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The article is from February. A couple of corrections:

1. It's spelled Grosse Pointe not Grosse Point.

2. The flower boxes that blocked entry from the city have been removed.

3. Downtown's renewal has created jobs in security, food and construction

4. There has been the start of a revival of retail centers in some of the neighborhoods

5. There's a really cool sculpture park a few blocks West of the Whole Foods, I was there a week ago. It's on the service road of the Lodge expressway.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/entertainment/2015/06/08/ar...

The article doesn't mention it, but downtown Detroit is effectively privately policed : http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/nancy-kaffer/2... , and Midtown Detroit is mostly covered by Wayne State University Police, who are infinitely quicker to respond than the actual city police.
A sizable part of downtown is in what is referred to as the Dan Gilbert green zone. Cameras everywhere and a private security force.

http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/6760/a_first_look_in...

If you're in the tech area around the Madison building you're fairly safe 24 hours a day. East of downtown, especially after the sun goes down is a no mans land.

I feel pretty safe walking east of downtown, till about Eastern Market.
Land is dirt cheap in Detroit. If they could fix the crime and the schools, I'd move there just for the more central location. But no, I'll stick to the burbs for now.
If they fix the crime and schools (and utilities), land won't be dirt cheap anymore. At least not at the levels they're at now. Those are exactly the factors driving the land prices down in the first place.
Which makes it tempting to spend some money buying a few acres of land somewhere and hold it for a few decades in the hopes that a city will rebuild itself nearby.

I guess people are already doing this?

Hantz Farms got a lot of flack for being a scheme to do that on a massive scale.
My wife was in downtown Detroit recently. She was surprised by how nice it was compared to Baltimore. At least there is some revitalization in Detroit, somewhere.

It's not a choice between pockets of growth and broad-based resurgence. It's a choice between a few gentrifying neighborhoods and not even that.

I don't know, Harbor East/Harbor Point might not be to the same scale as some of downtown Detroit, but they have the same feel to me. I bet that whole area east of the aquarium to Canton will look a lot like downtown Detroit within the next decade.
True that. But it is also the perfect time to set policies that will ensure proper development and redistribution in the future. Like infrastructure and the likes.

Progressive property taxes based on the price of a square feet could go a long way. We won't burden the development now, but if we get in hypergentrification like in Manhattan/SF we will have backstops and funds to spread in the outer parts of the city.

>It's not a choice between pockets of growth and broad-based resurgence. It's a choice between a few gentrifying neighborhoods and not even that.

Who says? Why and how did this state of affairs happen?

Cities can't overcome the forces created by state and federal policies. It's too easy for businesses and capital to simply move away from cities that don't engage in race to the bottom behavior. You can either make your city super attractive for development, or development will move to a city that is willing to do that.
That doesn't answer the question. Without some sort of countervailing policy to concentrate wealth, it would seem that growth ought to lead to broad growth.
Detroit is huge. It's really, really big. It was once a top-10 city in the world and one of the wealthiest. Now it's dirt poor (by American standards) and significantly depopulated, but it's still physically huge. It's like when you cut back a really big tree... it can't help but grow back with little shoots, because if what's left of the plant tries to revitalize the entire empty shell, it'll simply die trying.

It would be a grave error to choke off the shoots of growth in Detroit out of some misguided sense of it somehow not being fair that it's not evenly distributed. This isn't San Francisco in wealth and power that maybe is doing something you don't like, with resources to spare if it just did $WHATEVER. This is, even now, a city on the edge, a city with massive financial problems even with its current financial outlays that you would probably find horribly inadequate, a city with no resources to speak of. Choke off the growth shoots and you won't get a broad-based resurgence, you'll just get nothing.

(First rule of wealth redistribution: Make sure there is wealth to redistribute! The only way the city is going to get resources to spread the revitalization around is if there is somebody being successful, somewhere.)

It was a simple question, not a suggestion to choke off anything. I find it curious that merely asking "why did this problem come to exist in the first place" is met with downvotes and advice about "wealth distribution" that sounds an awful lot like trickle-down economics.
Yes, but it can take quite some time to do so. Especially if you want it to spread geographically; by itself, wealth does have a tendency to concentrate.
Biggest problems for Detroit aren't mentioned in the article at all.

1) Crime - Goes without saying Detroit continues to be one of if not the most dangerous large cities in the US.

2) Literacy - Only 50% of the population of 700,000 are functionally literate. If you can't read or write what kind of job can you get in today's economy?

That 50% rate is very likely bogus. At best its almost entirely lacking supporting data. It derives from a study done decades ago, based on 26,000 national adults (which warns that it is too inaccurate to be projected at the local level). Like most similar stats, it has been abused ever since.

