The Basics.
As one could assume, the fall of Detroit began as auto industries relocated out of Detroit. When the recession came around people stopping buying new American cars and opted to purchase cheaper imported automobiles. As families could no longer find work they retreated to the suburbs. Quite honestly, the downfall of Detroit was only another peak for most surrounding cities. However, with decreasing population and high crime rates some suburbs are felt the sting of Detroit's downfall. If we take a look at the graphs below, we can see Detroit's debt alongside their borrowing spree (which takes a turn for the worse as they file for bankruptcy.) To see a different side of things, let's take a look at some of the neighborhoods Detroit's falling caused...
The Suburbs.
By taking one of Detroits' worst suburbs we can easily see a whole other side of the effects of downtown. Pontiac a city north of Detroit has outstandingly high crime rates, the odds of becoming a victim being 1 in 80. Need a better visual? The odds of becoming a victim in Naperville is 1 in 1,149. With the city crumbling behind them, Pontiac dropped over 10% of it's population from 2000 to 2010. It falls third after Detroit and Flint, without going into too much depth they all share similar problems. City officials are unable to proactively take problems into their hands due to the sheer lack of money cities obtain. Flint's population contains 40% whom live in poverty, Pontiac 31%, and Detroit 32%. With poverty rates so prevalent in cities of decline, there's a lack of spending out of needs and bills. Much unlike many upper class suburbs where spending is much more frequent. Pontiac now holds just over 59,000 citizens, but that number is only dropping. A large part of individuals and families moving were caused by housing prices dropping lower than mortgages and upkeep as shown in the right graph below. Feel free to read more about this on our housing page. As mentioned before, some suburbs became elite, heavily racially inclined making it harder for struggling families to recover from poor neighborhoods. Looking at the photo depicted below, (Red being areas whites are predominate and blue being black) it becomes visually aware that almost every surrounding suburb is primarily caucasian. This leaves little to no room for those looking for finically stabling jobs to be held by those who may have derived from areas such as Pontiac.
Metro Detroit.
Today's inner city Detroit has countless flaws, high crime rates, poverty and above all is broke. After only recently coming out from bankruptcy in December of 2014 it still has a significant amount of work left. Below on the left displays a video from late 2016 of the city. In little to no time the driver comes across gang activity, crime and poor upkeep. For a city once overwhelmed with well paying jobs and high amounts of citizens it's an interesting side to see. Although it seems obvious, crime like this did not just stem from one place, little by little the city succumbed to the atrocities of its occupants. This directly began the streamline of crimes stemming out into the suburbs. It should be noted however that due to the poor justice system within Detroit, serious repercussions occur repetitively. This explains why although crime is much more prevalent within the city rather than its surrounding towns, it will remain so high directly because of this. Not every suburb can preach the same however, take for example the video on the right. Houses are vandalized, burned, ransacked and destroyed for either enjoyment or looting purposes. It brings on the thought of how could a suburb like this compare to one such as Grosse Pointe Park?
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Before we dive into the the rebirth of Detroit and its suburbs, Grosse Pointe Park a frequent name throughout this page, should be properly introduced. Grosse Pointe Park is just under a twenty minute drive from Detroit. Being so close to the inner city, one would assume that, by default, it would fall to the high levels of crime and bankruptcy. Surprisingly however, just as the border built to separate the two, many other factors separate them as well. Grosse Pointe Park holds just above 11,000 occupants compared to Detroit's (about) 680,000. So, what outside population makes them so different?