All through the 1960s my hometown, Detroit, held steady as the fifth-largest city in the United States, a standing Detroiters could be proud of, along with Motown and two-tone Cadillacs. But even then the population of 1.5million was shrinking. After the 1967 riot the flight accelerated, and the Motor City has lost an average of 190,000 residents in every census since, mostly among the white and moneyed. Nothing stopped the exodus, not sunny PR campaigns ("Say nice things about Detroit") or expensive real estate developments (the Renaissance Center).