The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit

Among Sugrue’s major theses is the argument that race and class intersected in mid-20th-century Detroit, fueling a housing crisis that profoundly impacted the city. Two forces drove the Black housing shortage: the construction industry and real-estate practices. Detroit’s construction sector could not keep up with the demand for housing, particularly during the war, which deprived the industry of workers and materials. The war’s end marked an uptick in residential construction, but demand still outweighed supply, forcing Detroiters into crowded, substandard housing. Black residents felt the problem most acutely. Systemic racism in the labor market led to high unemployment rates in Black communities. Those who found work were largely relegated to low-paying, insecure, unskilled jobs. Consequently, Black people were unable to compete with white people in Detroit’s tight housing market. What connects all these trends is racism—expressed both explicitly and implicitly by white residents, stoked by politicians and industry leaders looking to divide and conquer an exploited working class, and enforced by lenders and real estate agents looking to maximize profits.

Sugrue explains in detail how real-estate practices confined most Black people to low-income urban enclaves. Many white neighborhoods enacted racial covenants to preserve their racial homogeneity. Other types of covenants, such as banning boarders and home division, were equally effective at keeping Black people out of white areas.