The Atlantic peers inside “The Other Detroit”

Ta-Nehisi Coates, one of the nation’s preeminent arts critics, took to The Atlantic to publish a story about Palmer Woods that leaves those winding streets to step inside the homes and histories of the neighborhood’s anchor families. He delves into Palmer Woods’ progression from a white-only neighborhood to the nucleus of the city’s black elite, the struggles against crime and depopulation and the community bonds forged by families who consider living in Palmer Woods a “political act” — and a celebration of an important piece of the city’s African-American history.

Excerpt:

Indeed, Palmer Woods now sits on a census block group that, according to
the most-recent available data, is 81 percent black, and it is arguably
the American black elite’s most majestic enclave. When I first visited,
in the fall of 2009, I was awestruck. I had seen well-heeled black
neighborhoods before — the prosperous suburbs ringing Atlanta and
Washington, D.C., Chatham in Chicago, Baldwin Hills in L.A. But the
gates of Palmer Woods are a wormhole out of the angry city and into an
opulent idyll.

Read the story and check out the photo gallery here.