The origins of the urban crisis : race and inequality in postwar Detroit / Thomas J. Sugrue.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [281]-364) and index.

List of Illustrations ix List of Tables xiii Preface to the Princeton Classic Edition xv Acknowledgments xxxiii Introduction 3 PART ONE: ARSENAL 15 Chapter 1: "Arsenal of Democracy" 17 Chapter 2: "Detroit's Time Bomb": Race and Housing in the 1940s 33 Chapter 3: "The Coffin of Peace": The Containment of Public Housing 57 PART TWO: RUST 89 Chapter 4: "The Meanest and the Dirtiest Jobs": The Structures of Employment Discrimination 91 Chapter 5: "The Damning Mark of False Prosperities": The Deindustrialization of Detroit 125 Chapter 6: "Forget about Your Inalienable Right to Work": Responses to Industrial Decline and Discrimination 153 PART THREE: FIRE 179 Chapter 7: Class, Status, and Residence: The Changing Geography of Black Detroit 181 Chapter 8: "Homeowners'Rights": White Resistance and the Rise of Antiliberalism 209 Chapter 9: "United Communities Are Impregnable": Violence and the Color Line 231 Conclusion: Crisis: Detroit and the Fate of Postindustrial America 259 Appendixes: A. Index of Dissimilarity, Blacks and Whites in Major 273 American Cities, 1940-1990 B. African American Occupational Structure in Detroit, 275 1940-1970 List of Abbreviations in the Notes 279 Notes 281 Index 365

Once America's "arsenal of democracy," Detroit has become the symbol of the American urban crisis. This title explains how Detroit and many other once prosperous industrial cities have become the sites of persistent racialized poverty.