Michigan politics as an illustration of the impact of the decline of industry on social capital

The Washington Post has launched a series of articles on swing states vis a vis the Presidential Election, and the first article is on Michigan, "Michigan's political geography."

Reading it reinforced the fact that I need to read Sugrue's Origins of the Urban Crisis, which is about the decline of Detroit, but dates the start of the decline to the 1940s, but also touched on Chapter 5, "Common Ground," in Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life by Eric Klinenberg, which is about social capital and social infrastructure as essential elements to a functioning society in the United States.

Michigan was the heart of the American automobile industry and still is home to the US-based manufacturers (GM, Ford, FCA--now the owner of Chrysler).

Detroit and its suburbs especially in Wayne County, Flint (GM started there, Buick was based there, many parts manufacturing operations were based there), Bay City, Pontiac (Pontiac was based there), Saginaw, and Lansing (Oldsmobile was based there), Dearborn where Ford is based and nearby River Rouge where Ford had a plant that even milled its own steel, especially were known for how those communities were dominated by the auto industry, suppliers, and related firms.

But even before the "gasoline crisis" of 1973 when Saudi Arabia nationalized the oil industry and raised prices, the auto companies were shifting operations out of Michigan.

They did this because they realized that the preponderance of facilities had at least one negative consequence, lots of employees who were members of the the United Auto Workers union, and in supplier plants too, of the UAW and other unions.  And for the most part, these workers voted for Democrats, especially in Congress and the State Legislature, and usually for Governor.

By deconcentrating the industry away from Michigan and spreading it out around the rest of the country, the power of the UAW (and other unions) declined, especially in Michigan, where for much of the past few decades, Republicans have controlled the State Legislature and usually the Governorship.

The effect on Michigan and especially cities like Detroit, Flint, Pontiac and Saginaw has only intensified through technologization of jobs--the typical plant has one quarter or fewer of the jobs it had it the late 1960s, consolidation, outsourcing, and the success of "foreign car companies," many now with manufacturing operations in the US.

In short there are significantly fewer mass manufacturing plants in Michigan--especially in Detroit, which had 15 such plants in the 1950s and two now, Flint, which once had almost 90,000 people working for GM in and around the city and now has fewer than 9,000 employees working there, Lansing--no more Oldsmobile, and Pontiac--the Pontiac brand was dissolved so there's no need for plants and headquarters operations.   Etc.

The Post article discusses how much of the State of Michigan now votes Republican, except in the cities, which are much reduced in population size.  It also discusses the phenomenon of conservative blue collar workers--the so called "Reagan Democrats" in Detroit's suburbs, but particularly Macomb County.

Chapter 5 in Klinenberg's book is really interesting, because it discusses how large scale work sites ,in particular manufacturing plants, ended up being social levelers and platforms for equality and augurs of democracy, bringing together people who otherwise differed greatly on racial, ethnic, and religious terms.

But working together, sharing not only union membership and activities, but "wakes, funerals, retirement parties, weddings, and a host of family activities over the course of their lives in the mill" brought about social bonding and what Klinenberg calls "bridging social capital" that supersedes intragroup solidarity.

"Taverns, athletic fields, and political clubs were especially important sites of social bonding.  Some tended to attract mainly people from one ethnic group, but many others were places where white ethnics, Mexicans, and African Americans came together regularly to converse, commune and compete."

Not only did people discuss work issues, but family, personal matters, community and political issues as well.  Sure plenty of churches, social clubs, and neighborhoods remained exclusionary, but for many their world did not have to be quite so delimited.

As firms consolidated, closed, and moved out of the cities, these platforms for communal introduction and interaction declined and disappeared as well.

In Michigan, industry centered on Southeastern Michigan specifically, dominated by Detroit which had a peak of 1.8 million residents which today is about one-third, and "Lower Michigan" more generally.  And this population and political domination of Lower Michigan over the rest of the state was deeply resented.

Buick City--the section of Flint dominated by Buick manufacturing operations--in its heyday.

The population decline in major Michigan cities as "work disappeared" and a spread of the population within the state away from Southeastern Michigan has contributed significantly to the changing political demographics of Michigan.

Within Michigan as a whole, too there is an element of political payback to Southeastern Michigan, whose political and economic might once controlled the rest of the state. 

You saw that with Governors like John Engler (a former Congressman who went on to disgrace himself as the out of tune interim President of Michigan State University) and Rick Snyder, and with Snyder, state management takeover of cities like Detroit and Flint through bankruptcy proceedings.

(It was Republican state management of Flint that brought about that city's massive water system failure.)

And with the denigration of cities as cesspools of Democratic control and "failure," without acknowledging that when work disappears so do tax paying residents and businesses.

-- "John DeLorean, R.I.P (Rocking Revitalization Part II)," 2005
-- "The rise of Oakland County is built upon Detroit's fall," 2014
-- "Ford Motor Company as a transportation company not a "car" company: bike share and small scale transit," 2016
-- "The real lesson from Flint Michigan is about municipal finance," 2016
-- "Poletown, GM, the Archdiocese, etc. and the closure of the Detroit Hamtramack GM plant," 2019
-- "Revisiting stories: the death of L. Brooks Patterson, County Executive, Oakland County, Michigan," 2019

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In 1987, I ran for City Council in Ann Arbor in a ward that was traditionally Republican, because that year, the Democratic candidate who typically ran, a lifelong resident, wasn't interested.  (Back then the election was in April, to diminish the power of the student vote.  Now it's consolidated within the national election cycle and Democrats pretty much control the city's politics.)

I went to Ann Arbor more as a moderate Republican (although at 12 I was a fervent McGovern supporter) and voted for some Republicans including for Governor the first time I voted.  Although then Michigan had an honorable moderate Republican tradition which has long since been abandoned in the state and by the party more generally.

Soon enough I became more progressive and Democrat in my politics, especially by the time I ran for office.  Talk about voting in that Ward always centered on the massive turnout in two Republican precincts out towards I-94, somewhat distant from the city center and very typically suburban.

Having changed my politics, I didn't understand why Oakland County--where I lived during junior and senior high school--was so Republican.  When I started door knocking in those two precincts in Ann Arbor that were so reliably and fervently Republican, I understood.  Those houses and subdivisions looked just like where I lived in Troy.