Abstract
By way of his new book, Driving Detroit, George Galster demonstrates his distinction as one of the best urban scholars in the United States. He writes magnificently and with great passion about the past and present trials and tribulations of Greater Detroit, a story he tells with the exquisite use of poetry, lyrics from great songs, personal history, and wonderful academic scholarship. Well written and refreshing, the book reads with excitement and depth. Galster, revealing his deep connection to Detroit, even includes a poem of his own to capture his love for the city.
In Driving Detroit, the reader finds out that the people of Detroit are the ultimate victims of the city’s renowned massive decline. They are the ones left to cope with psychological stress, feelings of inferiority, and in many cases, extreme poverty as their hometown suffers physically, economically, and socially. The perpetrators include corporate capitalists who fought vehemently against Detroit’s organized working class, as well as local politicians and the automobile companies who exploited racial fears and division among the labor classes in the region. At the core of Driving Detroit is Galster’s examination of the truly negative impacts of racial discrimination, class polarization, and unfettered capitalism on one of America’s greatest cities.
In the beginning of the book, Galster explores the intricate ties between the region’s physical and social separation. He takes the reader on a drive (of course) through the built landscape and to the symbolic features of Greater Detroit, moving from the strip joints on Eight Mile to The Fist of the Joe Louis Memorial to Diego Rivera’s painting of Detroit industry embedded on the museum walls. From this tour, it becomes obvious just how well Galster knows this city. He highlights the manner in which the various sights, icons, and places visited signify deep divisions endemic in the region. There is no one common, universal landmark that completely represents the people of Greater Detroit. It is a divided region.
Early on, the suburbs overshadowed the city as the land-intensive automobile manufacturing industry dispersed and spread outwards across the region. The suburbs became, of course, dominated by whites, and the city became mostly poor and black. Residential racial segregation and tension has wracked the Detriot region, and Galster provides incredible stories of violence against blacks who tried to move into white neighborhoods, going back as far as the 1920s. Like Thomas Sugrue in his classic book, The Origins of the Urban Crisis, Galster demonstrates the deep, extended structural roots of racial inequality in Greater Detroit. Over decades, local governments throughout the region used planning practices, harassment, tacit support of police brutality, and fear to separate whites and blacks in ways that pandered to the white suburban homeowner. Galster offers many instances of police harassment, intimidation, and outright brutality against the black population of Detroit.
One of the more fascinating pieces of Driving Detroit is Galster’s exploration of steps taken by the Big Three, and in particular the Ford Motor Company, to purposely divide the labor force along racial lines. Whites were paid more than blacks and blacks were enticed to break labor strikes, all intentional tactics to drive a wedge through the working class. Corporate influence on local government encouraged further racial division, this time outside the workplace and in the neighborhoods and cities across the region. Similar to that in other metropolitan regions, federal redlining policies, and restrictive covenants and dodgy real estate practices contributed to Greater Detroit’s intense problem of racial segregation. But Galster believes the “turf wars” in Detroit where particularly vehement. He suggests a few reasons but one that is a recurring theme in Driving Detriot concerns the way capitalists “intentionally stoked white racial prejudices” (164). Galster notes how racial rupture is an enduring legacy of the “successive imbibing on all things automotive” (86).
The intersection between race and class is carefully examined throughout Driving Detroit. Galster states that in Detroit there were times when race trumped labor union solidarity. During the postwar period, union leaders within the United Automobile Workers (UAW) may have opposed racism intellectually but did not necessarily do so in practice, partly because racism was so prevalent among the union rank and file. Galster accuses union leaders of neglecting to promote black leadership or end racial discrimination, particularly discrimination against black female workers. The labor movement split at times and black workers, particularly during the 1960s, self-organized. Forming their own Radical Union Movements, black workers sought to air their grievances against both capitalists and the UAW’s lack of responsiveness to black concerns. Galster suggests whites won a larger piece of the “proletariat pie.”
Despite working-class racial divisions, however, labor unions did make great gains for many, helping workers obtain access to a reasonable standard of living, most especially in the Fordist period of middle-class expansion. Unions fought hard for these gains. Galster’s lively examination of enduring battles between capital and labor and capital’s violent reactions to union organizing are important reminders of the inherent tensions within capitalist production. In current times, capital certainly has maintained the upper hand, aided in the process by recent bankruptcy court cases forcing union workers in the automobile industry to take massive pay cuts.
Urban decline is obviously at the heart of Driving Detroit. One cannot write a book on Detroit and ignore the destruction and abandonment of the city. Galster’s description of Detroit’s desertion is particularly astute and heart wrenching. Excessive overbuilding on the metropolitan fringe is, he suggests, part of the problem. Galster tells us that by 2010, over six hundred thousand more dwellings were built in the Greater Detroit region than there were households to fill them. This oversupply of housing on a continuous outward march has, Galster argues, led to demolition, abandonment, and devaluation of many older houses in the urban core. But it is not just housing. Commerce and industry have also moved, leaving behind massive, derelict production facilities, empty downtown offices, and a toxic landscape.
Stuck in private hands, Galster believes abandoned houses and office buildings in Detroit will remain that way. Worse still, many of these properties have indelibly fallen into the hands of land sharks. Galster paints a picture of the truly ugly side of Detroit’s property market: “skippers” who scam those desperate to sell older homes; “strippers” who prowl Detroit neighborhoods to loot and strip abandoned homes for profit; “rippers” who pose as property-owners and illegally rent to unsuspecting tenants; and “burners” who set fire to homes either for fun or for insurance profit. The result is a difficult situation for any form of redevelopment and, with massive losses in property tax revenue the fiscally stressed city is left in a bind.
Many Midwest cities have experienced decline and fiscal difficulties. Is Detroit any different? Galster answers this question, suggesting that in Detroit the decline is most extreme, in part because of its total reliance on one industry, automobile production. When the automobile industry fails, Detroit suffers. Galster also suggests the extreme political fragmentation of the Greater Detroit region is an added challenge. This has enabled a continuous outward expansion into the suburbs, and a subsequent abandonment of the city. Continuous suburban secession has encouraged deep racial divisions, segregating white suburbs from an overwhelmingly black city.
So, what is the solution for Detroit? For Galster, the solution is certainly not in the latest urban farming craze. He dismisses this as unrealistic and far too expensive to clean up a toxic urban landscape for agriculture. He suggests a smart growth approach of managing suburbanization in ways that encourage urban redevelopment in places where there exists underutilized infrastructure. Galster also acknowledges the overwhelming difficulties Detroit needs to overcome to once again become a viable city. There are no easy solutions.
Overall, Driving Detroit is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the effects of industrial capitalism, racism, and divided politics on the American city. This book begs the reader to remember the enduring damage that discrimination, capitalist insatiability, and working-class divisions have had on the sustainability of our cities. This reviewer highly recommends that people of all kinds read this book.