For your interest... With all the media attention given to Detroit lately, especially the endless coverage from Time Magazine, I found this 1961 article from Time particularly ironic. It seems so little has changed...

If ever a city stood as a symbol of the dynamic U.S. economy, it was Detroit. It was not pretty. It was, in fact, a combination of the grey and the garish: its downtown area was a warren of dingy, twisting streets; the used-car lots along Livernois Avenue raised an aurora of neon. But Detroit cared less about how it looked than about what it did—and it did plenty. In two world wars, it served as an arsenal of democracy. In the auto boom after World War II. Detroit put the U.S. on wheels as it had never been before. Prosperity seemed bound to go on forever—but it didn't, and Detroit is now in trouble.
Full article here:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...3465%2C00.html