Assignment: Conclusion Posting Deadline: Thursday, March 20

Reading: Conclusion -  “Crisis: Detroit and Postindustrial America”

Question:

After reading the final chapter, summarize what you have learned from the book that helps you understand why Detroit is in crises today.

Assignment - Deadline: Thursday, March 20

A. Post two paragraphs inspired by the study guide questions/thoughts for the week

B.  Post two separate comments to one or more of your colleagues reacting to their paragraphs.

Assignment: Chapter 9    Posting Deadline: Thursday, March 13

Reading: Chapter 9: “United Communities are Impregnable”: Violence and the Color Line”

Questions:

1.     What does Sugrue mean by “defended” versus “undefended” neighborhoods?

2.     What was the nature of the organized harassment against black pioneers, whites who sold to African Americans real estate people who deal with Blacks?

3.     What forms did violence against African American home purchasers in defended neighborhoods take?

Assignment - Deadline: Thursday, March 13

A. Post two paragraphs inspired by the study guide questions/thoughts for the week

B.  Post two separate comments to one or more of your colleagues reacting to their paragraphs.

Assignment: Chapter 8    Posting Deadline: Thursday, March 6

Reading: Chapter 8: “Homeowners’ Rights”: White Resistance and the Rise of Antiliberalism    

Questions: 

1. What were homeowners' associations (a.k.a., civic associations, neighborhood improvement associations, civic associations)?

2. How did homeowners' associations respond to growing advocacy for open housing? 

 3. What does Sugrue mean when he says, on the closing page of the chapter, that the ghetto is not simply a physical construct, but also an ideological construct? That urban space became a metaphor for perceived racial differences?

Source for Questions: Charles Brown, “[Marxism-Thaxis] Study Guide: Origins of the Urban Crisis.” Retrieved Jan 11, 2009. http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/2009-January/023574.html

Assignment - Deadline: Thursday, March 6

A. Post two paragraphs inspired by the study guide questions/thoughts for the week

B.  Post two separate comments to one or more of your colleagues reacting to their paragraphs.

Assignment: Chapter 7    Posting Deadline: Thursday, February 27

Reading: Chapter 7: “Class, Status and Residency”: The Changing Geography of Black Detroit    

Questions: 

1. What was the purpose of "restrictive covenants?" What happened to restrictive covenants in 1948?  

2. What was the effect, in Detroit, of the Supreme Court's decision declaring restrictive covenants unenforceable [Shelley v. Kramer (1948)]?  

3. How did the way some people and firms practiced real estate brokerage encourage white flight, thereby opening up neighborhoods for African American home ownership?  

4. What argument is Sugrue making in this chapter about the African-American community in Detroit? How is Sugrue's analysis different from that of William Julius Wilson (summarized in the chapter)? 

Source for Questions: Charles Brown, “[Marxism-Thaxis] Study Guide: Origins of the Urban Crisis.” Retrieved Jan 11, 2009.  http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/2009-January/023574.html

Assignment - Deadline: Thursday, February 27

A. Post two paragraphs inspired by the study guide questions/thoughts for the week

B.  Post two separate comments to one or more of your colleagues reacting to their paragraphs.

Assignment: Chapter 6    Posting Deadline: Thursday, February 20

Reading: Chapter 6: "Forget about Your Inalienable Right to Work": Responses to Industrial Decline and Discrimination    

Questions: 

Early in the chapter, on p. 156, Sugrue says there was a "trend against [a] structural understanding of poverty and unemployment." Explain what it would mean to view unemployment for African Americans in Detroit as a "structural" problem. Contrast the structural view with the alternative - that unemployment results from a person's individual deficiencies.

Source for Questions: Charles Brown, “[Marxism-Thaxis] Study Guide: Origins of the Urban Crisis.” Retrieved Jan 11, 2009.  http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/2009-January/023574.html

  

Assignment - Deadline: Thursday, February 20

A. Post two paragraphs inspired by the study guide questions/thoughts for the week

B.  Post two separate comments to one or more of your colleagues reacting to their paragraphs.

Assignment: Chapter 5    Posting Deadline: Thursday, February 13

Reading: Chapter 5: "The Damning Mark of False Prosperities": The Deindustrialization of Detroit    

Questions: 

1. What happened to manufacturing employment in Detroit beginning in the late 1940s and into the early 1960s?  

2. Where did manufacturing jobs go as they left Detroit?  

3. What are some of the reasons that manufacturing employment declined?

Source for Questions: Charles Brown, “[Marxism-Thaxis] Study Guide: Origins of the Urban Crisis.” Retrieved Jan 11, 2009.  http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/2009-January/023574.html

  

Assignment - Deadline: Thursday, February 13

A. Post two paragraphs inspired by the study guide questions/thoughts for the week

B.  Post two separate comments to one or more of your colleagues reacting to their paragraphs.  

Assignment: Chapter 4    Posting Deadline: Thursday, February 6

Reading: Chapter 4: “The Meanest & Dirtiest Jobs”: The Structures of Employment Discrimination

Question: 

       Identify and discuss the central contention of this chapter.

Source for Questions: Charles Brown, “[Marxism-Thaxis] Study Guide: Origins of the Urban Crisis.” Retrieved Jan 11, 2009.  http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/2009-January/023574.html

  

Assignment - Deadline: Thursday, February 6

A. Post two paragraphs inspired by the study guide questions/thoughts for the week

B.  Post two separate comments to one or more of your colleagues reacting to their paragraphs.  

Assignment: Chapter 3    Posting Deadline: Thursday, January 30

Reading: Chapter 3: “The Coffin of Peace”: The Containment of Public Housing

Questions: 

1.   Were the groups advocating public housing in Detroit successful in achieving development of public housing? Were they successful in achieving racially integrated public housing? How or why not?

2.   What does Sugrue mean when he says there is a conflict between the two strains in New Deal Housing policy?

Source for Questions: Charles Brown, “[Marxism-Thaxis] Study Guide: Origins of the Urban Crisis.” Retrieved Jan 11, 2009.  http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/2009-January/023574.html

  

Assignment - Deadline: Thursday, January 23

A. Post two paragraphs inspired by the study guide questions/thoughts for the week

B.  Post two separate comments to one or more of your colleagues reacting to their paragraphs.  

Assignment: Chapter 2    Posting Deadline: Thursday, January 23

Reading: Chapter 2: “Detroit’s Time Bomb”: Race and Housing in the 1940s

Question: 

Source for Questions: Charles Brown, “[Marxism-Thaxis] Study Guide: Origins of the Urban Crisis.” Retrieved Jan 11, 2009.  http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/2009-January/023574.html

How was access to housing of the 1940s affected by:

1.     Attitudes of white homeowners

2.     Institutional practices

3.     Government practices, policies and programs

  

Assignment - Deadline: Thursday, January 23

A. Post two paragraphs inspired by the study guide questions/thoughts for the week

B.  Post two separate comments to one or more of your colleagues reacting to their paragraphs.