Tax Increment Financing Contrasting Effects Essay Research — страница 3

the end of this period we began to see some development of outlying areas, which could be identified as the first suburbs of the city such as Garden City, Dearborn, Hamtramck, and Highland Park, which is the Beverly Hills of Detroit. The Great Depression and WWII immediately following would calm any growth on the fringe of the city, but during the middle of the 1940’s some expansion movements were triggered by the auto industry benefitting from the building of war vehicles. It would not be until the end of the war until the city would experience major growth. The postwar crisis in the city of Detroit could be explained by two factors that remain unresolved today and that is that capitalism creates great economic inequality and that blacks have suffered the most from capitalism.

The five pillars will go into trying to explain the suburbanization process in the city of Detroit and identify particular events that had a great effect on the city. The first pillar that would change the city of Detroit during the postwar period would be technological innovations such as the expanding city limits due to the automobile and construction improvements. These two improvements helped the possibility in expansion. Their were many other constructional improvements to aid the building in these massive suburban Limmer (6) communities such as cranes, concrete, and even improvements in the transportation system such as in intersection controls and traffic flows, along with in 1956, the interstate highway system.. The automobile when after it was introduced in 1908, would

lead to the expansion of residential areas within the city of Detroit as well as in the suburbs. At first, the infamous Awest side@ of Detroit was one of the largest blue-collar neighborhoods in the United States and was the home to many of the Ford Company workers. On a much larger scale, suburbs were being created at a extraordinary rate and the automobile was doing nothing but supporting this. The car was causing suburban dwellers the migrate farther and farther away from the central city. Before WWII, suburbanites would only migrate to the Oakland County border to the north. After the war, suburban dwellers migrated north not only into Oakland County, but Livingston, Monroe, Washtenaw, and Macomb as well. With all of these automobiles needing to be able to travel to and from

the central city, there was a problem of congestion in the city even with the six radiating main roads stretching from the center of the city in all directions (Jackson 165). The interstate highway system, which could go under the policy pillar, but it could also be a technological innovation. The first constructed freeway in Detroit was the Lodge Fwy, with Interstate 94, seen on the next page, connecting the city with the west and Chicago, and soon the new airport was completed around 1960 just a few miles down the road. From there, most of the construction went north adding Interstate 75 (the main one running through Oakland County), seen also with I-94 below, and Interstate 96 which runs to the northeast through more area that would soon be inhabited. The interstates opened up

nearly five more counties and would promote growth to these newly accessible areas. Limmer (7) The last technological improvement that I am going to discuss is the balloon-framed house, which is a type of building used to build suburban homes at a massive rate. Some of these communities were known as Levitttowns, which were created by Levitt and Sons. There was not a great number of Levittowns in the Detroit area, but the same idea was there with the newly created suburbs. These communities were characterized as being built identically, with virtually the same layout, same size lot and home, and house the same class of people, remember now hindering primarily on social status. According to Jackson, more than thirty houses went up per day at the peak of production. The second

pillar is the passage of some federal policies that promoted growth to the suburbs, often referred to as progressive reform. Housing renewal programs along with public Limmer (8) housing would be evident in the city, but in the suburbs there was mortgage insurance promoting home ownership. The Federal Housing Administration was also created. Owning a home was now possible in cities even as blue-collar as Detroit. This bill inhibited the growth of Levittowns and other suburban developments. The greatest amount of the suburbs were located in Oakland County, which by 1980 was up over 2 million people. Many suburbs grew into large outlying communities, having their own industries and office complexes. Troy is a perfect example of this, not only is it the regional shopping center, it