This map from the Detroit City Plan Commission’s report titled: “The People of Detroit” brings the city’s health into focus. Much of Detroit’s public health infrastructure was built to address tuberculosis. The now empty and redeveloping Herman Kiefer Hospital was constructed in 1911 for the express purpose of eliminating tuberculosis in Detroit.

“The highest incidence of venereal disease is among Negro males. Mortality due to tuberculosis and pneumonia is highest in the area within the Boulevard, and lowest in the newly developing areas on the outskirts of the city. Insofar as the rates are the result of living conditions in deteriorating and blighted areas, remedial action to be applied would need to be more far-reaching than wider extension of medical care.”