I left Detroit in 1965 and have been back once since then.

[EastsideAl]

In the 70s and 80s they all were

Exactly. I think a lot of people here are too young to remember the "Escape From New York" years too.

I spent a lot of time in NYC in the late '70s and early '80s, and while it was certainly much bigger and more vibrant than Detroit [[as it always has been) it was also definitely decaying and pretty dangerous. Way more so than it is today. But even Detroit was more dangerous then [[even if more populated) than it is today, and Washington DC was statistically among the most dangerous cities in the country. Almost all U.S. cities saw large population declines during that era, including all of the ones named by Junjie except L.A.

There were reams of stories written back then on the terminal decline of all American cities, which seemed unstoppable. And also reams written in the '90s and early '00s about the sharp decline in crime in that era and the return to urbanism. The answers about that period are still pretty obscure, but what is clear is that there was a strong trend of urban decline and decay throughout the country from the '50s forward, accelerating from the mid-'60s through the '70s and '80s, until starting to reverse in the '90s.

So, Detroit was far from alone in its decline, but due to a number of factors it ended up worse off than other cities. Detroit also, due to most of the same factors, largely missed out on the urban revival that made all those cities named by Junjie seem so much more vibrant by 2000, and no longer like the wastelands most thought them to be just a decade before. That trend finally seems to have reversed itself here, and there are big glimmers of revival, but only in the last few years.

[Hermod]

So, Detroit was far from alone in its decline, but due to a number of factors it ended up worse off than other cities. Detroit also, due to most of the same factors, largely missed out on the urban revival that made all those cities named by Junjie seem so much more vibrant by 2000, and no longer like the wastelands most thought them to be just a decade before. That trend finally seems to have reversed itself here, and there are big glimmers of revival, but only in the last few years.

People "need" to go to downtown Washington because of the federal buildings. People "need" to go to downtown NYC because of the financial center.

How many people "need" to go to downtown Detroit?

[EastsideAl]

People "need" to go to downtown Washington because of the federal buildings. People "need" to go to downtown NYC because of the financial center.

How many people "need" to go to downtown Detroit?

That has always been the biggest problem with downtown Detroit. And why it's less dense and developed than the centers of many other large cities, even those historically a lot smaller than Detroit.

Until GM moved to Ren Cen, none of the largest companies in the area were headquartered downtown, or even had significant offices there. And, of course, the area's main employment centers were all in the industrial corridors, including all the large auto plants. Downtown was historically the financial, legal, and government center of Detroit, and a significant shopping and entertainment destination for a long time. But the real economic action in the area was elsewhere. Which meant that it was very easy for people to just stop going downtown at all.

[SDCC]

This is an interesting discussion. I left Detroit in 1971 to go to Emory Law School in Atlanta & only returned briefly once in 1991 to visit my dying mother. I have been an expatriate for a long time. I attended Redford High School & graduated in 1964 & attended Albion College & graduated in 1968. I am now 69 & have retired to Bangkok, but I have fond memories of Detroit. It was a great place to grow up. I am a Baby Boomer who grew up in the 1960s. Great Music. Good parks. I lived in a beautiful neighborhood [[Rosedale Park--6 Mile & Evergreen). I left not due to Detroit's decline [[I hadn't noticed a population or business decline then), it was the "Doughnut Hole" effect: beautiful suburbs surrounding an inner city that no one cared about, especially compared to Atlanta--a bright, new city that everyone is proud of. The reasons that I haven't returned to Detroit are that I am affluent in Thailand [[I would be poor in the States) & I probably couldn't withstand another winter at my age, too much crime & my wife, who is Thai, would miss her family. Also, the States are much too religious & conservative & too chaotic politically for me.

