Quote:
Originally Posted by iheartthed
Nobody is arguing that Detroit had the urban culture of Chicago. Chicago was the second largest U.S. city in the prewar era by a comfortable margin. Detroit did have an urban culture, though. And Detroit was the fourth largest "urban" city by a comfortable margin. It was much more dense than L.A. in 1950 whether you look at it from the city (4,201 vs 13,306 ppsm) or urban area (4,587 vs 6,510 ppsm). And while half of Detroit lived in single family housing, the other half didn't. Half of Detroit in 1950 was nearly 1 million people, which was more people than any other city besides NYC, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles.
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A good proportion of the multi-family was duplex houses in neighborhoods of homes.
Detroit had 387,823 households living in single or duplexes, and 134,602 households living in 3-unit or larger apartments.
Homes at the time had a median household size of between 3 and 4, while apartments averaged between 2 and 3 (average estimate from reviewing Census data). Using a similar household size for duplex homes as well as single-family (based on my experience growing up in a duplex), this works out to
about 85% of Detroit population living in singles or duplexes. Using similar calculations,
Chicago was just under 50% in single or duplexes.