I grew up not far from this area and am well acquainted with the architecture. Not only is it excellent but every house is very distinct. No sense of the cookie-cutter appearance of so many suburbs. With the trees that once flourished in that area, riding a bike or walking along those streets as a child was enchanting.

Sadly, the city can no longer attract families with the combination of income, skills and energy to maintain these properties. These houses are doomed. No amount of legislating by the Detroit City Council, whose edicts are often dead on arrival at the corner of Woodward and Jefferson, can cure this problem. Unless there is a dramatic turnaround in the the city's public safety and public education problems, it's very hard to envision these communities as viable and thriving. And sadly, in Detroit, public safety is too often a matter of life and death.