While such customary centers of power as finance and industry continue to be controlled by whites, blacks have assumed much of the city's governmental leadership, from the Mayor's office and the executive branch to the School Board to the City Council to the courts. So in some ways Motown may have become the black capital of the nation. It is certainly the black working‐man's capital.  The outward signs of the change are so plentiful that in some areas they not only go well beyond tokenism, but also are the rule. Black faces adorn billboards; four black‐oriented radio stations beam soul and “disco” music across town; black television personalities are commonplace; mannequins in department stores are as likely to have dark skin as light.  Beyond these obvious changes, however, and on a deeper psychological level, a more profound shift seems to have taken place: Many blacks, as Mr. Watts said, have come to perceive the city as “ours.”  The flip side of that is that many whites have come to a similar perception, and seem often to resent what they regard as a black “takeover.”  Harmonious race relations are not rare; many blacks, from Mayor Coleman A. Young down, insist that in no way do they want to exclude whites from the city's future.  Nevertheless, many whites have simply given up on Detroit as “lost.”  Among blacks, by contrast, the new perception seems to have stimulated fresh hopes about what Detroit might become, a new spirit of self‐reliance in pursuing those hopes, and a new impatience with those, including other blacks, who would frustrate them.  How far this new impulse will carry the city is an open question, to say the least, in view of Detroit's tenacious difficulties. These include the flight of people, businesses and tax sources to the suburbs; physical deterioration, and above all, the fearful miasma of violent crime that is perhaps the biggest blight of all. Even Cornelius Watts, for all his good feelings, must hire armed guards to protect his customers and their cars.  “Some people think we've inherited the wind,” says Richard Simmons, a 53‐year‐old black who heads Wayne State University's Center for Urban Studies.  Further, there is the question whether blacks, for all the experience and confidence they are gaining, can deal with the basic problems any better than their predecessors, especially since economic power still lies in white hands.  Finally, not all blacks share in the feeling that Detroit is “home.” Increasing numbers of those who can afford it have also given up on the city and are following the whites to such suburbs as Southfield the new “in” address for black Detroiters.  The basic, positive psychological shift is clearly there, however, along with a tentative feeling that some kind of a watershed has been passed, that maybe, just maybe, the worst is over and the city is on the way back. Nowhere is the feeling stronger than among black auto workers like 36‐year‐old Al Solomon.  Six days a week Mr. Solomon works on the assembly line. On the seventh, without fail, he can be found at Belle Isle the pleasantly wooded city park in the middle of the Detroit River. He was there the other day, despite threatening storm clouds, dressed in white cutoffs, T‐shirt, sneakers, yellow headband, stylish sunglasses and all. Sweat dripped off his gray ing beard as he finished the first of three 6½‐mile circuits of the island he would make that day on his bicycle. The park was jammed with canoeists, tennis players, bathers, picnickers and strollers, most of them black.  The scene was as good an illustration as any of the good life that has been earned by the biggest group of “haves” in black Detroit, the working middle class that is the backbone of the city and whose factory wages considerably soften an otherwise often dim economic picture.  “The black pride has been there all along,” Mr. Solomon said, “but now people are stepping out and wanting to do something for themselves instead of waiting for somebody else to do something.”  He said he saw some of the early results of this new attitude in his own neighborhood, where he said the lawns are better trimmed than they were even a year ago, where flowers have been planted and dilapidated buildings removed. “It's like it's happened overnight,” he said.  He saw it in Belle Isle itself, which was dirty and rundown two years ago but is now clean and in better repair. He saw it in growing anger and reaction among blacks to thieves and “jitterbugs,” the young black street‐gang members who have lately been shooting each other on the city's east side. And he saw it in a spreading conviction that, everything considered, the living is better and cheaper in many Detroit neighborhoods than in the higherpriced suburbs.  “I wouldn't leave Detroit,” said Will Hudson, a 31‐year‐old co‐worker and friend of Mr. Solomon's. He sat on the front porch of his home on a shady, quiet street in northwest Detroit where the atmosphere is that of a small town. Both a car and a camper were parked in the driveway, and collards, tomatoes, turnips and peppers were reaching maturity in the backyard garden.  “I like it here,” Mr. Hudson said. “We got a chance to make this into a good city.” He noted that two white families lived on the street, and that one had moved there from the suburbs recently. There are reports in other neighborhoods, as well of returning whites who see in the substantial brick homes of northwest Detroit a better value than they see in cracker‐box suburban developments.  