In 2019, the average white family in the United States had a net worth of $187,300 while the average Black family had a net worth of $14,100 (U.S. Census, 2022). For most American families, homeownership has been the primary means of wealth accumulation. Recent events highlight how structural racism continues to permeate the institutions, social services, and governance structures of this country. 

This project is an effort to explain how multiple layers of federal and local housing policy have contributed to this race-based wealth disparity and exacerbated the scale of residential segregation in Detroit and the surrounding municipalities. Racism and the exploitation of housing policies by opportunistic developers, the real estate industry, decision-makers, and the financial/banking system have directly and indirectly shaped the patterns of race, poverty, and opportunity in Detroit and southeast Michigan. 

This research uses a new framework for understanding chronic decline in Detroit. It focuses attention on the production of decline and highlights how predatory policies could be either exclusionary or inclusionary in approach. While the racist undertones of the federal efforts to construct public housing and urban highways after World War II are well known, the outcomes of complex public-private programs and partnerships and the contribution of the financial services industry are less understood. In this project, we will demonstrate the cumulative impacts of the regional landscape and establish that the manipulation of housing has contributed to the lower net worth of Black families.

Credit for the The Detroit Evolution Animation–Soundtrack: “Pruitt Igoe” from Koyaanisqatsi, directed by Godfrey Reggio and composed by Philip Glass.