Detroit, Michigan: History, Facts & Guide | [Your Brand/Website]

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Introduction to Detroit

Detroit, Michigan, the largest city in the state and one of the most populous in the United States. It is the seat of Wayne County. Detroit is located in southeastern Michigan on the Detroit River, the waterway that links Lakes Erie and St. Clair and forms part of the United States—Canadian border. Windsor, Ontario, lies across the river.

Internationally known as the home of the American automobile industry, Detroit is often called the Motor City and the Automobile Capital of the World. Since Henry Ford put America on wheels with the Model T in 1908, the automobile, mass production, and the assembly line have dominated life in the city and made it one of the nation's top-ranking industrial centers. General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler—the Big Three of American automobile manufacturing—and the United Auto Workers union all have their headquarters in or near Detroit.

General Plan

From the riverfront, some 11 miles (18 km) long, Detroit spreads northward and westward over relatively flat terrain. Maximum distances are 19 miles (31 km) east-west and 12 miles (19 km) north-south. The city was originally laid out on a plan similar to that of Washington, D.C., with streets radiating from central parks and squares. With rapid expansion after 1900 a rectangular grid system was adopted, largely negating the early plan.

Downtown

Downtown Detroit adjoins the riverfront and is encircled by a loop of freeways. Major office buildings, financial institutions, hotels, retail stores, and entertainment facilities cluster around semicircular Grand Circus Park. The Civic Center, including government buildings, an exhibition center, an auditorium, a sports arena, and a central plaza, is on the riverfront. Nearby is the Renaissance Center, a multi-towered office and hotel complex.

Other Areas and Suburbs

Outside the downtown area Detroit is primarily a city of sprawling industrial districts and residential neighborhoods. In contrast to other large cities, it has relatively few apartment buildings. A secondary business and commercial area on west Grand Boulevard, dominated by the Fisher building and Cadillac Place (formerly the General Motors building), is known as New Center. Since the 1950's the inner city adjoining the business district has been the site of extensive slum clearance and urban renewal.

Detroit's suburbs generally are of two types—old, relatively stable communities established before 1930 and rapidly growing cities that have developed since World War II. Dearborn, Royal Oak, Lincoln Park, and Oak Park are examples of the first type; Warren, Livonia, St. Clair Shores, West-land, and Dearborn Heights represent the second. Two old, independent cities— Hamtramck and Highland Park—are completely surrounded by Detroit. Grosse Pointe and other fashionable residential communities—all with Grosse Pointe as part of their names—line the shore of Lake St. Clair northeast of the city.

Freeways and Streets

Freeways, including Fisher, Jeffries, Lodge, Chrysler, and Edsel Ford, provide high-speed routes through the city. Most of them converge on the downtown area, providing easy access from suburbs and outlying areas. Southfield Freeway, which cuts through western Detroit, links northern and southern suburbs.

Detroit's principal thoroughfares—Fort Street and Michigan, Grand River, Woodward, and Gratiot avenues—radiate from the downtown area like spokes of a wheel, extending to the city limits and the suburbs beyond. Woodward Avenue, which runs northwestward from the riverfront bisecting Grand Circus Park, is the dividing line for the city's east-west street numbering system. Grand Boulevard forms three sides of a rectangle completed by the river and encloses the oldest part of the city.

Economy

The manufacturing and service industries are Detroit's principal employers, each accounting for about a third of the workforce. Most of the remaining jobs are in commerce and government. Detroit is a busy center for conventions and trade shows. The Civic Center's Cobo Center and Arena are the chief locations of these activities.

Manufacturing

Automobile manufacturing is the largest and most important industry. Although the city's share of the nation's total production has been declining since the 1950's, a major portion of the cars and trucks produced annually in the United States still come from plants in the Detroit area. There are also extensive facilities for automotive research and development.

The making of machinery and fabricated metal products is of major importance. These industries—based in part on locally produced iron, steel, and other metals—exist primarily as suppliers to the automobile companies but also make a wide range of non-automotive goods. Detroit is a leading producer of machine tools, metal forgings and stampings, hardware, aircraft parts, and electric and electronic items.