Welcome Tim, Thailand [[as you know) is a beautiful, exotic land – I’m envious.
While I admit America seems to have fallen off the proverbial cliff of common sense and logic in the arena of politics, Thailand has been ruled by a military junta – in power since 2014. They finally released a draft of the country's new constitution, and last I heard it was slated for a referendum latter this summer. Additionally, for at least the last 10 years, centuries-old regional rivalries have routinely paralyzed Thailand. Of late, has a superficial calm has settled over Thailand? Capitalizing on the lull, I believe the junta has centralized power and attempted to restructure the Thai political system to their advantage? I have one good friend in Thailand and he steers our conversations toward the indescribable beauty of the fauna and flora in this cultural beauty.
I would like to get your first-hand viewpoint; Asian civilizations and cultures are my discipline.

[gazhekwe]

Urban decline was underway throughout the country by the mid 1950s. Hastened by a number of factors, not the least of which was a decidedly anti-urban set of federal policies.

Detroit thought it was ahead of the game of fighting urban decline by making use of all of the best urban planning advice of the 1950s and 60s: tearing out the entire south part of downtown to build the shiny new Civic Center, tearing down that embarrassing old City Hall and the old Kern Block to begin the modernization of the public space at the center of downtown, getting rid of all of those unsightly old neighborhoods and streets by emptying blocks and blocks of land to build new public housing projects and private developments, and by modernizing transportation through getting rid of those old congestion-creating streetcars and building lots of broad new freeways to speed car drivers along their way.

I think by 1967 it was pretty damn clear that things were going in the wrong direction. And by 1973 very clear that there was no agreement at all on what the right direction might be. And soon thereafter clear that the resource pie available to fix things was shrinking, perhaps forever.

This is right on. Urban Renewal was the buzz phrase. It was all about ripping out the aging, poor, and mostly black areas for freeways and new buildings, and the solution was Housing Projects. The displaced people had to go somewhere. They began to seek housing in adjacent neighborhoods, moving farther and farther into places they had not been able to in the past. Prices dropped. White families abandoned ship. As the wave approached [[they're across Livernois now), for sale signs went up and property values dropped. And on it went. That is the real story of how the Detroit of the recent past came to be. The Rolling Tide of racism and fear of change.

[gazhekwe]

Why was it "Paradise" in the 50s? Well, maybe it was. Post war, my parents married and bought a brand new house in Brightmoor, on a street of four or five blocks of matching houses. There were new streets with new houses radiating from the street we lived on. Among the new houses were older, farm style or cottage style houses dating from the earlier part of the century.

A block from our house was Olga's. a nice little what we would call convenience store today. Three blocks away was Fenkell, with a dime store, grocery store, cleaners and Scotty Simpson's. The bus there would take you anywhere you wanted to go. School was two blocks, only three residential streets to cross. The big girls would make sure we little kids got across safely. My father would take the bus to work, and we could go to the corner at night to watch him run home from the bus stop.

But there were flies in that paradise. My father and I had dark skin and black hair, and some of the neighbors took it into their heads that we were Filipino. A petition was started to force us to move. Some of our immediate neighbors went around to the petitioners and explained we were Native American. Apparently that was better than Filipino, so the petition went nowhere.

Brightmoor at the time was a brand new neighorhood and it did have restrictive covenants. The attitude that spawned the restrictive covenants and the petition to get rid of us is historic, dating from way back in history. This is the attitude that sparked the massive retreat from the Rolling Tide I spoke of previously.

We ended up moving away anyway before the end of the 50s, all the way to the UP, not to get away from Detroit, but to be closer to my father's family. Not long before we moved, The Lodge Freeway construction took out my grandparents' house on Leslie, just down the street from Highland Park. They ended up moving to Brightmoor.

[Dumpling]

Nice post Gazhekwe.

My Dad is installing a cat post at my house as I type - I have a new cat Lily
who loves to scratch on wood down in the basement - the two by fours in the
furnace room I don't care about, the banisters at the foot of the stairway I
do care about, so that is where the post is going. Next week he heads north
to the family cottage in Eagle Harbor in the Keweenaw in the U.P. that was
built for my great-grandfather by his siblings in about 1905. He will live
there until next October. Dad and Mom grew up up north in the 30s and 40s
[[though Dad was an army brat too).
For my parents whatever paradise there was in Detroit never compared to
the beauty of Up North [[with the rest of the family left there) and the summer
trips north were joyous occasions with stops at friends, cousins, and grandparents'
houses along the way.
Their employment situation in Detroit was so much better than Up North though.

