Detroit, Michigan

From Metapedia

Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the seat of Wayne County. Detroit is a major port city located north of Windsor, Ontario, on the Detroit River, in the Midwest region of the United States. It was founded in 1701 by the Frenchman Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac.

It is known as the world's traditional automotive center—"Detroit" is a metonym for the United States automobile industry—and an important source of popular music, legacies celebrated by the city's two familiar nicknames, Motor City and Motown. Other nicknames emerged in the twentieth century, including Rock City, Arsenal of Democracy (during World War II), The D, D-Town, Hockeytown, and The 3-1-3 (its area code).

In 2007, Detroit ranked as the United States' eleventh most populous city, with 871,121 residents. At its peak, the city was the 4th largest city in the country, but has steadily declined in population since the 1960s, due to white flight. The name Detroit sometimes refers to the Metro Detroit area, a sprawling region with a population of 4,468,966 for the Metropolitan Statistical Area and a population of 5,410,014 for the nine county Combined Statistical Area as of the 2006 Census Bureau estimates. The Windsor-Detroit area, a critical commercial link straddling the Canada-U.S. border, has a total population of about 5,900,000.

[edit] Demographics

During the twentieth century, the city experienced tremendous growth - then rapid population decline. The city's population increased more than sixfold during the first half of the twentieth century, fed largely by an influx of Eastern European, Lebanese and Southern migrants — both white and black — who came to work in the burgeoning automobile industry. However, since 1950 the city saw a major shift in its population to the suburbs. The city population dropped from its peak in 1950 with a population of 1,849,568 to 886,675 in 2005. This is in part attributed to the construction of an extensive freeway system during the 1950s and white flight from the 1960s onward on account of concerns over crime, and court-ordered busing. The city's population ranking among American cities dropped from fourth in 1950 to eleventh in 2006.

As of 2000, the city of Detroit was 82.70% African American, 12.26% white, 0.33% Native American, 0.97% Asian 0.03% Pacific Islander, 2.54% from other races, and 2.32% from two or more races. 4.96% of the population was Hispanic or Latino of any race. The city's foreign-born population stood at 4.8%.