How Detroit Went From A Booming Metropolis To A Shrinking City | NBC Nightly News 

A black Vietnam vet I met in Detroit two years ago told me he seen more combats in Detroit than Nam.

As someone who lives, worked and went to school in Detroit, I don't care what skin color you are. If you're coming to Detroit and doing good, keep doing it!

Grew up in Detroit and the happiest moment in my life was moving away from the corruption and crime

When an entire city's economy depends mostly on a single industry (automotive) and there is an economic downturn in that particular industry, that city also suffers economically.

And during that whole segment, not one mention of Coleman Young. Over 20 years they re-elected him. And he just ran the city into the ground

This documentary doesn’t mention the corrupt past governments of the city. Look it up everyone!

I moved to Detroit 5 years ago to become a police officer for Detroit and the first thing I realized was the amount of abandon homes, building and vacant lots in neighborhoods and so I had to research why but what I found was like lost treasure! Detroit use to be the Hollywood of the mid-weat

I remember watching a program about Detroit autoworkers. One guy was laid off from his Union job making $20 an hour. He suddenly could no longer make his mortgage payments. He became seriously depressed and committed suicide. His life was over. Now he could have moved or sold his house or made other choices but he was so entrenched in his good paying job that when it was gone he was devastated and couldn’t cope anymore. He decided to check out. This is what losing a good paying job can do to a worker. They end up giving up. The whole city of Detroit declared Bankruptcy.

As a former Detroiter, I can say there is plenty of details missing, but they nail all of the big issues with Detroit. If and When Detroit comes back, it won't be Detroit, it'll be something else. Too much of the city's history has been demolished.

The Detroit city council is a joke.

Corruption: =exists= This Video about Detroit: *Im going to pretend I didnt see that*

In 2000 years when archeologists start uncovering present day Detroit metro area, they’ll hypothesis why the city was abandoned. It’ll be like Babylon or Troy

This looks like a city from the DC comics....Because no one's there..

I never experienced racism in Michigan until I started working in Detroit and black people were calling me all kinds of racial slurs. An elderly lady even told me to go back to my country. I was born here and I’m Navajo! I made sure I left Detroit. The problem is the culture people chose to follow. Not the skin color.

Just google up Detroit city council and mayor. There’s your problem.

My dad is a retired New Yorker living in Florida (I know shocking) but his neighbor and golfing buddy is a Detroit native who spends his Summers in Windsor Ontario and Winters n Florida to avoid Detroit. And he spent 30 years in the military and is no coward but can't handle what became of his city.

their economy wasn’t diverse and when the car companies left it tumbled..

Don't worry by 2038 everything in this city will be better than ever before... But then the androids rebel!

2:36 That picture is so wholesome! 😭

Crime is major reason. I'm in Edmonton, Canada; I've only once in my life seen convenience stores with everything behind bulletproof glass -- in Detroit

outsourcing, automation, racial issues, AC opening up the south, globalism, non-diversified economy, capital flight, etc, etc. There are numerous reasons why Detroit went down.

I can remember seeing soldiers standing on street corners just after the worst of the riots. It was downhill from there in Detroit. At the same time, shopping malls opened in the suburbs with lots of parking. There were very little free parking places in Detroit. It was even hard to find any parking near the downtown stores. One after another, the stores in the downtown closed. Detroit was always a violent city but murders, rapes, and robberies increased to outrageous levels. The schools went into the toilet. People with money fled to the suburbs to avoid crime, for good schools, and to avoid paying Detroit City Income tax.

Pretty simple, look at the ghost mining towns out West when the mine closed and the economy left. This is just on a bigger scale.

I still love Detroit and I always be a Detroiter even though I don't live in the city no more but I'm still in the Metro Detroit area. I believe one day Detroit will bounce back but it's going to be a slow and very hard process. The schools, the crime, the segregation and other social issues that's hurting the city of Detroit today must change for the better. Also even though the downtown Detroit area and New Center area has seen growth and tremendous upswing of jobs and residential, the neighborhoods which is the core of the city must have the same effect as it is in downtown.