Further, nowhere in any Detroit study has there been a conclusion that 50% of Detroit's entire population is not functionally literate. That's not an exaggeration, no such study exists stating those figures.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/05/06/detroit-lite...

To add, there was a slightly less than 50% rate reported for a low level of literacy, but this isn't the same as illiteracy. Most developed countries have definitions that put around 10% of people as functionally illiterate, but also have definitions that put 20-30% of people as having very low levels of literacy, in fact the study that put Detroit at 47% puts it at roughly 25% nationwide. Further, this rate is based on an extrapolation from data from 25 years ago, done 22 years ago.

Lastly, the literacy as the study defines it is based on a Congressional act which stipulates literacy in English. Those who don't know English are considered functionally illiterate in this study (and many others), despite being fully able to read and write in another language. e.g. read Spanish news, email, things at work, cooking recipes, software, manuals for their electronics. This obviously isn't optimal, government letters in English wouldn't be readable directly, but it's a world of difference compared to someone who is fully illiterate (which is a proxy for general education, too, and in this case often not applicable due to literacy/education in another language).

Lastly the 47% figure carries a warning that it has confidence intervals larger than (-)5 at the 95% confidence level, how much it doesn't say but not a single other city carries this warning except one which has a 57% figure, and the rest of the country (and similar socioeconomic areas) are half the rate, so I would be completely uncomfortable ever citing this figure even in the context of 25 year old data, without at least finding out the actual confidence interval.

Reducing problems down to "biggest" and you lose a lot of nuance into what is going on. IMO, crime and low education levels are symptoms that feed back into the deeper social breakdown that happened.

So to illustrate one facet of the social breakdown: the implosion of local street-level business.

I grew up in Los Angeles during what was the worst period of time for its inner cities, around the riots and the aftermath. Lots of street businesses burned, and there was fear that there would be an investment implosion. Perhaps the business community would do what the police department did (yeah, they pulled out at the beginning of the riots). But instead, Los Angeles restored normalcy to its communities, thanks to solid leadership and general empathy. Jobs were still around, businesses continued and expanded even in the toughest parts of town. And that is why LA thrives even with its many more dangerous pockets.

Detroit outside of downtown was largely abandoned by its business community and "city fathers" (seems old fashioned to put it this way but it was the 1960s). You need more than a glitzy downtown, pristine museum, and freeways to have a functional society. On the street at the crucial moments of decision, it must have been rational thinking made by store owners to not invest or to move the store elsewhere. Maybe sprinkle some racism in there too. These local business folks must have sensed the direction of the wind.

The core "powers that be" were not helping, and clearly could not find a way to halt the white flight. Maybe it was unsolvable, but looking at the history it seems that the city fathers did not pull all stops on keeping Detroit's population stable.

Add to that the huge loss of industrial jobs. In an economic sense, all that was left was downtown pushing big gov solutions like "convention center" and "people mover" and "casino". Not to mention the GM plant and jail that destroyed half of what was Polish-town. Highly unsubtle solutions in the Pre-Gilbert era, most of which entirely ignored the importance of small, community-level business.

So problems have causes and it feeds back into the problems. Without eyes on the street by shopkeepers, you have crime. Without nearby jobs, families do not have time to help their kids through school.

The fix? Complicated.

Oakland is super dangerous too. Chicago has a million shootings every weekend. So what.
The thing that gets lost in most statements similar to "$CITY is dangerous!", is that it's usually not the whole city. Parts of it are. If you know what parts and stay away from those, you'll be okay. There are parts of San Francisco that are probably pretty scary from the point-of-view of upper-middle-class folks but when you know SF well enough, you know where _not_ to go.

- Mexico is a beautiful place with plenty to do on a family vacation, as long as you know where you're going.

- Oakland has fantastic entertainment, art and food... as long as you know where you're going.

- San Francisco is great; well-known as a major international tourist attraction... as long as you don't go to... http://www.vice.com/read/hunters-point-is-san-franciscos-rad...

Hmmm, there were two muggings in Noe Valley at the corner of Jersey and Noe when I was there. Yea, I know, anecdote. I heard one of them. It happened within 100 feet of my apartment at the corner. At the time I just thought it was some kids but found out the next day it was a mugging.

Had my bike stolen from my garage there. Garage was closed.

Also had 4 Japanese co-workers come for GDC and get mugged on Market between 6th and 7th. Broken teeth, concussions.

Some friends of friends moved into an apartment in the mission near 20th and Harrison. They got robbed as they were carrying their boxes up the stairs to their new apartment. They didn't stay in SF.

