What will Detroit look like in 20 years?

[night-timer]

I predict an influx of whites to Downtown and anywhere with a mile of Downtown [[if that hasn't started to happen already) including young hipsters [[until the gentrification makes it too expensive for them).

Midtown will be thriving and will resemble Downtown in renewed prosperity, but with less highrise.

Tiger Stadium will be built over.

Lots more construction along the riverfront between the GM Ren Cen and the turn-off onto Belle Isle.

We will reminisce about "the good old bad old days", as a friend dismissively refers to all forms of nostalgia.

[Gistok]

Not really... we will continue to mourn "the good old bad old days" with the continuation of the "ghettofication" of the majority of the neighborhoods... as thousands more homes go thru tax foreclosure every year....

[SammyS]

-There will be the never-ending chatter of "you could have had this property for pennies back in 2017"......well that's what they're saying now but referring to 2011/12.
-Autonomous vehicles everywhere and not being obstructed by public transit [[didn't think our shortcomings would actually be an advantage, did ya?)
-Yes, more whites from the suburbs.
-Swaths of land in the city outskirts converted to community farmland [[similar to what you see in Europe)
-Detroit will finally return to rivaling the best and biggest cities in the US.

[ABetterDetroit]

More educated people of many different skin tones in the city who really could care less about race, ethnicity or orientation of the folks that they live close to.

That issue is finally dying off and being buried or cremated slowly but surely and urban areas will be the first places that it will be eradicated almost completely.

[corktownyuppie]

I predict an influx of whites to Downtown and anywhere with a mile of Downtown [[if that hasn't started to happen already) including young hipsters [[until the gentrification makes it too expensive for them).

Midtown will be thriving and will resemble Downtown in renewed prosperity, but with less highrise.

Tiger Stadium will be built over.

Lots more construction along the riverfront between the GM Ren Cen and the turn-off onto Belle Isle.

We will reminisce about "the good old bad old days", as a friend dismissively refers to all forms of nostalgia.

Thankfully you won't have to wait 20 yrs for this. You'll probably see almost all of the above in under 7 years.

[Ray1936]

Had my 80th birthday last October. Please forgive me if it seems that I don't much GAF about 20 years from now. That said, I still wish it well.

[401don]

Had my 80th birthday last October. Please forgive me if it seems that I don't much GAF about 20 years from now. That said, I still wish it well.

Finally, someone explains Trump's climate change policy.

[Zacha341]

Yes, I have to say the ruination of home after home and deprecation of whole neighborhoods is something that a 'brightened' downtown and midtown will not cure. We've got to get ahold of the individual property slide in the Detroit communities before we can claim victory for the D.

Not really... we will continue to mourn "the good old bad old days" with the continuation of the "ghettofication" of the majority of the neighborhoods... as thousands more homes go thru tax foreclosure every year....

[clubboss]

Finally, someone explains Trump's climate change policy.

Good One Don

[dtowncitylover]

My guess would be that Detroit needs an additional 250,000 people in order to become a truly stable city. And not just any 250,000 people, but they need to be college education, with careers, maybe children thrown in there, white, black, Asian, whatever but they need to be working, paying taxes, and consumers. Are we going to get that in 20 years?

If we can't, then we need to invest in the community we already have [[we need to and I know we already do this regardless). We need literacy programs, we need sexual health programs, and we need apprenticeship programs. I know all three are happening right now but it seems there's still a spiral of poverty and despair out there. Are we going to get a better community in 20 years?

Can we get both of these things? I don't know.

I also don't want to imagine 2037 because those kids born in 1997 would be 40 and I hate the idea of being that much older than them.

[MrMichigan]

Detroit attracts hundreds of thousands of refugees from various countries and has thriving new neighborhoods [[Little Damascus, Beirut Town, etc.)

This will be key to any revival.

