During the late 20th century, a popular headline used to describe Detroit was that it was the “Most Violent City in America.” Detroit’s episodic history of violence and crime has generated a deep-rooted negative image because of the resulting urban decline. As a result of the urban decline that its history of crime has caused, Detroit is constantly thought of as a damaged city and unable to move forward as anything more than what the headlines write it as.
In order to understand why Detroit is so damaged by its headlines, the history behind the claims must be explored. In 1971 Detroit, 62 people were killed in January, a record in the city until February when 64 were killed, bringing the total to 126. Furthermore, the total number of homicides was 550 in 1970, a rise compared to the 150 a decade before (“Detroit Reports” 1971). Lieutenant Herschel Bostick stated how “‘there's reason to be afraid,’ and how he would carry a gun even if he were not a policeman”(“Detroit Reports” 1971). With the city’s own law enforcement advising its citizens to carry weapons in fear of their safety shows to anyone reading about Detroit the danger present there, this clearly created an image of fear and violence. In fact, William Cahalan, the county prosecutor stated how, “when anyone mentions the city's murder rate he's likely to talk about death from heart trouble tied to overeating, from cancer tied to smoking, or from auto accidents as of more serious concern,” demonstrating how the image of violence and Detroit was a common perpetuation and that it even he required him to direct the conversation towards other topics (“Detroit Reports” 1971).
Now that the history of the affirmations surrounding Detroit have been established, the causes of the increasing crime rates must be found. One cause can be the increased racial tensions resulting betweens whites and the increasing black population through the mid-20th century. As larger groups of African-Americans, moved north to Michigan for better job opportunities, whites felt threatened by this since the “economic competition for positions in the automobile and other plants fueled cultural and social stereotypes that would eventually and often violently transform the city” (Hillstrom 170). An example of this can be seen with the 1967 Detroit race riots. During the 1967 riots, “whites…were emotionally steeped in a sense of racial vulnerability, interpolating themselves as potential victims of an all out race war” (“Riots and Race” 54). Neighborhoods would attack houses of black residents but despite the attacks, no “white police officer or sergeant would arrest a white man for destroying a black man’s property” (Farley et al., 152-153). This lack of authority encouraged whites to be racially violent against black Detroiters. If a white man knew that the police would not arrest him from attacking a black man’s house, what was to stop him from doing it again and continuing the crime? Furthermore, as more white mobs would attack black families, this would have lead to neighborhood deterioration from the property damage black families would face, yet this deterioration would be blamed on black families by whites for even being there in the first place. *As once white neighborhoods declined in upkeep and increased in minority presence, “white flight”, a term to describe white people moving to the suburbs as the influx of minorities increased in urban cities, began to occur (KDK Week 10). Realtors began to practice blockbusting by encouraging white families move “before it’s too late”, purchasing their property at a cheap price to resell it for greater profit to blacks (Farley et al., 153-154).* More than 180,000 white people fled to the suburbs in the 1950s due to increasing of blacks, spreading false fears about African-Americans and scaring more whites to the suburbs leading to an increase in neighborhood deterioration and causing the second cause of the crime increase: urban and industry decline (Eisinger 3).
As stated, the neighborhoods declined in appearance and more blacks moved in because of exclusion in other neighborhoods, increasing neighborhood crowding. As time went on, whites fled the urban areas in fear of blacks and by 1990, “suburban whites were dismayed by the physical degeneration of what was once their city…terrified by its racial composition, and the physical threat they associate with blacks… (Chafets 1990). This terror marginalized the black group as creators of urban decline because of their inability to maintain their once upkept neighborhoods when in reality, they were unable to do this because they could not afford the rent to stay, leading families to be kicked out and housing maintenance to fall short as relators tried to sell as houses faster than they were being sold, creating the overcrowding issue as well! Additionally, the diminishing auto industry lead to increases in unemployment. During the postwar period, there were 338,000 manufacturing jobs available, that number dropping to 153,00 in 1977 (Eisinger 5). The connection of unemployment to Detroit’s crime problem is that it made illegal crime more appealing for people struggling. *Just like in Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times film when one of the former factory workers tried robbing a store out of desperation, people in Detroit began doing the same (Chaplin 1936).* The selling of illegal drugs, specifically crack, became popular in the 1980s as a way to make money by a ring called Chamber Brothers Organization. Members of the organization would make up to $100 a day selling crack, yet they “were not using drugs as consumers but as capitalists” (Wilkerson 1988). This indicates that illegal drug trading was a means to make money for people and with the increase in unemployment, the correlation of an increasing drug trade to meet ends makes sense. As opportunities to earn money through legal means decrease as a result of urban decline, desperation increases, creating an increase in illegal crime.
There is a stereotypical image of abandoned buildings, broken windows and graffitied walls in the media when thinking of Detroit. In an interview with PBS, Aaron Foley, editor of BLAC Detroit, was asked how newcomers could not offend people when talking about Detroit and he answered by saying, “When people come to Detroit they assumes that nobody lives here…” (Doerer 2016). This tells us that there is a stereotype of abandonment that surrounds Detroit from outsiders. Furthermore, Foley describes the reason why people perceive it empty, stating how people think, “‘This house has been abandoned because the mayor took all the money, or this neighborhood is like this because of the auto industry,’ and those are only small pieces to a very large and complicated puzzle”, supporting the claim made earlier that the urban decline has created a generalized image of Detroit (Doerer 2016)! However, despite the stereotype of Detroit in the US, outside of the US the image of the city is less marginalizing. In 2013 the executive director of the Michigan Municipal League in Sweden at a conference asked individuals what they thought of when they heard Detroit and the first thing they said was techno music because it started in the city (AlHajal 2013). Because the automotive industry in Detroit was the main contributor to the US’s car industry in the early 1900’s-1950s, it makes sense as to why the country Detroit is in is more critical of its failures than other countries because Detroit is unable to live up to its former glory. In the city that was home to the Big Three automotive companies, had the fastest climbing population growth in the country's history, going from 285,000 to 1.3 million in 20 years, and caused the number of cars produced in from 1900-1910 to go from 4,000 to 187,000 as well as car registrations to increase from 8,000 to 469,000, its logical that the city that once was a main contributor to the US economic would be harshly criticized by its country for not being what it once was (Hillstorm 4). The inability for Detroit to live up to the high standard it created for itself in the past is the reason for the media pigeonholing Detroit by calling it the “America’s first failed city” because no matter how successful the city will become, it will never compare to what it once was.
