"Once America's "arsenal of democracy," Detroit has become the symbol of the American urban crisis. In this reappraisal of America's dilemma of racial and economic inequality, Thomas Sugrue asks why Detroit and other industrial cities have become the sites of persistent racialized poverty. He challenges the conventional wisdom that urban decline is the product of the social programs and racial fissures of the 1960s. Weaving together the history of workplaces, unions, civil rights groups, political organizations, and real estate agencies, Sugrue finds the roots of today's urban poverty in a hidden history of racial violence, discrimination, and deindustrialization that reshaped the American urban landscape after World War II."--BOOK JACKET.

Arsenal -- Arsenal of democracy -- Detroit's time bomb : race and housing in the 1940s -- The coffin of peace : the containment of public housing -- Rust -- The meanest and dirtiest jobs : the structures of employment discrimination -- The damning mark of false prosperities : the deindustrialization of Detroit -- Forget about your inalienable right to work : responses to industrial decline and discrimination -- Fire -- Class, status, and residence: the changing geography of Black Detroit -- Homeowners' rights : White resistance and the rise of antiiberalism -- United communities are impregnable : violence and the color line -- Crisis: Detroit and the fate of postindustrial America.