[Dumpling]

I have to admit there were flies in the U.P. paradise though, not only the
black flies, but the black skin flies you refer to in your post.

[Hermod]

Their employment situation in Detroit was so much better than Up North though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So3A7A3W4Fs

[Dumpling]

That song is mostly spot on.
Never heard of it as "Yooperland". Had to check the lyrics - the song started
with "Newfoundland" and I was interpreting it as "Newfoundland" throughout
the song [[and wondering what the connection was).

[corktownyuppie]

Sad to see the Detroit of today as compared to the Detroit of yesterday;50years ago!

I wasn't here 50 years ago, so I can't make any real-life comparison. But what I do know, however, is that I probably wouldn't have been welcome in the 1965 Detroit the way I am in the 2016 Detroit, so for me...going back in time would have just made me sad as compared to the Detroit of today.

• The line of progress from my teenage years to today have been awesome for the Detroit that I get to enjoy.
• I own and live in a great neighborhood with neighbors old, young, white, black, and brown. We know most of each other by name and look out for each other.
• I'm a 5-minute Uber ride from over 100 different restaurants.
• Personal friends of mine own or manage many of the businesses I frequent.
• I know people everywhere I go.
• The architecture is beautiful.
• I'm 15 min. walk to a baseball game.
• There is little crime in the areas where me and my friends live and frequent. When there is, it is rare and never serious.
• I'm a 90 second bike ride to the river, which I can now ride along, with no automobile traffic all the way to Eastern Market.
• I'm a 15 min. drive from Belle Isle where I sail weekly.
• We get world class entertainment options within walking, biking range.
• I'm 22 minutes from an international airport and a hub for a major airline.
• I was fortunate to purchase 4 years ago, so my mortgage, taxes, and insurance are under $800/mo. for an 1800 SF home.
• I'm within a 2-block walk from 2-3 breakfast places and 3 bars.
• Add another block and there's 3 more bars.
• If you want to do anything or pursue any ideas, you're surrounded by people who support you and encounter very little resistance.
• With every year, more and more of my friends from the suburbs are moving back.
• And, astonishingly, some of their parents are at least entertaining the idea.

I hear the mid-century was an incredible time for Detroit's history. Certainly it was likely our economic zenith. But I have to reconcile that with a time that was not particularly welcoming of me or my skin-tone and accept that I would have never been able to enjoy the city in the same way that others might have back then.

So that said, I'm not sad to see the Detroit of today. It's not perfect, and my experience is certainly not representative of the "average Joe" who lives here. But it's been very good to me and those around me during my lifetime, and I don't plan on leaving anytime soon.

[mwilbert]

I hear the mid-century was an incredible time for Detroit's history. Certainly it was likely our economic zenith. But I have to reconcile that with a time that was not particularly welcoming of me or my skin-tone and accept that I would have never been able to enjoy the city in the same way that others might have back then.

This is an important point, but it doesn't really speak to the quality of life in Detroit in the 50's and 60's relative to its era. Certainly things have improved in a lot of ways since then, but that improvement isn't unique to Detroit, while its economic decline was unparalleled, as it got into a downward spiral that drove it from more-or-less the richest [[in terms of median income) sizable city in the US to the poorest.

On the other hand, it is easy to understand why non-whites might not have the same fond feelings for that time.

[Dan Wesson]

I wasn't here 50 years ago, so I can't make any real-life comparison. But what I do know, however, is that I probably wouldn't have been welcome in the 1965 Detroit the way I am in the 2016 Detroit, so for me...going back in time would have just made me sad as compared to the Detroit of today.

