Rioting in Ferguson prompted by unemployment, bad schools and white domination

The police shooting of Michael Brown was the spark.

But the tinder fuelling the anger and resentment that has exploded in Ferguson in the US state of Missouri has been building for decades.

Moving vans have carried off many middle-class homeowners who eagerly bought brick homes with yards in St Louis' northern suburbs after the second world war. They've been replaced by poorer newcomers. Dependable jobs for those without college degrees have grown scarce. The factories that once sprouted there have closed. With town budgets strapped, local schools have struggled.

Yet local governments, slow to evolve, are staffed mostly by whites, unlike the people they represent. That has created a chasm between whites and the local black community.

"For a young black man, there's not much employment, not a lot of opportunity," said Todd Swanstrom, a professor of public policy at the University of Missouri. "It's kind of a tinder box."

Seething tensions exploded after a white police officer shot and killed Brown, an 18-year-old black. Missouri Governor Jay Nixon declared a curfew to get people off the streets. Some in the crowds have looted local stores.