Most of this book focuses on the early white flight era of the 1950s and 1960s, when Jews were still mostly in the city of Detroit but moving towards its outer edges. Even before the riots, population changes were often rapid: as late as 1958, 79 percent of the Jewish population lived within the city limits, and only five years later that number declined to 55 percent. And even before white flight to the suburbs, there was white flight within the city: one area near the city limits contained 1/3 of the Jewish population in 1949 and 62 percent a decade later.
Why did Jews move so rapidly? Berman explains that blacks essentially outbid Jews: blacks were ejected from older black areas by urban renewal and excluded from other white areas by the threat of violence, and so had few options. Because black home buyers had fewer options, real estate agents could charge them higher prices than white buyers. Jews favored fair housing laws not just out of idealistic commitment but out of self-interest: if blacks could move into non-Jewish white neighborhoods, Jewish areas would be under less pressure.
Meanwhile, synagogues were eager to move because their boards were full of developers and real estate agents, who could reap big profits if they could sell homes in suburbia.
I found the last chapter or two less engaging than the rest of the book: Berman discusses "metropolitan urbanism" which mostly means that after leaving the city, Jewish liberals engaged in some charitable activities in the city.
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