• The line of progress from my teenage years to today have been awesome for the Detroit that I get to enjoy.
• I own and live in a great neighborhood with neighbors old, young, white, black, and brown. We know most of each other by name and look out for each other.
• I'm a 5-minute Uber ride from over 100 different restaurants.
• Personal friends of mine own or manage many of the businesses I frequent.
• I know people everywhere I go.
• The architecture is beautiful.
• I'm 15 min. walk to a baseball game.
• There is little crime in the areas where me and my friends live and frequent. When there is, it is rare and never serious.
• I'm a 90 second bike ride to the river, which I can now ride along, with no automobile traffic all the way to Eastern Market.
• I'm a 15 min. drive from Belle Isle where I sail weekly.
• We get world class entertainment options within walking, biking range.
• I'm 22 minutes from an international airport and a hub for a major airline.
• I was fortunate to purchase 4 years ago, so my mortgage, taxes, and insurance are under $800/mo. for an 1800 SF home.
• I'm within a 2-block walk from 2-3 breakfast places and 3 bars.
• Add another block and there's 3 more bars.
• If you want to do anything or pursue any ideas, you're surrounded by people who support you and encounter very little resistance.
• With every year, more and more of my friends from the suburbs are moving back.
• And, astonishingly, some of their parents are at least entertaining the idea.

I hear the mid-century was an incredible time for Detroit's history. Certainly it was likely our economic zenith. But I have to reconcile that with a time that was not particularly welcoming of me or my skin-tone and accept that I would have never been able to enjoy the city in the same way that others might have back then.

So that said, I'm not sad to see the Detroit of today. It's not perfect, and my experience is certainly not representative of the "average Joe" who lives here. But it's been very good to me and those around me during my lifetime, and I don't plan on leaving anytime soon.

Sans the riverfront access you describe, Detroit in it's heyday had all the amenities you describe in virtually all 138 sq miles. Not just the 7 sq miles or so that all conversations here seem to settle on.

I find it rather 'head in sand-ish' that the neighborhood's tend to get the least attention.

[Lombaowski]

It's all been covered in this thread. No single reason for the demise. The final nail in the coffin, in my observation, was the arrival of crack cocaine. The post above describes the result of this scourge, as it affected 48205, and other areas. It was the end.

It affected the 48228 and every other zip in the city. I absolutely agree with this, the crack epidemic was the final straw that broke the city's tax base.

I grew up in the 70s and 80s in Detroit and I can tell you that the 70s were still great. Good neighborhoods, tax base, income coming in, and still retail in the areas beyond downtown. This whole thread is talking about downtown retail and downtown upper floor investment office. Who cares? Almost none of us grew up in downtown, we grew up in Kranz Woods, Palmer Park, Franklin Park, and Brightmoor.

We grew up with butcher shops, dairies, corner stores, and Coney Island diners. Once the crack epidemic came through in the early to mid eighties there was no reason any of those places could remain open. If they weren't robbed on a nightly basis, they were plagued with crack guy/gal coming in trying to run a racket on the ownership or patrons. Non stop. It was non stop. Now those places are nail salons, liquor stores, dollar stores, and boarded up.

My family would have stayed, through thick and thin. Through that dope Young, through bad schools, through de-industrialization. But you you know why we left? Our garage got broken into on a weekly basis, crackheads stealing tire irons and tools and floor mats for Christ's sake. You can't live like that, you just can't.

IMO Detroit would be in bad shape right now regardless, but no sane person could have stayed in the city through the crack epidemic if they had any means to get the fuck out.