Chemical manufacturing is a well-developed Detroit industry, yielding primarily Pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals. Oil refining, food processing, publishing and printing, and the production of textiles, apparel, and rubber goods, especially tires, are also important.

Commerce

Detroit is a major wholesale and retail trading center of the upper Great Lakes region and ranks, in this respect, second only to Chicago in the Midwest. Banking, insurance, and other financial activities are also significant. The city is the headquarters of Michigan's principal financial institutions and has a Federal Reserve branch bank. Heavy trade with Canada through Windsor helps make Detroit one of the nation's leading export cities.

Transportation

Detroit is an important center of land, air, and water transportation. It lies at the junction of three Interstate highways and is served by a number of railways and hundreds of trucking lines. Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, 17 miles (27 km) southwest of the business district, handles domestic and international flights and is one of the busiest airports in the Midwest. The Detroit area is also served by Willow Run Airport, near Ypsilanti, and Coleman A. Young International Airport, near the downtown area. The Ambassador Bridge, the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel (vehicular), and a railway tunnel link Detroit and Windsor.

The Detroit River forms part of the Great Lakes—St. Lawrence Seaway system and is one of the nation's busiest inland waterways. The port of Detroit handles domestic and foreign trade, receiving mainly bulk cargoes, such as metal ores, coal, and petroleum, and shipping manufactured goods.

Buses provide the main form of public transportation. An automated elevated rail system, called the People Mover, serves the downtown area. Commuter trains link the city and some of the suburbs.

Culture and Education

Performing Arts

Orchestra Hall is the home of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. During the summer the orchestra performs in the Meadow Brook Music Festival in suburban Rochester. Each September Hart Plaza, in the Civic Center, is the site of the Montreux Detroit Jazz Festival. Stage productions are presented at Fisher Theater, at Music Hall Center, and on the campuses of the University of Detroit and Wayne State University.

Museums

Some of the city's major museums are grouped together with the public library on Woodward Avenue in an area known as the Cultural Center. The most prominent of these is the Detroit Institute of Arts, with one of the nation's outstanding art collections. Nearby is the Detroit Historical Museum, which specializes in the history of the city. On Belle Isle is the Dossin Great Lakes Museum with exhibits of Great Lakes vessels. Also in Detroit is Historic Fort Wayne, a military museum.

Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, in Dearborn, re-create life in America from the 1600's until the early 20th century, with emphasis on technological developments.

Universities and Colleges

The largest institution of higher learning in Detroit is Wayne State University. Smaller schools in or near the city include the University of Detroit Mercy, Marygrove College, Oakland University, and the Dearborn branch of the University of Michigan. Lawrence Technological University specializes in engineering and other technical fields.

Libraries

The Detroit Public Library has special collections on automotive history and the settlement of Michigan and the Great Lakes region as a whole. In addition to the main library building in the Cultural Center, there are branches throughout the city. Other prominent libraries are associated with the major educational institutions.

Interesting Places

Parks

Parks and playgrounds are scattered throughout Detroit, offering recreational and entertainment facilities. Belle Isle Park, the most popular, occupies a wooded island in the Detroit River. It has formal gardens, lagoons, a zoo, an aquarium, a conservatory of exotic plants, a band shell, a beach, and several yacht basins. River Rouge Park is Detroit's largest, covering 1,200 acres (486 hectares) at the western edge of the city. Other major parks include Chandler, Eliza Howell, Palmer, and Patton.

The Detroit Zoological Park, in Royal Oak, was among the first zoos in the nation designed to exhibit animals without bars, in areas resembling their natural habitats. Most notable are the bear, penguin, and reptile exhibits.

Sports and Recreation

Cobo Arena is used for special events such as ice shows and boxing and wrestling matches. The Tigers of major league baseball play in Tiger Stadium. Joe Louis Arena is the home of the Red Wings professional hockey team, and Ford Field is the home of the Lions professional football team. The Pistons professional basketball team in Auburn Hills. There are several racetracks in the Detroit area.

State recreation areas near the city offer such activities as swimming, boating, camping, fishing, and winter sports. Boblo Island, in the Detroit River, is the site of a large amusement park.

