Sugrue and Solnit: comparative analysis

Sociology-Race

Sugrue and Solnit

As the industrial powerhouse that the United States was in the years of and immediately following World War II began to slow down in the 1960s, many of America's urban areas saw the economic base eroding with the disappearance of industry as well as what one would call "white flight"- the huge migration of Caucasians from the cities when the economies of the cities fell into decline. The by-product of all of these occurrences was the fight to prevent racial integration of the suburban areas into which the Caucasians "fled," and a swift decline of American cities. An example of this is Detroit; once known as the automotive capital of the world, the city has been devastated over the years because of economic and racial issues. Such urban crises are the focus of this research, during which the works of two pivotal writers on the topic will be studied and cited in an effort to better understand the topic itself.

Historical Consequences of the Urban Crisis brief history lesson of the socioeconomic history of Detroit is the best way to begin to understand the historical consequences of the urban crisis as well as what the crisis is in and of itself. During and immediately after World War II, the machine shops and automobile plants of Detroit, and as a result the other supporting businesses, were flush with cash because of the need for implements of war, during the war years of course, and the need for consumer vehicles after the war, as men and women returning from battle settled back into a state of normalcy and went on a buying spree in unprecedented quantities. Because of the proliferation of available jobs, Caucasians and African-Americans alike were able to gain employment; true, the racial inequality was existent, but it was not as acute or damaging at this point as it would eventually become (Sugrue, 1996). With the passage of time, however, the gap between the races was intensified by the power of capitalism, and the African-Americans of Detroit, as well as elsewhere, soon saw the economic and social gap between them and their racial opposites increasing to their disadvantage. At the same time, northern cities saw huge numbers of African-Americans migrating to them from the agricultural south, as jobs in that industry began to dwindle with the introduction of more automated farming methods, reducing the need for farm workers. Therefore, large numbers of people were coming to the cities, seeking jobs that did not exist. Once the manufacturing jobs began to slip away from cities in the north, such as Detroit, the disenfranchised African-Americans were left behind in the cities by huge numbers of fleeing Caucasians, and the decay of the cities began (Sugrue, 1996).

African-Americans, in Detroit and beyond, made efforts to revitalize their slumping communities, but the racial inequality they faced made the effort all the more challenging. For example, there is evidence to suggest that federal housing funds, such as FHA and others, were denied of economically challenged African-Americans because the areas where they were seeking to purchase housing were made all but worthless when available properties, abandoned by the afore mentioned "white flight," depressed real estate prices to the point where financing was difficult, being seen by lenders as risky at best (Solnit, 2007). Therefore, what is seen, despite efforts to reverse the tailspin, was a rapid decline of the urban areas like Detroit, with plentiful jobs and housing giving way to poverty, homelessness and crime-enter the urban crisis.

Political Consequences of the Urban Crisis

Politically, cities like Detroit did not take the urban crisis in stride; rather, it ignited positive and negative activism within cities across the northern U.S.. For Detroit, urban crisis led to a mobilization of African-American politicians, many of whom were elected to pivotal leadership positions and worked to effect positive change in the city. Conversely, there were more militant movements afoot, who chose to try to make a difference through violence, coercion, and less than honorable means (Sugrue, 2006). On the federal level, the war on poverty resulted in countless millions of dollars being pumped into Detroit and elsewhere to battle the urban crisis, and some of the most sweeping civil right legislation in the history of the nation was passed in the 1960s to try to give African-Americans some semblance of equality in the face of widespread discrimination and the inability to gain any footing socially, economically, or politically.