White Flight

I also got an email confirmation of my book order today, so it seems that I did it right. I haven't bought a lot of stuff online but, when I did, I seem to remember that it took more steps to complete the order. When I would make the final click, the order form would appear and they would ask me if it was correct. Then I would make another final click and they would congratulate me on successfully placing my order. This time, when I clicked "place order", the whole page just disappeared, and I couldn't find a way to get it back. That must be the way they do it on Amazon, so now I know.

I know that you were never enamored of suburban life but, for a lot of people in those days, it was the American Dream. City life was fine for newly arrived immigrants, but the next generation generally aspired to a nice home in the suburbs with a yard and a two car garage. There might be an interim move to a nicer neighborhood in the city, but the suburbs were where most people wanted to eventually end up. By the time we came along, the newly arrived immigrants weren't coming from Europe anymore, they were coming from the South and, later, from Mexico. First they crowded into cheap apartments, just like our ancestors had done, but many of them wanted a home of their own, and eventually got it. The exodus to the suburbs picked up speed after the Blacks started infiltrating the White neighborhoods, but I think it would have happened eventually regardless.

Detroit was the same only different. For some reason, the Mexicans never showed up in significant numbers. In a couple of decades, Detroit went from 85% White to 85% Black, and that's where it stayed. It was the riot of 1968 that was the tipping point. Most of the White people who wanted to remain in the city changed their mind after that. It wasn't just racism either, the city had become too dangerous and nobody wanted to raise kids there anymore. One thing that Chicago and Detroit seem to have in common is that they have managed to preserve their downtown neighborhoods, at least so far.

Small towns like Cheboygan have had their share of urban sprawl too, and race had nothing to do with it. Before I moved here, about half the population of Cheboygan County lived in the city limits, about 5,000 people. Shortly after I arrived, the population of the county had risen to 15,000, but Cheboygan still had only 5,000. I think the county peaked at 30,000 some time in the 70s, and went back down to 26,000 by the 2010 census, but the city of Cheboygan never got much above 5,000. It's not that Cheboygan is full either, there's lots of undeveloped property in the city limits, but I can't remember the last time I saw a new house under construction in the city. There has been significant effort to rehab old buildings, but most new construction happens outside of town.