Not diversifying the economy and expecting the once mighty big 3 to remain and keep the city prosporous was very short sighted and was Detroits downfall

What happened to Detroit cannot be explained by reference to a single "this was it." But a great deal of hubris was involved. Auto execs thought moving jobs to cheaper locales would serve their shareholder' and bondholders' interests (until it didn't). Union officials thought to get better and better current wages and pension benefits would serve their members' interests (until it didn't). Whites thought leaving the city would serve their cultural interests (until it didn't). Blacks thought having a predominately black administration would serve their cultural interests (until it didn't). City leaders in the 50s thought to serve the interests of the auto industry (e.g., tearing up the tracks of a well-developed mass transit system in favor of individual auto ownership) would be in the City's interest (until it wasn't). Wayne County historically is the most segregated county in the US - so it seems Detroit is an object lesson in the results of "us" vs. "them." No real community = no lasting community. Which is why the current revival holds promise - it seems there may be an understanding that everyone is in this together, for good or bad. We shall see.

I live in Cleveland; Detroit is our bigger, badder brother! Bless Cleveland, Bless Detroit...

I was there in 2013, but that town fascinated me despite the bankruptcy.

Most skilled hard working people left to pursue a better life when the jobs started to disappear. The unskilled and the thugs and hustlers stayed. Note that the skilled black population also left. Detroit is just not a shining example for black folks the way it used to be. The problem with all the blaming going on here is that it keeps people stuck in their bad situation. I am poor because of these people. The companies moved so I don't have a job. etc. instead of thinking forward about how will I improve my situation the same way other people have done.

From post WW2 until the 1970’s, Detroit was a great place for a working man. You could get a job right out of high school at an auto plant, own a home in a few years, support a family, and work the same job for 30 years and retire comfortably. Clint Eastwood’s character in Gran Torino was a shining example.

As a younger kid I accompanied my MIT educated mechanical engineering to Detroit several times. We visited his friends from MIT along with my sister and mother. We saw Dearborn Village, Cranbrook and one time toured the Ford plant. The last time I visited was with my wife in the early '90s. Already we noticed a great decline even as the new downtown urban development project was almost completed. It was suggested we stay out in the suburbs as far as motels and areas of interest. The roads into downtown were in bad repair.

Anyone who grew up in and around Detroit knows exactly what happened to the city.

Just watch a city council meeting and you can soo what’s wrong with Detroit

I think of “white flight” when Mayor Colman Young yelled out, “stay on the other side of 8 Mile!”

I grew up in Detroit and it was heartbreaking watching that once great city turn into a Third World country!

I’m 18, I currently live in Chattanooga but I’m going to move to Detroit within the next year. I have visited several times and I love Detroit. It needs my help, it needs people moving there. It isn’t much more dangerous than parts of Chattanooga, Nashville, D.C., or NYC.

Welcome to the comment section.

The final nail in the coffin was in January 1974. Coleman A. Young's first day as mayor. In 1974, there were neighborhoods that were clean and full of life and by 1984, most neighborhoods were classified as ghetto. The population shifted overnight. In 1990, Young said the neighborhoods collapsed because the population left.

GROUP 1: The Golden Era p.184 Video + map VIDEO How Detroit Went From A Booming Metropolis To A Shrinking City | NBC Nightly News 0:00 to 3:00 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1CBwI3heojM.html Take notes on: the development of trade and industry the expansion of the city the great migration GROUP 2 Glory days with Motown how it all began p.184: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LOMEnykYvck.html Define the Motown style Explain “it was the same as in the factories” Explain “we just had this family of people” GROUP 3: From Glory days to hard times p.185 Article p.185: find the main idea in each paragraph to sum up the article In your conclusion answer the question: How did Detroit’s African American community go from glory days to hard times? GROUP 4: From Glory days to the beginning of the end p.186 Documents p.186: find the causes of Detroit’s decline and evidence of Detroit’s decline. Calculate gas consumption per vehicle MPG = miles per gallon. 1 mile = 1,6 km. 1 US gallon = 3,785 L

South africa and rhodesia have something in common

I also find it interesting how everyone is quick to blame "the education system" What they don't tell you is that it's a two way street. Yes schools need to hire quality teachers but in my three years of teaching I have found a lot of problems come from home. Parents who don't parent, parents who work three jobs and are never home, discipline that ends when the student leaves the campus, parents considering Ds as "acceptable." Many parents refuse to be parents or they try to be the "fun" parent and let their kids do what they want. This combined with the fact that students cannot be expelled from public schools means that the kids act out and when they do it others do it. When that happens it turns into a losing 30 vs 1 war between the students and the teacher

How could the name "Coleman Young" not appear in this video?