History

Eighteenth Century

Wyandot Indians were inhabiting the region in 1701, when the French soldier Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded Fort Pontchartrain du Dtroit on the site of present-day Detroit. It was used for fur-trading purposes as well as for defense. Soon a small settlement grew within the stockade. The fort remained under French control until 1760, when it was taken for Great Britain by Major Robert Rogers in the French and Indian War. The forts name was then shortened to Detroit. Ottawa Indians led by Pontiac continued to resist the British. For five months in 1763 they besieged Fort Detroit, but they could not take it. By the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1783), ending the Revolutionary War, Detroit was supposed to be included within the United States. British fur-trading interests, however, were able to keep it under their control, and it was not until 1796 that General Anthony Wayne formally took possession for the United States.

Early Growth

By 1800, Detroit had developed into a small stockaded village of narrow streets and log buildings tightly crowded together. In 1802 it became an incorporated town and in 1805 capital of Michigan Territory. That year a fire completely destroyed the settlement, giving Detroit the opportunity to rebuild on a comprehensive plan devised by Augustus Breevoort Woodward. He followed the plan of Pierre Charles LEnfant that was used for Washington, D.C. During the War of 1812, the British captured the town and held it for a year. Detroit was incorporated as a city in 1815, but did not organize a city government and elect its first mayor until 1824. In 1825 the Erie Canal was completed in New York, making it possible for travelers from the east to reach Detroit easily via the Great Lakes. Michigan farm products could be shipped east, and Detroit boomed as a port. The city was the first capital of Michigan, 1837-47. In the 1850s, it was an important terminal on the Underground Railroad, which helped runaway slaves to escape to Canada. After the Civil War, Detroit developed as a manufacturing center. One of its industries was carriage-building, a fact that led Ransom E. Olds, Henry Ford, the Dodge brothers, and others to establish automobile factories in the city in the early 1900s.

Modern Development

Detroits growth in the 20th century was due primarily to the automobile industry. The jobs it offered attracted thousands of immigrants from Europe and thousands of families from the southern United States, including many blacks. During World War I, workers poured into Detroit to help produce war materials. Meanwhile, like many large cities in the early 20th century, Detroit was plagued by a corrupt, graft-ridden city government. A new charter in 1918, however, reorganized the government in such a way that the chances for corruption were greatly reduced.

Detroit suffered widespread unemployment in the Great Depression. There was also much labor strife. During World War II, greatly increased production again caused a demand for labor, and blacks from the South flocked to Detroit. Racial tension increased, and in 1943 there was a race riot in which 34 persons died. Because of rapid growth after the war, the city had become highly congested and many sections were deteriorating.

Starting in the late 1940s, Detroit began a massive program of urban renewal. Housing projects replaced old dilapidated houses, freeways were built to relieve traffic congestion, and many new public buildings were erected. Despite these efforts, however, Detroit began to lose population to the suburbs, and the downtown business district declined.

During the 1960s and early 1970s, race relations became a critical problem. The number of black residents had increased to more than one-third of the population, and racial conflict intensified. In 1967 rioting erupted in black neighborhoods, resulting in 42 deaths and widespread destruction of property. To improve conditions, the city began a major development project designed to revitalize the downtown area; it included the Renaissance Center, a large commercial and residential complex completed in 1977.

The recession of the early 1980s caused severe financial problems for the Renaissance Center and Detroit-area businesses, and gave the city one of the nations highest unemployment rates. In the 1990s, Detroits economy was still suffering, the crime rate was increasing, and the number of residents continued to decline. Detroit legalized casino gambling, becoming the largest U.S. city to do so.

In March, 2008, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was charged with perjury, obstruction of justice, and official misconduct in relation to a sex scandal and the controversial settlement of a lawsuit against the city of Detroit. In September, Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to two obstruction of justice charges. In addition to paying $1 million to the city of Detroit, Kilpatrick resigned later that month. City Council president Kenneth V. Cockrel, Jr., became mayor. In 2009, former Detroit Pistons basketball player Dave Bing won a special election to serve out the remainder of Kilpatrick's term.

Also in 2009, automobile companies General Motors and Chrysler filed for bankruptcy after struggling during a worldwide economic downturn. The federal government took over some of their operations. Both companies emerged from bankruptcy later that year.