The Legacy of Henry Ford’s 19 Village Industries in Michigan

More than a century after Henry Ford revitalized nineteen Michigan communities and created a system of small auto parts plants within sixty miles of Ford headquarters in Dearborn, what is their contemporary significance? With unlimited funds and complete authority, Ford established what he hoped would be a model for regional industrialization elsewhere in America and for combining centralized and decentralized manufacturing. The village industries were not conventional company towns, and Ford provided considerable community autonomy apart from the small plants themselves. But after Ford's death in 1947 the Ford Motor Company sold nearly all of them. Yet in recent years there have been substantial efforts to restore some of the plants and to publicize their historical and contemporary importance. In fact, the Village Industries along Hines Drive and River Rouge Park, administered by the Wayne County Parks Commission, has become a hot topic as the Parks Commission manages the whole by selling off (with significant restrictions) three unused structures to regenerate local business (though suburbanites have rallied against the sales).