I don't consider SF "great"

That sounds surprisingly bad. Are these considered good areas in San Francisco, or slightly iffy, or very dodgy?
If one has to live there and be familiar with the local geography in order to know precisely how to reduce one's risk of getting carjacked, it's fair to describe it as "dangerous". There is a real difference between "danger with pockets of safety" and the reverse.
It's just that upper-middle class people tend not to have any street-smarts so they're afraid of any place that doesn't look shiny-and-glamorous..... and eventually, this conversation is going to take us to deeper uncomfortable social issues like this: http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/what-to-do-when-y...

"“rating system based on the personal views of Americans, a people historically known to mask the occasional racist view behind words like ‘dangerous’ ”—or, for that matter, “sketchy.”

As an example, London has plenty of violent crime, car jackings, robberies, rapes, et al. I don't think very many people would categorize it as an unsafe city per se, there are just areas you blatantly want to avoid. That's true of nearly every major city - indeed, there are only a few major cities where that isn't the case.
No city is a utopia, of course. Yet there are cities where you can take a stroll downtown on a wednesday night and you'll be fine even if you don't really know where you are. I grew up in Rio de Janeiro, where you have, HAVE to know where you're going, and I also took many long, random strolls in Tokyo after midnight. HUGE difference.
"If you know what parts and stay away from those, you'll be okay."

That's only true if the bad guys stay in their own neighborhoods. If the bad guys wander across your path, like for example to mug affluent people downtown or burglarize affluent homes, then you can't guarantee you'll be okay.

What's more, it's not really "okay" that 45 people were murdered in one weekend in Chicago or Detroit, regardless of how isolated the ghetto is from the nicer areas. Every murder is a tragedy and rips a hole in the city. Ultimately it comes back to haunt the rest of the residents, no matter how much they may try to not think about it.

Every city has places you can't go, Detroit has places you can go, the rest you don't belong.

I'd invite you to take a stroll from the East side of Detroit to the West Side of Detroit, feel free to choose any route you'd like so long as it is a straight line and tell me how it goes.

Totally agree with this.

In Detroit there are many areas that have an acceptable street and neighborhood life, and you do have to be in the know. Even upper middle class areas with African Americans living there, and plenty of great working class areas. But these were somewhat outnumbered by the deserted or dangerous areas, a situation totally reversed in most US cities.

It is ridiculous to say a city is dangerous. Far better to make a longer but nuanced description.

Chicago is #3 by population, so all other things being equal it should have the 3rd highest number of murders.
57 people got shot this weekend including a 10 year old girl.
Yes, and Chicago isn't even in the top 30 U.S. cities by murder rate. It's a big place.
And the parts of Chicago that has Detroit level crime are bombed out urban wasteland too.

Chicago even has the same "collapsing and gentrifying" thing going on. The "good parts" are growing in population and economically as Millenials flood the city and eschew surburbs. But the South and West sides have vast areas with little property and falling population as families with two cents together move to the suburbs fleeing atrocious schools and violence.

I recently met someone who traveled to Detroit regularly for work. He said downtown Detroit was terrifying--no cars at all to be seen, and only homeless people around him. He chose to stay in his hotel most of the time, because he feared for his safety.

I wonder what fixing Detroit would look like. The city is in free fall--high crime, deteriorating infrastructure, and a declining tax base. How would this be reversed? In a time where many cities are booming (Atlanta, Boston, New York, San Francisco, Denver, etc.) Detroit is collapsing.

My guess is that fixing Detroit would start with a massive cash infusion from the state or federal government to address crime and crumbling infrastructure. Nobody wants to live in a city that is unsafe and has no quality housing or reliable transportation. I'm not sure what the next steps after that would be.

2) Build a new

>My guess is that fixing Detroit would start with a massive cash infusion from the state or federal government to address crime and crumbling infrastructure. Nobody wants to live in a city that is unsafe and has no quality housing or reliable transportation.

I don't see any reason we should spend federal dollars to rescue a city that's responsible, in large part, for its own plight. And it's not like we've imposed a visa system on Detroit residents, trapping them there.

Detroit is something like 95% black and poor, making it the least diverse city in the country as well as the biggest to be bankrupt. People who live in the city don't stay there because of a visa system, they stay there because there are no other options. When you are poor, moving just means an added expense to just live in another poor place. Might as well just stay put.
I'm always amazed that poor people seem to be able to afford cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol, but they can't scrape $24 together for a bus ticket to Chicago. I have nothing against people who want to stay in Detroit. It's just that I don't want to spend a bunch of money subsidizing their decision.
Can you really say with a straight face that it's "cigarettes, drugs and alcohol" keeping a non-negligible amount of people from spending their way out of Detroit? The idea that poor people are "wasting" their money on entertainment is wishful myth.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/04/how-the-...

