Detroit, Michigan

Detroit’s population loss is beginning to effect it’s national representation, for the first time in 57-years the city may not send a black representative to Congress. This comes as the city’s who’s populations is eighty-three percent African-American faces the pains of the nationwide economic recession. Bloomberg Businessweek reports:

Detroit’s population loss may leave Michigan without a black representative in Congress for the first time since 1955, a shift that would punctuate the erosion of African-American power in a region with a history of racial friction.

New boundaries pushed Detroit’s two congressional districts deeper into the suburbs because the city of 713,000 lost one- quarter of its population since 2000. As a result, U.S. representatives John Conyers Jr. and Hansen Clarke may be ousted by white Democratic challengers in districts where blacks are a smaller majority than before.

“It’s a more than 50 percent likelihood it will happen,” said Eric Foster, 40, a political consultant in Troy, Michigan, whose clients are mostly Democrats. He said many black voters who moved from Detroit to suburbs care more about economic issues than about keeping blacks in office.

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