[timinasia]

Yes, Thai politics rivals America's insanity. It's a kingdom & the king is beloved. He has ruled longer than any other royal sovereign, including Queen Elizabeth II of England. & yes, the country has been ruled by a military junta since 2014, but it's only the 13th one since 1932. It happens so often that nobody gets upset. We merely wait until the junta does something stupid & embarrasses itself. Then we get a democratically elected government again. This one was a bloodless coup, unlike the previous one in 2006. Thailand is a democratic, constitutional monarchy like England & the king & his queen are very westernized. He was educated at Princeton & speaks perfect English & plays clarinet in a jazz band. She was educated as a nurse & was instrumental in Thailand's high standard of health care. I believe it's as good as Japan or America. Thais are very welcoming of people from the West [["farangs"). I worked as a Professor for the University of Maryland in Tokyo for 20 years before retiring. I commuted to Bangkok between terms & in the summer. Unlike Thailand, no matter how long you live in Japan you will always be a foreigner [["gaijin"). Farang has somewhat neutral connotations, gaijin doesn't. It means soldier, as in occupying soldier. We have been in Japan, grudgingly, since WWII. I think we have 100,000 soldiers in Japan. The only reasons we have been tolerated is geopolitical; we have protected Japan from the Soviet Union [[until the Berlin Wall fell) & protected it from North Korea & China. There's much more that I can write, but I wanted to keep it somewhat short.

[corktownyuppie]

Sans the riverfront access you describe, Detroit in it's heyday had all the amenities you describe in virtually all 138 sq miles. Not just the 7 sq miles or so that all conversations here seem to settle on.

I find it rather 'head in sand-ish' that the neighborhood's tend to get the least attention.

That is true, and I don't oppose anything you're saying here. What's left out in this analysis is that many of those things may have existed, but I would have been excluded from them.

So it's a hard call....am I sad that things are the way they are? How can I be? I wasn't here when things were that great, so I have no direct way to compare the two experiences. Most of my memories of the city don't even begin until the late 80s, early 90s, and by the time I was really old enough to enjoy the city with any ounce of independence, it was already the late 90s, early 2000s. So using that chronology as a reference point, it's all been upside for me.

And then even after my mind is filled with luscious images of a vibrant, serene city life of yesteryear, I have to reconcile that with the idea that legally formalized deed covenants, [[and not to mention just the straight-up bigotry that led people to support those laws) would have prevented me from enjoying many of the things I do today.

I'm no head in the sand when it comes to the downtown vs. the neighborhoods talk. It's something that I care about deeply, not just with my words and thoughts, but with my deeds and money.

But that's a non-sequitur. When confronted with the question about whether I'm sad that things have "become what they have become", it's hard to ignore that my own personal experience of the city is far better today than it would have been in 1965.

Not saying that everyone needs to feel that way, nor am I ignoring what is likely a deep feeling of loss to see what was once someone's "home" turn into a giant mess.

All I'm saying is that if I can acknowledge that it must be painful to return to a place and find it unrecognizable, it shouldn't be a lot to ask to have those same people acknowledge that returning to that idyllic vision would come with a steep price, a price that would have -- in my mind, unjustly -- come at my expense.

In a lot of ways this cuts into a deeper narrative of how the world changed over the last 50 years with the introduction of global trade, technological change, and a changing definition of acceptable ways we treat each other. When I watch Back to the Future and see all those scenes from the mid-1950s, part of me wishes I could have enjoyed that world. But then I think about all of the pain, status, and mis-treatment I'd have needed to put up with in order to experience it.

For me, at least, that trade isn't worth it.

[Dan Wesson]

Cork, eloquent you be.

Aside from the perception of the price you would have had to pay, you would have had a good childhood. There was room and a place for everybody.

You seem to be doing well for yourself. I'm am glad for you.

Carry on.

[timinasia]

SDDC Hello. Thank you for your reply. My reply is above. I am not very good at navigating this site.

