60 pages • 2 hours read
Thomas J. SugrueThe Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1996A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
How did patterns and practices in Detroit’s housing market reinforce racial and class inequities? Cite both explicit, now-outlawed forms of racial discrimination and implicit, facially race-neutral forms.
Discuss Detroit’s housing crisis alongside public-housing policies and debates. How did politicians and industry leaders shape these debates to the detriment of Black residents?
What interrelated factors spurred Detroit’s decline in the postwar years? Point to racial, social, and economic dynamics from the 1940s to the 1960s.
Why were unskilled Black workers particularly vulnerable to deindustrialization? Why did they falter while many white workers and skilled workers were better equipped to survive deindustrialization?
How did civic leaders and unions respond to industrial automation and decentralization? Why were their efforts inadequate?
Discuss the UAW’s racialized response to deindustrialization. In a broader sense, what responsibilities do unions have in contributing to Detroit’s urban crisis?
Citing specific examples, address the fluctuating relationship between unions and civil-rights organizations. When did they cooperate? When were they at odds?
What is white flight? How did the phenomenon exacerbate racial tensions in Detroit?
How did working- and middle-class white homeowners respond to Black pioneers at a neighborhood, city, and national level?
Discuss Detroit’s 2013 bankruptcy in relation to the mid-20th-century urban crisis and the 2009 global recession. Do you think the bankruptcy could have been avoided had government officials, industry leaders, and white Detroiters made different choices around race and deindustrialization?
