Detroit’s population growth masks glaring racial disparities

You may have woken up Thursday to the good news that Detroit’s population is rising for the first time since 1957, a time when white people began flocking to the suburbs.

Between July 1, 2022, and July 1, 2023, Detroit gained 1,852 residents, putting the city’s population at 633,366, according to U.S. Census estimates released Monday morning.

Detroit is now ranked as the 26th most populated city in the U.S., leapfrogging Memphis, Louisville, and Portland.

While population gains are a positive sign for any city, the growth in Detroit is far more nuanced and complicated than a single estimate can reveal.

Between 2000 and 2020, Detroit lost about 295,000 Black residents, or 37.4% of its African American population. No other city has lost more Black residents.

Meanwhile, Detroit’s white population grew by more than 5,100 between 2010 and 2020.

Black people now account for 77.2% of the city’s overall population, compared to 82.2% in 2010, when Detroit had the highest percentage of Black residents in the country.

You can see the growth in the pricey lofts and condos that are cropping up in Midtown, downtown, Corktown, Brush Park, the Cass Corridor and the riverfront.

At the same time, a disproportionate number of Black residents are living in neighborhoods dominated by blight, abandonment, and crime. The number of middle-class neighborhoods in Detroit shrunk from 22 in 2010 to 11 in 2020, leaving longtime residents with fewer options to find a decent place to live.

The areas where white people are flocking are getting more expensive, displacing Black businesses and residents.

While the latest census information doesn’t break down data by race, it’s difficult to imagine that the Black population suddenly began to rise.

As part of a series Metro Times published last year about the growing racial and economic disparities in Detroit, we talked to Black residents who fled the city and asked them why they left. Overwhelmingly, they said they couldn’t find decent-paying jobs in the city. By contrast, white newcomers are disproportionately getting employed by high-paying businesses.

Over the last decade, the median income of white Detroiters rose 60%. For Black Detroiters, the increase was 8%, according to Detroit Future City, a think tank that develops strategies for a more equitable city.

The average income of a white Detroiter is $46,650, compared to $32,290 for a Black resident. The unemployment rate for Black Detroiters is 1.5 times higher than white residents.

In a recent report, Detroit Future City found that metro Detroit’s fastest-growing, well-paying jobs are disproportionately going to white workers. About 16% of Black workers in the region are in so-called growth occupations, compared to 26% of white workers.

Jobs are considered growth occupations if they are growing at the same or higher rate than the region as a whole, pay at least a middle-class salary, have increased wages between 2014 and 2019, and employ at least 300 people. Most of the jobs pay more than $73,000 a year.

“What we’re seeing pretty consistently unfortunately is that the highest growth for Detoiters in terms of workforce is lower-wage jobs, which means the jobs that you would think of as middle wage or higher wage are not being occupied by Detroiters,” Anika Goss, CEO of Detroit Future City, told Metro Times in May 2023. “The jobs are either going to people who are moving here from other places or suburbanites. They are not Detroiters.”

Black Detroiters are also more likely to be denied mortgages, regardless of their income level. Higher-income Black residents, for example, were denied a loan at a higher rate than moderate-income white applicants.

In a news release Thursday morning, Mayor Mike Duggan tried to make the case that Black Detroiters are getting more opportunities. He pointed to a recent University of Michigan study that indicated Black homeowners gained $2.8 billion in home value. He also said the city spent $1 billion for more than 4,600 units of affordable housing over the past five years.

Duggan has objected to past census estimates that showed population decline, saying many residents weren’t counted.

“We have known for some time that Detroit’s population has been growing, but this is the first time the U.S. Census Bureau has confirmed it in its official estimate,” Duggan said Thursday. “This day is for the Detroiters who stayed and for everyone who has put in the hard work to make Detroit a great place to live.”

Despite the good news about Detroit’s overall population growth, much work still needs to be done to address a future for Black residents.

As a result of the inequities, many Black children are facing long odds of succeeding later in life. More than half of the city’s Black children live in poverty. About 20% of young adults who grow up in poverty end up poor in their 20s, according to the National Center for Children in Poverty.

Detroit’s Black population grew exponentially in the early and mid-1900s, lured by the bustling auto industry. But those fleeing Jim Crow laws in the U.S. south found themselves in similar situations in Detroit, largely relegated to substandard homes in segregated, overpopulated neighborhoods.

In the 1950s, when Detroit’s population peaked at nearly 2 million, Mayor Albert Cobo campaigned on a platform of “Negro removal” — a pledge to force Black people out of predominantly white neighborhoods and deny federal funding for Black housing projects.

In the mid-1950s, the construction of highways decimated the city’s historic Black communities, Black Bottom and Paradise Valley.

By the time federal civil rights laws banned racial discrimination in the 1960s, white people were fleeing the city for the suburbs, and the jobs followed, leaving behind a majority-Black population that lacked the resources to thrive.

Now that white flight is reversing, it’s up to city leaders and wealthy landowners to ensure that Black residents have a fair shake this time.