Mr. Hudson, Mr. Solomon and Mr. Watts all expressed the feeling of self‐determination that seems to have gripped many black Detroiters. They agree with Mayor Young, who told a group of Baptist ministers recently. “If we are not willing to help ourselves, no one else is going to help us.”  “That's right!” the ministers chorused. “Yes, yes!”  In an admission that might have been unthinkable a few years ago, some black Detroiters are acknowledging that some of their brothers have used blacks' history of oppression in America as an excuse for slacking, for preying criminally on others, or for failing. Too often, a middle‐aged black railroad porter said in a conversation not long ago, young blacks feel that “the world owes them a living.”  If such an attitude has existed, it is clearly going out of favor.  “My thought is, you've got to get up and go get it,” says Dwaine Love, a forceful, 20‐year‐old black businessman who recently began publishing a slickly appealing magazine, U.S. Quarterly, that deals with fashions and social commentary.  There is a sort of symbolism of the new self‐help attitude in the evolving styles of clothing and grooming among many young black Detroiters. The broad‐brimmed hats, trench coats, leather suits and long hair of the Superfly era are seen less frequently, and more conventional, less flashy styles are increasingly popular.  But for every forward thrust resulting from the spirit, of self‐determination and community improvement, a formidable obstacle presents itself.  The auto workers may be well off, but unemployment among black youths, here as elsewhere, has soared. The local wisdom is that perhaps thousands of these filter into the shadowy underside of the city. Some become “players”—drug dealers, pimps and assorted hustlers—some become “jitterbugs,” and some merely become common thieves.  Residents are beginning to band together in grassroots patrols in northwest Detroit to frustrate the common criminals, and apparently with some success. Still, hardly a week goes by without some horror story reaching the local papers: A robber coldly executes witnesses to his crime, including an 11‐year‐old boy, for example. Or a gang of black youths accosts a woman whose car has broken down on a freeway and rapes her repeatedly over a 12‐hour period.  Mayor Young announces a drive against crime, but then must lay off hundreds of policemen because the city's tax base has shrunk.  In an attempt to keep that base from contracting further, the Mayor, with the assistance of a special tax break authorized by the State Legislature, reports that he has dissuaded at least 25 companies and factories from moving out of the city.  Still, the costs of governmental services rise, and neither the state nor the Federal Government offers any substantial, long‐term aid. Many blacks see this as racism at the state and Federal levels. But in an urban irony, they frequently shop in suburban shopping centers, pumping money into the suburban economy while denying it to the central city's.  Black business continues to grow at a moderate pace. Blacks are into “everything, except maybe cattle,” says Edward Bell, a lawyer who has helped put together many business deals. But the recession wiped out many black gains in business, and blacks say that prejudice often means that they, have to go through special tests to obtain financing.  Some Detroiters, black and white alike, discern, a distinct lowering of the social temperature of the city. Partly, it is said, this is because blacks feel they are getting fairer treatment from official Detroit.  Last July's disturbances in the Fenkell‐Livernois area are sometimes cited as an example. The efforts of Mayor Young, the high visibility of black policemen and the determined action of ordinary black citizens against potential black rioters—all were credited with preventing the disturbance from becoming a major one.  And in a curious sense, it is suggested in some quarters that the changing complexion of the city itself may have had something to do with the smooth introduction of school busing in Detroit earlier this year. This view suggests that whites were simply afraid to cause trouble because they were outnumbered by blacks.  The lowered social temperature may have eased the minds of some whites, but essentially, black and white Detroiters continue to move in separate spheres, viewing each other with mistrust, prejudice and suspicion.  Some perceive irony in this. One, a light‐skinned black, who is often mistaken as white, who functions in both spheres, but says he is fully accepted in neither, is in a special position to observe attitudes.  Strip away the differences and prejudices, he says, and “95 percent of the people in this town want the same thing —a little money in their pocket, to be able to have a little fun, and to be able to go where they want to go.”  We are continually improving the quality of our text archives. Please send feedback, error reports, and suggestions to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.  A version of this archives appears in print on July 26, 1976, on page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Blacks See Detroit as Their Own, and Hope to Rebuild. 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Detroit (Mich): Detroit, Mich, is largest predominantly black US city; finance and indus are controlled by whites but blacks have assumed much of city's governmental leadership; there are obvious outward signs of change but more profound changes are on deeper level and blacks are showing new spirit of self-reliance; crime problem still exists as does large-scale unemployment of young blacks; black residents comment; illus (L)