The car industry dismantled a Black Detroit community. It could happen again

East Canfield has seen decades of pollution and displacement due to carmakers’ expansion plans – and it’s threatened again

Bethany Howard’s neighborhood was dismantled to satisfy the US demand for automobiles.

She grew up in Detroit, AKA Motor City, in the 1980s. For five generations, the Howards have lived, worked and attended school in East Canfield, a tight-knit, walkable community. She still lives in the same house her great-grandfather moved into when he left Mississippi. But the neighborhood she knew growing up no longer exists.