The idea that the housing stock quality is the primary problem is obviously wrong. In places where the property has value, people will renovate pretty terrible houses, built with poor craftsmanship from second-rate materials and filled with lead paint. But in those places, the people who can afford to buy the houses generally can afford to maintain them.
Houses cost much less to buy in Detroit, but maintenance and renovation aren't a lot cheaper than they are elsewhere, so either people can buy the houses but then can't maintain them, or realize they still can't afford them even though their initial purchase price is low. So, occupied or not, a lot of houses are under-maintained and deteriorating. Eventually you reach a critical mass of deterioration and people leave and the process speeds up.
The actual problem that Detroit has a shortage of people who want to live in the city who also have the resources to take care of the houses. That is not the case in Boston.
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