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Guarding the Rural Myth in Michigan

In: The Housing Bias

Author

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  • Paul Boudreaux

Abstract

The ghost of Henry Ford floats as both an angel and a demon over the state of Michigan. These days, it’s easy to rue the fact that Ford’s innovations in auto manufacturing a century ago made the state too reliant on an industry that the Japanese, Germans, and even Koreans appear to be better at than Americans are these days. He also gets some of the blame for the nation’s addiction to gasoline, as well as the tailpipe emissions that threaten the planet’s climate. But Ford also championed decent wages for the working man—an astounding $5 a day back in 1914—which helped make Detroit, as recently as the 1970s, the center of the highest-paying blue-collar jobs in the world. The increased wages allowed, perhaps for the first time in world history, a working man to achieve a life of suburban leisure, in which he could leave the factory at the end of his shift, start up his Ford, and drive on fine publicly built asphalt roads through the leafy streets of southern Michigan to a small frame or brick house with a yard that the family called its own.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Boudreaux, 2011. "Guarding the Rural Myth in Michigan," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: The Housing Bias, chapter 4, pages 117-145, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-11985-7_5
    DOI: 10.1057/9780230119857_5
    as

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