Why there is no Detroit in Canada

Despite significant structural similarities, Canadian and American Rust Belt cities have very different levels of inner core land abandonment. Cities like Detroit and Cleveland are filled with thousands of vacant lots. No abandonment of this magnitude exists in the Canadian Rust Belt, despite significant deindustrialization, suburbanization, wealth, and localist politics—all factors theorized to be central causes for American Rust Belt abandonment. This paper considers why such a vast difference in land abandonment exists between the two contexts. It centers on the role of racialization, but in a way that challenges Canadian exceptionalist narratives about the ostensible lack of racialization. Racialization took place on both sides of the border, I argue, but only the American form contributed to land abandonment.