Detroit: 1930 to 1960
During the Great Depression population growth slows; Detroit grows at half the rate of the nation during the decade (3.5% and 7.3% respectively) while the region’s population is still grew by about 10%. During the 1940s, Detroit’s population gains approximately match population national increase, but fall of state growth (13.9%, 14.5%, 21.2%) and is less than half of the regional growth rate (28.0%). The future trend of urban decentralization begins in 1950, with Detroit City losing 10% of its population while the region’s population grew by 28%.
1930: The Detroit Windsor tunnel was completed, the first indergrond tunnel to connect two nations.
1935: The United Auto Workers is formed
1939: Black automobile workers average wages were higher than the average wage for all workers in all manufacturing industries, and were nearly twice the wages for all black manufacturing workers
1945 - year of peak transit ridership in Detroit, “with 492 million rides on streetcars, coaches, and commuter rail.”
1956 - The last PCC cars were removed from Detroit and sent to Mexico City
Even as late as 1937 the Wilbur Wright trade school, an elite Detroit trade school, continued its policy of refusing admission to black students due to the view that blacks would never be accepted as skilled workers. Into the 1940s, social and work issues began to pile up in 1941 as a series of street fights occurred between Polish and black youth. Despite the employment of ten thousand black workers by Ford, “a far larger number and and representation than any other firm,” furthermore interviews from the time suggest that racism was primarily from white-native born Americans as "white and colored get along in the foundry all right, white foundry workers are foreigners." The presence of "Lily white" automobile factories led to "numerous incidents, walkouts, and protests" when first integrated, “Early in June 1943, 25,000 Packard plant workers, who produced engines for bombers and PT boats, stopped work in protest of the promotion of three blacks. A handful of agitators whipped up animosity against the promotions.” The introduction of “Arsenal of Democracy” induced federal oversight of production due for war effort led to an increase in infrastructure and manufacturing plants as auto industry manufacturing retooled for war effort.
The fist "modern" city plan was formulated in 1949 and passed in 1951 as a response to the increased usage of cars, primarily focusing on finding industrial sites with space for parking while creating a distinct separation of residential and commercial land uses. These goals led the city to pass a plan that prioritized the complete and simultaneous leveling of residential areas that were located in future industrial areas over a phased redevelopment process and the construction of thoroughfares, surface streets, and expressways or highways to connect to new developments and to provide a buffer between neighborhoods and land uses.
The industrial section of the master plans notes that the new commercial centers drew on a customer base that was spread across entire neighborhoods; areas further than could be walked. These “new” commercial centers often required a car to visit and as a result required as much as twice as much area for parking than previously provisioned. The master plan encourages this sprawl inducing development by setting goals that prioritized future development based on parking availability over compact development. The result was commercial development occurring either in new developments or through "redevelopment" or the razing of prior buildings, specifically housing that was in industrial zoned areas.
The primary focus of the housing element is on how to separate residential houses by type and locate them away from pollutants which include both industrial discharge and "too many houses and people crowded into them." This view encouraged single family housing and was directly in direct contradiction with the public housing policy. Affordable housing projects minimums were established at least two hundred units in size while integrating into the neighborhoods.
While the commercial and housing policies established by this master plan assisted in the fragmentation of the city and hollowing of the urban center, the education policy attempted to pull the city together while maintaining the overall theme of separation by function established in 1919. Elementary schools which served a single “neighborhood” were placed in the interior of neighborhoods. An interior location, it was believed, would assist in pulling neighborhoods together, furthermore elementary school children would be safer from cars as they walked to schools which were at most a mile away.
Middle and high schools were to be placed along "transit lines and thoroughfares" due to the larger, more dispersed student population that they served. Interestingly, the only time public transportation is listed prior to cars as the mode of transportation is within the education element, potentially reflecting the car-centric development priorities of the city council.
1930: The Detroit Windsor tunnel was completed, the first indergrond tunnel to connect two nations.
1935: The United Auto Workers is formed
1939: Black automobile workers average wages were higher than the average wage for all workers in all manufacturing industries, and were nearly twice the wages for all black manufacturing workers
1945 - year of peak transit ridership in Detroit, “with 492 million rides on streetcars, coaches, and commuter rail.”
1956 - The last PCC cars were removed from Detroit and sent to Mexico City
Even as late as 1937 the Wilbur Wright trade school, an elite Detroit trade school, continued its policy of refusing admission to black students due to the view that blacks would never be accepted as skilled workers. Into the 1940s, social and work issues began to pile up in 1941 as a series of street fights occurred between Polish and black youth. Despite the employment of ten thousand black workers by Ford, “a far larger number and and representation than any other firm,” furthermore interviews from the time suggest that racism was primarily from white-native born Americans as "white and colored get along in the foundry all right, white foundry workers are foreigners." The presence of "Lily white" automobile factories led to "numerous incidents, walkouts, and protests" when first integrated, “Early in June 1943, 25,000 Packard plant workers, who produced engines for bombers and PT boats, stopped work in protest of the promotion of three blacks. A handful of agitators whipped up animosity against the promotions.” The introduction of “Arsenal of Democracy” induced federal oversight of production due for war effort led to an increase in infrastructure and manufacturing plants as auto industry manufacturing retooled for war effort.
The fist "modern" city plan was formulated in 1949 and passed in 1951 as a response to the increased usage of cars, primarily focusing on finding industrial sites with space for parking while creating a distinct separation of residential and commercial land uses. These goals led the city to pass a plan that prioritized the complete and simultaneous leveling of residential areas that were located in future industrial areas over a phased redevelopment process and the construction of thoroughfares, surface streets, and expressways or highways to connect to new developments and to provide a buffer between neighborhoods and land uses.
The industrial section of the master plans notes that the new commercial centers drew on a customer base that was spread across entire neighborhoods; areas further than could be walked. These “new” commercial centers often required a car to visit and as a result required as much as twice as much area for parking than previously provisioned. The master plan encourages this sprawl inducing development by setting goals that prioritized future development based on parking availability over compact development. The result was commercial development occurring either in new developments or through "redevelopment" or the razing of prior buildings, specifically housing that was in industrial zoned areas.
The primary focus of the housing element is on how to separate residential houses by type and locate them away from pollutants which include both industrial discharge and "too many houses and people crowded into them." This view encouraged single family housing and was directly in direct contradiction with the public housing policy. Affordable housing projects minimums were established at least two hundred units in size while integrating into the neighborhoods.
While the commercial and housing policies established by this master plan assisted in the fragmentation of the city and hollowing of the urban center, the education policy attempted to pull the city together while maintaining the overall theme of separation by function established in 1919. Elementary schools which served a single “neighborhood” were placed in the interior of neighborhoods. An interior location, it was believed, would assist in pulling neighborhoods together, furthermore elementary school children would be safer from cars as they walked to schools which were at most a mile away.
Middle and high schools were to be placed along "transit lines and thoroughfares" due to the larger, more dispersed student population that they served. Interestingly, the only time public transportation is listed prior to cars as the mode of transportation is within the education element, potentially reflecting the car-centric development priorities of the city council.