What Doomed Detroit by Kevin D. Williamson

Author:Kevin D. Williamson [Williamson, Kevin D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-59403-747-4
Publisher: Encounter Books
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

The model of government at the federal, state, and local level that emerged in the late 1950s and 1960s was built on a defective foundation: the belief that the postwar economic boom would last forever

And it has run out spectacularly in Detroit.

The textbook example of postwar shortsightedness was the debacle of Cavanagh’s attempt to implement the Model Cities program. The Johnson administration was generous with the money, but Detroit was divided over what to do with it. Local business interests – back when Detroit had local business interests – wanted the money to be invested in the downtown commercial district, creating an urban anchor for the city but giving little thought to the question of who, exactly, would inhabit the skyscrapers they envisioned at a time when the city’s population was in steep decline. The Detroit left – the community organizers, if you will – wanted the money to be invested in housing projects and other affordable-housing developments, along with the usual array of antipoverty programs, the unstated purpose of which is to provide comfortable employment for the politically connected. As in other Model Cities such as Newark, Camden, and Atlanta, Detroit’s efforts to shore up its city center went up in flames with the riots of the 1960s.

The 1967 Detroit race riot was the largest civil disturbance since the Civil War and the New York City draft riots. Some 2,000 buildings were burned to the ground; 7,200 people were arrested; 1,189 injured; and 43 left dead – killed by snipers, beaten by mobs, immolated alive in burning buildings. Firefighters were gunned down while trying to put out the flames of the city. Cavanagh, a Democrat, hesitated to seek assistance from Governor George Romney, while President Johnson hesitated to deploy troops at the request of Governor Romney, who was expected to be his opponent in the 1968 presidential election. As the politics were sorted out, the city burned. Eventually, Johnson invoked the Insurrection Act of 1807 and deployed 4,700 troops from the 82nd Airborne, while Romney sent in the National Guard. Newsweek described the aftermath:

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