[1953]

Probably more of this type of insanity:

[Danny]

Detroit 2037

population 910,786

44% black
40% white
11.7% Hispanic
1.5% Asian
2% Arab/other

[[In 2029) Michigan State Legislature and passed a law to have State Boundry Commission Laws of 1948 and 1978 overturned. [[ except whether a township becomes a charter through its own municipal services.) This law can have a city to annex a city including charter townships if they lose one municipal service. Detroit can now make plans to annex Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Harper Woods, Grosse Pointe Shores, Grosse Pointe Woods, Grosse Pointe, Grosse Pointe, Grosse Pointe Farms, Grosse Pointe Park, Hamtramck, Highland Park, Lincoln Park, Melvindale, Wyandotte, Southgate, Allen Park, Garden City, Westland and Inkster.

Redford Charter TWP. is fighting against Detroit annexation due to massive budget cuts and attempts to cut its police, fire and lighting dept.


The City of Livonia is also fighting annexation attempts from Detroit after the dreaded Historic North Rosedale Gardens Riot of 2024 involving shoot death of 8 year old black girl named Moesha Anderson from a former Livonia Police officer and neighbor named Justin Panelli.

LaKeisha Spivey [[ cousin to former Detroit City Council Anton Spivey) is the first Black female Mayor of Detroit.

A ten years after billionaire Dan Gilbert retired from Quicken Loans. A group of investors had decided to turn Bedrock Holdings to Onmi Consumer Products also known as OCP. Plans are on the way to create a giant city-scape called " Delta City."

Most neighborhoods in Detroit [[ that was mostly Black and blighted in most areas.) had been gentrified. More young professionals are moving into West Side, East Side and SW Detroit areas.

The RTA Rapid Transit Authority [[ formerly SMART, D-DOT and the RIDE) has announce plans to expand rapid light rail transit service to Lansing, Flint, Saginaw, Port Huron and Monroe.

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick died in federal prison from a heart attack.

Detroit Lions won the Super Bowl LXXI Championship against the Las Vegas Raiders 32 to 31. QB Justin Hicks threw a game winning Hail Mary long bomb pass to WR Deshaun Darden for a touchdown. This is Detroit Lions 7th straight Super Bowl Championship in a row the lost streak in NFL history.

Detroit Pistons are in last place for the second time with a record of 28 wins 87 losses. Head Coach Ronald Wiznewski was fired. Center Donyell Williams is a free agent and more like to join the Brooklyn Nets next season.

Detroit Red Wings won their second Lord Stanley Cup against Florida Panthers 4-0 in Little Caesar's Arena. Left wing Ian Howe [[Gordy Howe's Great grand-nephew made a hat-trick. This is his 15th career hat-trick goal.)

Detroit Tigers lost their third World Series Title against the L.A. Dodgers in Comerica Park. 7-5 The game Tigers were in the lead 4-5 at the bottom of the ninth. Batter and Short Stop Chris Puckett [[Dodger) made a game winning home run sent him and two other Dodgers from first and third base home. Tigers manager Sam McFinn threw a big temper tantrum and cussed!!!

Long time Arab-American and Imam Kareem Al-Houda plans to build a mosque on the corner of Plymouth and Southfield FWY. Where the old K-Mart Farmer Jack Plaza and former New Providence Baptist Church once stood. The Mosque will be called Masjid Al-Hussein.

Solomon's Temple Apostolic Baptist Church on E.7 Mile Rd. between Dequindre Rd. and Conant Rd. has moved to their bigger church on Hoover Rd south of Ten Mile Rd. in Warren, MI. where the former Hiller's Superstore Building and bowling alley and apartment buildings supermarket once stood.

Eastland Mall is slated to closed after 80 years of business.


Wayland Industries Electronics and Robotics are using first ever A.I. construction robots to build their 160 story building in Downtown Detroit. Construction to be completed in next year. It will Detroit's first tallest building on Earth.


A drug house in Detroit's Historic Grandmont-Rosedale Park neighborhood in the northwest side has been raided by FBI, DEA and Detroit Police join force. The drug dealers were supplying a most deadly potent synthetic opioid called "Bliss" a yellow powder that can mixed in with any drink that can make anyone get high instantly and increase their heart rate to a point of heart attack, cause raging mood swings and heart failures. One of those drug dealers is lead a 10 year old black boy who calls himself "Mr. Paradise".

Now that is a real future shock.