Thank Coleman Young and Kwamme for the mess the city is in

I drove to Detroit to see Madonna in 2001. I never saw anything like it. I thought it looked like a war area.

"The only reason I became mayor was that nobody else wanted the God-damned thing"---Coleman A. Young

I'm white flighting this comments section. I might gentrify it later.

Wisdom says “where there is no culture then contributing people move away”.

Detroit once had a "hip-hop" mayor, who was later convicted. That says it all.

13% is what happened.

Detroit failed to diversify it's economy when they knew that eventually the car companies would leave.

No one wants to live in a place with sky high crime rates. That's a highly underrated statistic.

I lived about 50 miles from Detroit. People who had moved from Detroit, to my area, spoke routinely of pulling out shotguns for people attempting to break into their homes- while they were home. There were guards in every stairwell, of hospitals, with shotguns, with instructions to shoot first and ask questions later. The late hours markets, the small ones, had armed guards on site. I knew a guy who worked as a guard in one. His job was to be seen, with a semi-auto Thompson .45 M1921, say "oh, sorry", and then vanish into the back. My father knew a guy who moved to Detroit, to work in an auto factory. He quit. He was the subject of 3 stickups, and that was enough. The riots really did some damage to the city, which you can still see today, as nobody rebuilt much. I remember hearing about a group of 20+ gangbangers rushing people at the Renaissance Center, to rob them. I never went into the city. Ever.

Biggest problem is crime. No doubt. I live 5 miles outside detroit and never go in the city.

I remember when I was a kid, during the late 80s, early 90s, I was always reading Popular Mechanics which had a section called "News from Detroit" with concept cars, new models to the market, all nice cars portraying Detroit as some Galactic Star Trek city. Look at it now, Detroit experienced the Venezuelan syndrome.

Since I came here a little over a year ago, I felt that something wrong. I think this video answers like 90% of my queries.

the great sucking sound that Ross Perot warned us about , the de- industrialization for low wages in offshoring to third world countries is complete, everything Perot talked about has already came true.

Suburbs around Detroit are still nice. They are still populated by the people who made Detroit nice in the first place.

I stayed for the first 45 yrs of my life.... Couldn't stay past 2014..... The schools need so much improvement..... But so do ALL schools... I moved to a much better district as far as teaching but almost all of the kids are messed up on drugs.....in ALL of the suburbs.. And I moved to the country...... Still bad kids....Detroit was a different set of problems... Help the school system for the future of the city.

My heart breaks for Detroit...

“How Detroit went from a booming metropolis to a sh...” - this is the shortened title I saw on my small phone screen. My brain completing the sentence: “metropolis to a shithole?” 😫

I’ve traveled to Detroit twice in the past 10 years and it is an awful place that looks like a war zone. It’s difficult to fathom that a city like that exists within the borders of the U.S. That being said, seeing Detroit today you can catch glimpses of what a stunning city it once was.

All their eggs were in one basket. The basket crumbled. The end.

The city is coming back and I hope all the communities grow back stronger

If you want manufacturing and other business to come back to Detroit, then you need to make it cheaper and easier for companies to do business there. That means, disband unions, lower taxes and cut back regulations. The flow of effect will take care of itself. More manufacturing = more jobs, that mens more working people. That means more cafes, more restaurants, more cinemas, more shopping malls, more dry cleaners, more clothing stores, more beauty salons, more grocery stores and so on. More jobs means less homeless, less crime, less drug abuse and less alcohol abuse.

Save yourself 19 minutes, just scroll down for the answer.

