Paradigm lost: Industrial and Post-Industrial Detroit-An analysis of the street network and its social and economic dimensions from 1796 to the present

Abstract

This article addresses spatial patterns of growth and decline in Detroit from 1776 to the present. It maps industrial distribution, and uses space syntax to analyse the relationship among the street network, industry, streetcar transportation, and retail activity in the city. Special emphasis is given to the first half of the twentieth century, when Detroit reaches its peak of industrial production, in comparison with the second half, when it looses its vitality with the instalment of motorways and suburbanisation. The findings show that in the 1920s industry, streetcar transportation and retail settled along global movement routes that linked the city core with the expanding urban system. Since the 1950s the street network has lost its capacity to integrate the social and economic activities in the city, which followed a new logic of production, consumption and distribution. The motorways and the industrial landscape, which remained unchanged once reaching its peak, disrupted the street patterns in the city. This analysis can illuminate the role the street network plays in how cities prosper and thrive or shrink and decline. It leads to the suggestion that planning policy and urban design should integrate spatial configuration in their attempts to develop sustainable futures. © 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.