[Honky Tonk]

Detroit 2037

population 875,978

58% black
25% white
11.7% Hispanic
1.5% Asian
2% Arab/other

LaKeisha Spivey [[ cousin to former Detroit City Council Anton Spivey) is the first Black female Mayor of Detroit.

A ten years after billionaire Dan Gilbert retired from Quicken Loans. A group of investors had decided to turn Bedrock Holdings to Onmi Consumer Products also known as OCP. Plans are on the way to create a giant city-scape called " Delta City."

Most neighborhoods in Detroit [[ that was mostly Black and blighted in most areas.) had been gentrified. More young professionals are moving into West Side, East Side and SW Detroit areas.

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick died in federal prison from a heart attack.

Detroit Lions won the Super Bowl LXXI Championship against the Las Vegas Raiders 32 to 31. QB Justin Hicks threw a game winning Hail Mary long bomb pass to WR Deshaun Darden for a touchdown. This is Detroit Lions 7th straight Super Bowl Championship in a row the lost streak in NFL history.

Detroit Pistons are in last place for the second time with a record of 28 wins 87 losses. Head Coach Ronald Wiznewski was fired. Center Donyell Williams is a free agent and more like to join the Brooklyn Nets next season.

Detroit Red Wings won their second Lord Stanley Cup against Florida Panthers 4-0 in Little Caesar's Arena. Left wing Ian Howe [[Gordy Howe's Great grand-nephew made a hat-trick. This is his 15th career hat-trick goal.)

Detroit Tigers lost their third World Series Title against the L.A. Dodgers in Comerica Park. 7-5 The game Tigers were in the lead 4-5 at the bottom of the ninth. Batter and Short Stop Chris Puckett [[Dodger) made a game winning home run sent him and two other Dodgers from first and third base home. Tigers manager Sam McFinn threw a big temper tantrum and cussed!!!

Long time Arab-American and Imam Kareem Al-Houda plans to build a mosque on the corner of Plymouth and Southfield FWY. Where the old K-Mart Farmer Jack Plaza and former New Providence Baptist Church once stood. The Mosque will be called Masjid Al-Hussein.

Solomon's Temple Apostolic Baptist Church on E.7 Mile Rd. between Dequindre Rd. and Conant Rd. has moved to their bigger church on Hoover Rd south of Ten Mile Rd in Warren, MI. where the former Hiller's Superstore Building and bowling alley and apartment buildings supermarket once stood.


Wayland Industries Electronics and Robotics are using first ever A.I. construction robots to build their 160 story building in Downtown Detroit. Construction to be completed in next year. It will Detroit's first tallest building on Earth.


A drug house in Detroit's Historic Grandmont-Rosedale Park neighborhood in the northwest side has been raided by FBI, DEA and Detroit Police join force. The drug dealers were supplying a most deadly potent synthetic opioid called "Bliss" a yellow powder that can mixed in with any drink that can make anyone get high instantly and increase their heart rate to a point of heart attack, cause raging mood swings and heart failures. One of those drug dealers is lead a 10 year old black boy who calls himself "Mr. Paradise".

Now that is a real future shock.

Bravo !!!!

[paulj313]

I also don't want to imagine 2037 because those kids born in 1997 would be 40 and I hate the idea of being that much older than them.

As someone born in 1997, I'm not fond of talking about 2037 yet either

[Hermod]

My guess would be that Detroit needs an additional 250,000 people in order to become a truly stable city. And not just any 250,000 people, but they need to be college education, with careers, maybe children thrown in there, white, black, Asian, whatever but they need to be working, paying taxes, and consumers. Are we going to get that in 20 years?

Detroit could be a very stable city with 300,000 less population if the 300,000 that leave are the "right" people.

[313WX]

Detroit 2037

population 875,978

I stopped reading at this point.

The city will no doubt fall and stay below 500,000, at least in the foreseeable future.

[ABetterDetroit]

Why the constant fascination with the population number for Detroit?

Per capita income is the critical stat that needs to increase.

[313WX]

Why the constant fascination with the population number for Detroit?

Leverage for federal and state dollars.

[corktownyuppie]

Leverage for federal and state dollars.

Don't get me wrong, I'm in favor of federal and state dollars [[where appropriate). But per capita income is the bigger driver from my point of view.