People started buying hondas and other foreign car (cheaper options) in the late 80s/90s instead of American and money ran out for automotive companies

The problem was that Detroit put all their eggs in one basket: car production

Two major reasons 1. Corrupt Government 2. Over reliance on the automotive industry (which wasn’t hesitant to outsource jobs from Detroit to much cheaper places in order to drive up profits). And many MANY other reasons as well.

" An entire generation of people without the skills needed to thrive in a modern economy!"

It's a great level of hate to go to a mans home and attempt to force him from his home in front of his family.

9:07...Trees growing on top of abandoned buildings! Fascinating!

Amazing!20 minutes of straight fire.Great mini documentary.

I live across the river and every night I hear gunshots from there :(

Detroit is a beautiful city, Michigan has some of the best Universities, part of the problem of Detroit is the lack of diversification of industries. What to do with the swaths of land that sit empty, how about farming?

Living there for a year.....I can relate....it's really bad in Detroit. It's heartbroken driving around the neighborhoods n seeing the abandoned houses n dirty streets.. it's like a deserted forest in a city....especially on the east side. Detroit can one day return to a booming metropolis, but lots of work needed. There will have to be gentrification, but the sadness about this kind of development, is that it drives out low income earners out. The automotive industry is now dead for Detroit, so it's now time to look at other industries, such as high tech.......we've seen where cities like Charlotte, NC, Raliegh, NC, Austin, TX, and others are doing well in this industry.... such companies such as Amazon, Google n others should invest in Detroit n bring these type of jobs in. If we start there, things can change for Detroit.

My stepfather's family white flighted from Michigan to California.

Love seeing all these people who have never even set foot in the city voice their opinions...

As a man who left Chicago four years ago I can only sympathize with all the men and women who left Detroit for the Suburbs/another state. Chicago is VERY quickly becoming what happened with Detroit and we all know what the main driving factor is. It would be too "racist" or "politically incorrect" for me to state what is actually happening, so I will let the masses insinuate. It's a shame what the potential of this amazing country used to be compared to what it is actually becoming.

NBC News, Subscribed because your content is fantastic!

most peoples reaction to being sent to Detroit: No, Not Detroit! No Please! Anything but that! No! NOOOOOO! @

I know for a fact that Kwame Kilpatrick took money from the city and gambled it away. He also had multiple people in on his schemes like the head of the water and sewer department. Not to mention that Kwame Kilpatrick had hitman targeting his rivals. Because of his PhD in law, he was able to Evade capture. It took over over 8 years for the FBI to get him.

There's 2 Detroits. Fact. -Detroit native

This reminds me of St. Louis it feels the same over there

Minneapolis is in the same situation. While there is speculative construction fueled by non-real low interest rates, crime is up about 300%! During the riots of 2020, 180 buildings looted and burned to the ground, 1500 other businesses damaged!!! Not to mention the Mayor and Governor let a police station get looted and burned! Some of the offenders charged only got 2 years and some ridiculous fine they will never be able to repay!!!

Just look at who's been in control there for decades. You'll see why it's the mess it is.

I hope Detroit is gonna push through!

One of the most depressing metropolitan areas I've ever been to.

This gonna be NY and LA if nothing is done

they built plants in the suburbs because thats where you could find the large acreage to build the plants

I doubt most commenters that are here actually live in Detroit or Michigan. If you don’t then I don’t know why your commenting because you don’t know anything. Also this video does not show the entire story.

So the first 9:00 minutes had nothing to do with the downfall of Detroit. Ok. Weird.

LA is heading in this direction... if it’s not there already.

Sad to see what seemed like once such a beautiful city in shambles. Based on this short documentary it seems like they finally have the right people in place to turn things around. I hope they’re able to do it and all goes well.

Yeah ok buddy, let’s blame “the whites” for all of the problems in Detroit 😂

Walking through Detroit is like playing Fallout on VR

*"Once a land becomes a desert it's easier to move than to cultivate the sand." --- Christian Prepper*

These fallout games are getting way too realistic... great graphics!

I can't wait till Detroit gets on the "Abandoned" series lol. Anyone know BrightSunFilms? "Welcome to Abandoned, episode 200! This week we're going to look at Detroit! The city that is deteriorating!"

The lesson is: crime not only evicts people from their homes but also forces businesses to close and city to die.

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