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Originally Posted by yuriandrade
Why auto industry hurts Detroit?
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The early-mid-century boom in Detroit manufacturing, fueled by WW2, and the U.S. emerging superpower status, turned the flatlands around Detroit into vast corridors for giant sprawling, low-slung industry (places like Mound Road, which the map shows with a subway corridor, which is nonsense).
It also empowered the middle class to buy SFH and vehicles, when the rest of the developed world was in apartments and riding trains. When Detroit became the "Arsenal of Democracy" it's suburban fate was likely sealed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by yuriandrade
Stuttgart, Munich, Turin, São Paulo's "ABC" are all better than the national average. Detroit could have thrived even being the auto capital.
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Detroit did thrive. It was one of the wealthiest places on earth until a generation ago. It's still pretty wealthy compared to most of the developed world.
Quote:
Originally Posted by yuriandrade
In fact, those crazy urban declines are an US phenomenon and the "normal" would be always growing metro areas.
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Detroit has flat population. It basically has had the same population for 40 years, not unlike most industrial centers in the Western world. Northern England, the Ruhr, the U.S. Rustbelt, haven't grown.
Stuttgart and Sao Paulo are very different cities. Stuttgart was in ruins and surrounded by steep hills; it could never sprawl. SP was relatively poor and undeveloped back then and never an auto-focused city.
The U.S., probably alongside Germany, is the only place in the developed world where you don't have to live in one or two places for the highest available standard of living. You can move to Orlando or Phoenix and have the same opportunities. You can't do that in France or Japan.