I'd rather have 350,000 people with a per capita income of $95,000 than 1 million people with a per capita income of $22,000.

[professorscott]

Yes, I have to say the ruination of home after home and deprecation of whole neighborhoods is something that a 'brightened' downtown and midtown will not cure. We've got to get ahold of the individual property slide in the Detroit communities before we can claim victory for the D.

Certainly, but you have to start somewhere. One of the original ideas behind what is now called QLine [[and Mr. Gilbert threw in a flaming crap-ton of money so that it can be called that, so thank you Mr. Gilbert and I will call it what you would like me to) was that Detroit needed an anchor to rebuild from, and the downtown-midtown corridor seemed promising. Woodward was still, then, in 2006 or 2007 when we were drawing this shit on the back of pub napkins, a quite-busy street, downtown had quite a bit going on, Wayne State and the cultural center institutions could anchor midtown, and in the middle of it, where there hadn't been much going on at all for a long time, Mr. Ilitch had refurbished the Fox and put his offices next door.

So the question, right now, is how do we take the successes we are seeing in the QLine corridor and extend them - bring some nice mix of retail back into the neighborhoods east, west and north of the corridor, and then spread that over time. It's going to take time and a lot of effort, and over that period mistakes will be made, and not everything is going to work, for a thousand different reasons. Detroit did not fail overnight or for any single reason or in any single place, and the rebuilding of Detroit isn't going to be any simpler than its large-scale destruction and abandonment had been.

As far as the core thread discussion, I won't even, because I know math and chaos theory. Your weatherman can't even get the weather right when he looks out eight days, with all the tools and history at his disposal. [[Check this for yourself a couple times. You'd do just as well throwing darts at a dartboard full of weather forecasts.) Predicting anything out 20 years is just a fun and pointless thing to do, not much different than golfing or working out a crossword. If I'm still here to see it, whatever it is, I'll be surprised.

[rex]

the area within 96, 94, and 75 and the river will be alright
rest of the city not so much

[archfan]

Detroit 2037

population 875,978

58% black
25% white
11.7% Hispanic
1.5% Asian
2% Arab/other

LaKeisha Spivey [[ cousin to former Detroit City Council Anton Spivey) is the first Black female Mayor of Detroit.

A ten years after billionaire Dan Gilbert retired from Quicken Loans. A group of investors had decided to turn Bedrock Holdings to Onmi Consumer Products also known as OCP. Plans are on the way to create a giant city-scape called " Delta City."
...
Now that is a real future shock.

I'll have what he's having...

[Junkin4Life]

I 94 and I 96 will have subway trains in the middle of the freeway. All traffic signals will be mounted on tubular mast arms instead of overhead wire cables. LED storefronts giant tv screens on historical skyscrapers. Empty commercial buildings will be occupied into small businesses i.e. flea markets, shoe repair shops, furniture stores, etc. Half of the churches will be sold to developers

[casscorridor]

Detroit simply lacks the infrastructure to see a huge revival. Detroit is a peripheral city in terms of American cities. Neither the federal nor state governments are very interested. There is only one major university, so attracting educated talent is a challenge even compared to smaller cities with more university students. This, of course, would be a different story if the University of Michigan or a similar status university was located in the city. Culturally, there is interest on an international level, but the interest doesn't extend into robust industries in art, design or media. There is no metro or suburban rail system. The streetcar is an okay start for helping develop the very center of the city, but that's all. It does nothing to transport people from where they work to where they live. The growth happening currently won't spread much beyond the core of the city. That's okay. It's actually a very large area if you compare it to other cities.

Detroit should focus on its existing strengths, continue stabilizing its finances and services and plan for modest growth in the greater Downtown and other key areas. In the meantime, lobby the state for transportation funding to build a suburban rail system, and other housing and infrastructure development. In a miracle situation, a change in federal government could usher in a New New Deal of infrastructure funding. But that's wishful thinking, and even if a significant increase in funding did come, 20 years is a relatively short period of time. Overall, expect a city that has a slightly better quality of life, slightly improved neighborhoods, better city services, a dramatically improved Downtown/Midtown/Riverfront. Modest improvements that should be celebrated, but don't expect any boom.