Detroit city is located on the south-east of Michigan State. The city was founded by the Frenchman Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac in the beginning of XVIII century. The population of the city with its suburbs exceeds 4.4 million of people, but in Detroit itself lives no more than 900 thousand of people. Approximately 10% of them are Caucasian and they are mostly concentrated in the southern part of the city. The rest of population is Afro-Americans, who are referred to middle class and below.
Starting from the end of XIX – the beginning of XX century Detroit plays a significant role in automobile industry of the United States. The city develops and wonderful architectural sites and places of interest appear there. Among them is the main square of the city – Washington Boulevard that was light with Edison lamps. At that time Detroit was called “the second Paris” or “Paris of West”. However, during the times of World War II race discrimination was slackening and it became easier for Afro-Americans to get job in the city. This fact caused many Afro-Americans to move to Detroit, and later caused a chain of riots with white population of the city involved. In the end the whites started living in the suburbs of Detroit. Steadily the capital of auto industry slowly turned into a city of devastation, raising criminal and disorders. In the beginning of the 60s of previous century the country suffered from the oil crisis, and American factories started a competition with Japanese car manufacturers and their economic cars. This made a huge impact of many automobile companies including Detroit-based ones. Some companies simply went bankrupt and this was very hard for the city. Large number of luxurious buildings remained without their owners. Add here frequent riots and fires caused by the Afro-American part of the Detroit’s population and you will understand why the city has been damaged severely. Nowadays you can see in Detroit only remaining large companies like General Motors, Daimler Chrysler, and Ford Motor Company.
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