Detroit Divided

"Detroit Divided is a deeply researched and compelling book. Farley, Danziger, and Holzer have written, far and away, the best informed and most rigorous survey of race and economics in an American metropolis today. Their book is an essential starting point for those who want to understand and solve the problem of persistent racial inequality in America. Everyone concerned with Detroit and the fate of our troubled cities should read and re-read Detroit Divided."
- THOMAS J. SUGRUE, Bicentennial Class of 1940 Professor of History and Sociology, University of Pennsylvania

"Detroit is the quintessential "divided city" -racially, economically, politically, geographically. The distinguished interdisciplinary trio of Farley, Danziger, and Holzer parlay a unique, rich database into an unparalleled analysis of the nature and causes of these divides in Detroit Divided. The authors' unprecedented ability to link demand- and supply-sides of the metropolitan labor market provides exciting new insights into race-class divisions."
- GEORGE GALSTER, Clarence Hilberry Professor of Urban Affairs, Wayne State University

Unskilled workers once flocked to Detroit, attracted by manufacturing jobs paying union wages, but the passing of Detroit's manufacturing heyday has left many of those workers stranded. Manufacturing continues to employ high-skilled workers, and new work can be found in suburban service jobs, but the urban plants that used to employ legions of unskilled men are a thing of the past.

The authors explain why white auto workers adjusted to these new conditions more easily than blacks. Taking advantage of better access to education and suburban home loans, white men migrated into skilled jobs on the city's outskirts, while blacks faced the twin barriers of higher skill demands and hostile suburban neighborhoods.

Some blacks have prospered despite this racial divide: a black elite has emerged, and the shift in the city toward municipal and service jobs has allowed black women to approach parity of earnings with white women. But Detroit remains polarized racially, economically, and geographically to a degree seen in few other American cities.

REYNOLDS FARLEY is Otis Dudley Duncan Collegiate Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan, and research scientist at the Population Studies Center of the Institute for Social Research

SHELDON DANZIGER is Henry J. Meyer Collegiate Professor of Social Work and Public Policy and director of the Center on Poverty Risk and Mental Health at the University of Michigan.

HARRY J. HOLZER is professor of economics at Michigan State University

A Volume in the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality