# Why did Detroit decline relative to Chicago and Toronto?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-detroit-decline-relative-to-chicago-and-toronto/485893>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [February 15, 2009, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-detroit-decline-relative-to-chicago-and-toronto/485893 "2009-02-15T01:11:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\
**Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-detroit-decline-relative-to-chicago-and-toronto/485893/61 "2009-02-23T04:50:15Z")

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> [@Little\_Nemo](#):
>
> I think Detroit’s decline is so deep because while all American cities got hit with some problems in the last fifty years, Detroit got hit by all of them. It’s the perfect storm of urban crisis.

Bingo.

Buffalo’s defenders always seem to point to other cities, and say that they have the same problem, too.

“Buffalo has cold and miserable winters, but so does Toronto and Chicago.”  
“Buffalo has high taxes, but so does Massachusetts and Wisconsin.”  
“Buffalo has rough neighborhoods, but so does Washington and Miami.”  
“Buffalo may be really blue collar, but so is Pittsburgh and Milwaukee.”  
“You’re forced to pay a toll to drive to Buffalo, but it’s the same thing with NYC and Tulsa.”  
“Buffalo has a corrupt, dysfunctional municipal government, but so does Philadelphia and Chicago.”

True, but Buffalo has ALL of those issues, and more. Despite that, though, Buffalo seemed to fare far better than Detroit and Cleveland. Why? IMHO …

- The wealthy and upper middle-class never left the city. There’s wealthy suburbs, but they developed on their own, not as a result of relocation of the city’s elite.
- Public schools are fairly good. Test scores are low compared to the 'burbs, but the magnet, exam and vocational schools are outstanding.
- 1960s rioting was mild, and isolated to two neighborhoods; the predominantly African-American Jefferson Avenue area, and the student-dominated University Heights neighborhood. Buffalo _should_ have had massive riots; there’s a huge student population that was known for being quite radical in the 1960s, and an African-American population that today is still quite poor compared to peer metropolitan areas. Institutional racism wasn’t much of an issue in Buffalo, though.

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