorations, I conclude that discourse on the development of Downtown-Midtown is largely framed by a handful of private investors deemed development experts, and the philanthropic foundation community that bolsters their interests. These individuals and institutions utilize their expertise in branding campaigns that simultaneously attract a wealthier class of young professionals to the city's core, while at the same time pathologize outer neighborhoods of the city not seen as fit for investment. Building from the racialized historic context of the 48217 zip code, community groups were found to mirror the strategies of neoliberal expertise in their efforts to stop the expansion of industry, to no avail. This points to a more complex power dynamic between experts and supposed non-experts than the literature currently offers. Finally, this dissertation considers the ways that both the media and academic planning discourse potentially denigrate lower income and communities of color in the city, treating them as outside of the goals of dominant development discourse.
