News
Farley looks at why so many Michigan metro areas have fallen into emergency-manager status
January 23, 2014
In this op ed, Reynolds Farley discusses the historical slide into disadvantage that has caused some majority-black Michigan municipalities to lose local governance. He says that places like Benton Harbor, Detroit, Flint, Highland Park, Inkster, Pontiac, Buena Vista, and Muskegon Heights, which all have had emergency managers appointed, have signed consent agreements, and/or have lost local control of their school systems in recent years, are hampered by the declining incomes of blacks. Looking at the years since the Civil Rights Movement, Farley says: “The troubling fact is that the economic status of the average African-American resident of Michigan is much less favorable now than it was in 1970.”