Nicknames like the Motor City and Motown make clear that the auto industry built Detroit. Cars did a lot to give the neighborhoods in and around the 48217 zip code on the city’s southwest side their nickname too — Michigan’s most polluted zip code.
A Ford plant, a U.S. Steel mill and, most prominently, a Marathon Oil refinery that’s the only one in the state and one of the nation’s largest have fouled the air for decades in what locals call the Tri-Cities. In all, the Environmental Protection Agency monitors more than four dozen polluters in the area that’s home to poor Blacks and Hispanics.