What makes you think Detroit has "high crime". I mean, Detroit has always been "high crime" relative to other midwest cities its size. But for years now I've only read that crime has been dropping in Detroit, probably largely due to the exodus of people who left/are leaving.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/metro-detroit/20...

There are lots of ways Detroit can be rebuilt.

I've had a day dream of a group of tech savy anarchist bakers gathering their artist and programmer friends and all agreeing to move in and take over a neighborhood. They have startup meetings about how to start your own startup meeting. They open unicycle repair shops and community centers with classes on mustache grooming and DIY toilet bowls. Tony Hsieh comes to visit and is jealous. But then they have kids and realize their Montessori school run by "Uncle Randy" has failed to teach their children how to add. The sewer lateral line running from their DIY toilet bowl to the city line is leaking shit, there is no insurance, and it doesnt matter, because the city lines are leaking shit too. And, they are sick of taking three buses to get to Trader Joes which takes up the whole Saturday they could otherwise spend being in an adult kick ball team.

More likely, the real estate keeps dropping until a developer gathers a group of Chinese investors to buy it. They lure in a big employer near by and build a big depressing mega-business-plex. They talk the state into giving some funds and other towns are ok with it because they're hoping it will lure "urban" people back to the city.

But in my heart I hope it is allowed to decay and that the ruins it leaves behind are beautiful and remind us of a time when we needed all the humans to work.

http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/mi/detroit/crime/

"With a crime rate of 81 per one thousand residents, Detroit has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes - from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One's chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 12."

> He said downtown Detroit was terrifying--no cars at all to be seen, and only homeless people around him.

That's somewhat funny that cars are the hallmark of civilization. I understand what he's trying to say, but I'd put the marker as `no respectable people strolling the streets'.

It's funny, but that's just how it is in the Motor City. I'm originally from there, and when my aunt visited me here in the SF Bay, she was amazed at how many people were moving from place to place not in cars. (And for reasons other than "they had multiple DUIs")
Detroit collapsed, long ago. It was walled off, long ago. It was stripped, and the educated people moved outward, long ago.

I worked at the Madison Building downtown while rapt.fm was part of the Bizdom accelerator program so I saw a lot of this gentrifying effect happening.

Dan Gilbert / Detroit Venture Partners / Bizdom have been establishing a tech ecosystem to help with the revitalization downtown. There were dozens of small companies at the Madison Building, a really nice place to have events on the rooftop, an auditorium, etc. And the urban area right around it has a lot of great restaurants and places to live.

This startup scene was moderately big, but way, way bigger was the moving of Quicken Loans back downtown. Plus the updating of the sports stadiums. Plus the general hipsters from UMich building interesting stuff throughout the region. Plus the huge bailout of GM and other kinds of Federal support of industry in Michigan during the Great R.

All of that is why Detroit's collapse is in the past tense, not to say that it is in good shape or anything.

It was an interesting situation on the ground, it had the feel of re-taking, re-building, re-connecting. Downtown and the Wayne State area were way better off than the rest of town, in a highly visible way. But all kinds of folks who held on through the real decline were around, with stories to tell.

One key thing that happened while I was there, and this is was the intention of key people at Bizdom I believe, was that business connected quite a bit with the outer community (i.e. across the freeway-moat around the gentrifying downtown). Lots of people got involved with the startups in the Madison, and were often introduced to us by Bizdom's leaders.

Our company, which combined freestyle rap music with real-time web technology, collaborated with maybe a dozen or two people from around the area. Some were graphic designers, techies, or artists, others were local rappers or promoters.

The town's presence was constant, it was there in the huge windows. You could drive down any major stretch at night, and randomly take a right into a post-industrial wasteland. A kid might zip by on a bike in the pitch dark. Because everywhere, nearby, there were also some homes with families inside.

I can't even describe how much city there is, outside of downtown. Miles of infrastructure basically sits fallow or highly depreciated, and thousands mire in poverty, due to poor urban design, poor leadership, and historic fear.

By hosting companies that draw from Detroit's huge creative energy and then bringing tech and business people to the core of the city, Gilbert will have a major positive effect in the long run.

Call this effect gentrification while the city collapses, but you can also call it the shaky beginnings of a return to normalcy.

maybe that's the solution to the suburbia problem. move the people downtown and let the suburbs rot off.