Yeah still ain’t got a clear answer… except for the Dr Claude Anderson clip that touched on it
Ppl talkin bout white flight… why do you need white ppl around for a blk Mecca
There are several good answers in here. They might not fit whatever you define as "Black Mecca," but they provide good information. I don't like terms like "Black Mecca" either, because they have no real definition, nor does it have any measurable criteria. It's just seems like a lazy rhetorical device used to shame Black communities for not overcoming decades of disinvestment, racism, and economic sabotage. Let's drop that framework and try to understand what *actually* happened here.
Manufacturing shifting to the South (as a result of free trade), to non-union states (result of right-to-work laws), and eventually overseas, gutted something that Black Detroiters had only just gained access to. You can't mention Chicago without acknowledging that is had a more diversified economy that helped soften the blow. Detroit didn't. And that wasn't because of the failure of the Black community. Pivoting requires capital. But Black entrepreneurs in Detroit faced systemic barriers at EVERY level. Redlining denied a lot of them home equity, banks discriminated and refused loans, and federal investment was non-existent. We were systematically denied from the systems needed to build new industries.
White flight wasn't about needing white people around, either. It was about how wealth, institutions, and investment were tied to those white populations. And that when they left, they took their tax dollars, businesses, and political influence with them, which drained the city's resources.
Once white residents fled to the suburbs, they took political power with them too, and that translated into Republican dominance at the state level. For 14 years, this state operated under a full GOP trifecta, and even outside of that, Republican control of the legislature was the norm. The result? State policies that favored the suburbs, defunded the city, and imposed top-down control over Detroit without accountability to the people who actually lived there.
Resources were withdrawn, cooperation between different regions was blocked, laws were passed that stripped elected leaders of power, city managers were appointed, and so on. The state leadership actively undermined us. It's hard to build anything sustainable when your own state government is treating you like a problem to be managed, and not a community to be invested in.
This exodus was also reinforced by federal housing policy, suburban development incentives, racist zoning, and urban renewal projects that destroyed Black neighborhoods to make way for highways and commercial development. These policies erased generational wealth, broke apart community networks, and physically carved Black Detroit out of access to opportunity. You ever hear about Detroit's Black Bottom? Paradise Valley? And what happened to them?
That's why I think you're asking the wrong question. What you should be asking is "Why was Black progress stifled?"
The shot answer to your questions is: The city was gutted by white flight, economic collapse, racialized disinvestment, and political sabotage.
Throughout the mid-20th century, city planners' "grand visions" in fact destroyed thriving black communities, harming economic prosperity and social cohesion.
www.marketurbanist.com
By 1942, within Black Bottom and Paradise Valley, the Black commercial district located immediately north, more than 300 Black-owned businesses—bars and restaurants, doctor’s offices, barber shops, hair salons, hotels, and drug stores—were in operation.
www.neh.gov
Edit: I didn't see your full thread title. You're acting like a Black or Democratic mayor means total control, but that's just not how power works. Cities depend on the state for funding, infrastructure, and policy authority. And for decades, Michigan's Republican-controlled legislature has undermined Detroit at every turn. You can't build anything when you're constrained by the state.
en.wikipedia.org
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