The book Driving Detroit is the basis for Dr. Galster’s talk. The book’s thesis is that metropolitan Detroit can be understood as two dimensions of tensions: capital vs. labor, blacks vs. whites. It documents the region’s geo-political environment, evolving economic and population patterns and longstanding inter-class and inter-racial struggles. Driving Detroit draws upon psychological principles of human fulfilment to diagnose the region’s ills. It focuses on the frustrations generated by the extreme adaptations that distinguish the region: distrust, scapegoating, identity politics, segregation, unionization and jurisdictional fragmentation. Unfortunately, these individually rational adaptations have proven dysfunctional for the Metro Detroit area.

George Galster is a Distinguished Professor and Clarence Hilberry Professor of Urban Affairs at Wayne State University. He came to Wayne State in 1996. Before this time, he had served as Director of Housing Research at the Urban Institute. Professor Galster has over a hundred varied publications on a wide range of urban policy issues, including eight books. His frequent focus has been on the intersection of neighborhoods, race and housing patterns.

This is the first of a six-lecture series entitled “Detroit: Complex Past, Promising Present, Uncertain Future."