One thing to wonder in the question of Detroit being pigeonholed by certain terminology by the media is, why just Detroit? New York and LA have a notorious history with crime yet what makes Detroit stand out? To compare violence related crime, in 1991, the New York Times reported a total of 2,245 people killed in 1990 in NYC (James 1991). In 1990, the LAPD reported 983 homicides (“Analysis of Violent” 5). In the same year, there were 582 reported murders in Detroit (Baldas 2017). Despite NYC and LA having higher rates of homicide than Detroit, they have never been branded as the “Most Violent City in America” so what gives them the exception? One reason is the difference in aid each city received. In response to the high levels of violence in LA, the city started gang injunctions, restraining orders against groups to prohibit them from certain activities. Per district with gang injunctions, there was a 9% drop in total crime (Ridgeway 2018). In New York, the 35% increase in the police force and the 25% decline in unemployment and increases in minimum wage that encouraged people to live more honest lifestyles contributed to the 73% drop in homicide (Francis NBER). Detroit however, had nothing like this. Unemployment continued to increase through the years so people weren’t encouraged to live honest lives like in New York. Furthermore, Detroit had no suburban support to help with its problems like LA. People’s opinions on Detroit were described as, ''any sentiment to help Detroiters? Not at all…There is no feeling of pity for Detroit in the suburbs''(Chafets 1990). Finally, the last reason why New York and Los Angeles crime history has been forgiven is because of city appeal: NYC and LA have been forgiven because they contribute valuablably to the economy. In 2016, New York tourism reportedly brought in $8.2 billion in taxes ("Economic Impact” 4). In 2017 LA reported $781. 6 million after taxes (2017 Annual Report 5) and in 2015, Detroit reported $32.3 million after taxes, making it clear that Detroit contributes less than the other two cities, making it less of a priority to maintain (“Detroit’s Workforce” 2015). The irony of Detroit tourism is that the “abandoned city” stereotype is an image that attracts tourists, specifically photographers to the city because, “decay is no longer rated as sore spot of the city, but as pleasurable to the eye” (Tegtmeyer 465). People come to Detroit to see urban decay as an art to promote tourism, showing that even when tourism is occurring, it is still happening according to the past.
While of the claims of Detroit’s violence have been of the past, one must explore whether these claims are still true. In September 2017, the FBI reported to seeing a 15.7% increase in violence crimes from the year before (Baldas 2017). However, Detroit did not have the highest murder rate since it only had 45 per 100,000 while St. Louis had 60 per 100,000 (Anderson 2018). Chief Craig of the Detroit Police Department stated that crimes were either misreported or double reported, leading to the inconsistencies. The number of homicides was reported to be 303 in 2016 and 212 in 2017, lower than 550 reported in 1970 and 582 in 1990 (Anderson 2018). It is clear that there is a downward trend. Furthermore, one difference now is the support from the community to tackle the issue of violence, an example being the police department investing $9 million in a new crime statistics system called Superion (Baldas 2017). So while violence in Detroit still exists, in comparison to the past, it is not the violent city it once was and has a stronger communal support to tackle its issues, indicating is that Detroit is making progress and deserves to be allowed to be looked past as the “Most Violent City”.
In order for Detroit to be seen as more than what is stereotyped of it, the media must focus on the positive changes they have. One positive change to focus on in the city in the increasing in small businesses and entrepreneurship. For example, brothers David and Jonathan Merritt built a coffee shop called Narrow Way and Cafe Shop, and quickly it has increased in popularity. The brothers were awarded a grant at the Motor City Match and were one of the small businesses to be awarded grants from MCM (“Joe Biden” 2017). MCM was founded has helped over 60 businesses with startup costs, its eventual success helping to fill the vacant lots in Detroit real estate that were abandoned in the mid 20th century, showing that Detroit is striving towards positive changes to fix their past mistakes (“Joe Biden” 2017). Another example can be see with the impact the large Arab population in Detroit has made to the economy of the city (“History Of Arab” 2018). In 2005, an average of 120,517 Arab Americans contributed to 4.0-5.7% of the employment of the manufacturing, accommodation and healthcare services, making an a cumulative average of $6.5 billion in salary earnings (Smith 73). Additionally, individuals in the community have made positive contributions like Iraqi American Sam Simon who started working in a Detroit gas station and, as of 2010, own Atlas Oil Company, generating over $1 billion in sales (Smith 73). More of Detroit’s small business adventures and immigration contribution to success needs to be in focus in order to break the stereotype it lives in.
Detroit has had a tumultuous history of violence and crime to dub it the “Most Violent City in America,” yet Detroit’s crime is decreasing and they have made positives changes to distance themselves from this title is stronger than ever. The city has its struggles like any other city yet has made strives towards change to move in a positive direction. It’s the media’s job now to stop perpetuating a false image of the past and focus on the future.