When the housing market hit rock bottom, and prices were @ they're lowest, lower/middle-class income people, who had a few bucks saved up, took advantage of the situation and bought homes outside of Detroit. When Marathon Oil bought out the lower/middle-class income people's homes, people took advantage of the situation and bought homes outside of Detroit. It's one thing to scrape together enough money, and make the initial purchase, it's another to do consistent upkeep. That, coupled with the job market in the Metro-Detroit area concurrently hitting an all time low, and the upper/middle-class job-seeking exodus @ the same time, produced the results you see.