Donut Effect: The City Of Detroit

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The author applies a blend of personal experience as historical research to approach the complex and unique ‘donut effect’ the city of Detroit is facing. Safransky summarizes the hardships that the predominantly African-American population face in inner city Detroit. Citizens are forced to squat in abandoned homes where others must grow their own food in gardens because grocery stores gouge basic commodity prices. She faults current conditions back to the 1950’s, when the automotive industry began to decline. The “white flight” of white families left for the suburbs and the poorer blacks were stuck in central locations. This in turn created the ‘donut effect’, where white people amalgamated in the outer ring through the suburbs, and African-Americans

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