[scooter]

Detroit still is bad twelve people shot this weekend five died, sure downtown is coming back, but the neighborhoods are still war zones, only thing coming downtown is places with bars[[ more drunk people) more crime, downtown needs to get some family oriented business also, of course I would not bring my family down here, you have to go through the hood to get here. I m just glad to get out of here after five, dont see how those three thousand people moved to Detroit sure maybe downtown or midtown

[p69rrh51]

Detroit still is bad twelve people shot this weekend five died, sure downtown is coming back, but the neighborhoods are still war zones, only thing coming downtown is places with bars[[ more drunk people) more crime, downtown needs to get some family oriented business also, of course I would not bring my family down here, you have to go through the hood to get here. I m just glad to get out of here after five, dont see how those three thousand people moved to Detroit sure maybe downtown or midtown

So every neighborhood in the city is bad? No they are not! Lumping all the neighborhoods into one group is wrong. Yes there are very bad areas of the city that need immediate attention, but there are also areas that are functioning reasonably well. Although all the neighborhoods could use better city services. Overall crime is down in the city.

[scooter]

[QUOTE=p69rrh51;505397]So every neighborhood in the city is bad? No they are not! Lumping all the neighborhoods into one group is wrong. Yes there are very bad areas of the city that need immediate attention, but there are also areas that are functioning reasonably well. Although all the neighborhoods could use better city services. Overall crime is down in the city

[scooter]

So every neighborhood in the city is bad? No they are not! Lumping all the neighborhoods into one group is wrong. Yes there are very bad areas of the city that need immediate attention, but there are also areas that are functioning reasonably well. Although all the neighborhoods could use better city services. Overall crime is down in the city.

I know crime is down but tell that to the 100's of people that will not cross 10 mile ,9 mile
will not even come to a Lions, Tiger or Red Wing game, most of my neighbors thing Im nuts going downtown for work

[dtowncitylover]

I know crime is down but tell that to the 100's of people that will not cross 10 mile ,9 mile
will not even come to a Lions, Tiger or Red Wing game, most of my neighbors thing Im nuts going downtown for work

LOL Your neighbors are nuts. People, outsiders and locals alike, really do believe that even just driving into the city will get you shot. That's absolutely wrong and such a horrid, paranoid way of living.

[scooter]

I agree but that's how people feel its sad

[corktownyuppie]

I agree but that's how people feel its sad

Detroit isn't a religion. The objective is not to convert non-believers into believers. There are thousands of people who are crippled by fear, some of that fear has some basis in reality, but by any objective measure, is silly and totally irrational.

- A woman was afraid the man next to her airplane seat was a terrorist, because of his olive skin and undecipherable writings on his notebook. Turns out he's a nationally recognized university professor doing calculus.

- Some people are afraid to go into movie theaters because of the shootings which have taken place.

- I know friends from rural areas that are afraid to drive on 7-lane highways in California because it all seems so chaotic.

- I don't particularly love driving in rural areas because I don't like the idea of a 70 mph car driving toward me with only 10-ft separating us and with no concrete barrier.

- I have a client who lived in Livonia and moved to the suburbs of Portland 3 years ago. She still hasn't dined or visited Portland because "she doesn't think cities are safe."

I read a guy from rural northern Michigan post on Facebook that he hates coming to Detroit because of all of the threats to safety. This was in response to another post about a shooting in Southfield. He defines "Detroit" as Auburn Hills and south.

The reality is that we all have a comfort zone, and while my personal philosophy is that the small price of discomfort paid to expand your comfort zone rewards you 10x over, there are others whose drives for self-preservation are so strong that no amount of rational thought will change them.

There are white people who have been afraid of me because I'm not white. There have been black people who give me the evil eye because I'm not black.

A lot of that tribalism is deep-rooted and will years if not generations to change, and that's totally fine.

If someone from Utica thinks you're stupid for working at Mack and Woodward, then so be it. If you agree with them, then you should probably find a new job. If you don't agree with them, you'll just have to accept their scorn or find new friends.

I used to be super butthurt when having to hear about how a shooting at Greenfield and Outer Dr. made someone think that it's not safe to be at Michigan and Trumbull. Now, I'm ok with it. If they change their minds, it'll be in 5 years or more, and I can revel in this magical period of time when lines at restaurants are still quasi-bearable, and you can invest in real estate in some of the lesser known neighborhoods at attractive prices.