In 1921, developer Burt Eddy Taylor bought 160 acres (0.65 km2) of land in Redford Township, located one mile (1.6 km) away from Detroit's city limits at the time.

[2] Taylor created Brightmoor as a planned community of inexpensive housing for migrants from the Southern United States in the early 1920s.

B. E. Taylor recruited workers from Appalachia with the lure of employment at one of Detroit's expanding automobile manufacturing plants.

[citation needed]At the time of the community's opening, many residents lived in temporary shantytowns awaiting the completion of their permanent houses.

In 2011 Suzette Hackney and Kristi Tanner of the Detroit Free Press said that the area, "over decades, transformed from a thriving working-class neighborhood to one of abandoned homes and businesses, and now one that is hoping to come back, mostly through private-sector efforts.

"[6] In 2009 John Carlisle (DetroitBlogger John) of the Metro Times said "Ghetto stereotypes thrive here—broad-daylight drug dealing, pre-teen pregnancies, long-gone or never-known fathers, and houses falling apart or giving way to vacant lots",[4] though many non-profit agencies aimed to assist the population of Brightmoor.

[8] In June 2013 the nonprofit organization Detroit Blight Authority began a cleanup effort of trash from a fourteen city block area, bounded by Lyndon, West Outer Drive, and Trinity Streets and with Eaton Avenue splitting the area laterally.

[9] The authority, with the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries and Mitch Albom Charities, organized the Blight Elimination—100 Houses Event in August 2013.

In this definition, Brightmoor is bordered by several other master neighborhoods: Redford to the north, Rosedale to the northeast Cerveny/Grandmont to the east, and Cody to the south.

In 2014, Rollo Romig of The New Yorker wrote "Much of Brightmoor matches what Detroit looks like in the popular imagination—an alarming amalgam of city dump, crime scene, and wild prairie".

[15] The Brightmoor Alliance is a group of community organizations that work to coordinate revitalization programs in the neighborhood.

Created in 2000, the Brightmoor Alliance meets regularly to discuss programs, events, and partnerships developed by member organizations.

[4] Organizations in the neighborhood include Brightmoor Community Center, Motor City Blight Busters, Mt.