In my perfect world, every student in public schools would be taught the major points of this book. Sugrue clearly explains, through statistical and anecdotal evidence, how Detroit went from the "arsenal of Democracy" during World War II to the rundown, segregated and impoverished city it has become. This book is fascinating.
Sugrue focuses on housing, employment and, to a lesser extent, politics, to illustrate the disintegration of Detroit. African-Americans flocked to the city around the time of WWII for the chance to escape Jim Crow discrimination and find employment in Detroit's thriving industries, primarily auto and defense. But they were met with myriad problems -- white employers either refused to hire them, barred them from apprenticeships and/or relegated them to unskilled jobs that left them barely able to scrape by and always afraid of a layoff; and white residents used violence, remarkably cohesive organization and political power to keep them out of the "white" neighborhoods as long as possible, fleeing to the suburbs when the barriers were finally broken.
The result? A city of poor blacks largely ignored by whites in power; industrial departure for suburbs or other regions; unfair stereotypes of African-Americans; insufficient tax money from the impoverished residents to support reasonable public schools or needed improvements. Surgrue breaks the book into three parts that are easy to follow and leave the reader fully understanding what went wrong in Detroit in the postwar years. If I have a criticism it's that the thematic approach occasionally makes it tough to remember the chronology of the major events. But it's hardly a concern. A thematic writing was necessary in this case.
I will also note that in the Kindle version of this book, the photographs are terrible. They look like somebody photocopied them from the book, spilled black ink on them, and then scanned them for publication. And it's disappointing because I think some of those photos would have been useful. But I can't detract from the rating of the book since photo reproduction isn't the author' fault.
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