From Doxiadis’ “Emergence and Growth of an Urban Region” Volume 2, this map utilized 1960s Census data.

“Of the 352,680 residential structures in the City of Detroit, about 50,000 are blighted. By 1975, when the city’s present renewal program will have been implemented, an additional 113,720 residential structures occupying 11,136 acres of land are expected to be blighted. By that time 238,000 more people will be living in blighted areas. Fig 44. indicates the extent of this problem in order to show the blighted and deteroriating neighborhoods in Detroit which are not presently affected by the city’s urban renewal program.”

A critical connection should be drawn between the above mapped areas and areas that were cataloged as blight in the 2009 Detroit Residential Property Survey (DRPS) and the 2013 Motor City Mapping (MCM).

Now we see many of these 1960 blighted areas, labeled blight and cleared, in the midst of redevelopment. Blight has a long trajectory that we cannot forget started somewhere. People have been mapping blight in Detroit for decades and blight has affected the development of the city for just as long.