Quote Originally Posted by professorscott View Post
Detroit doesn't have entirely a perception problem. Detroit has a reality problem. Crime is high, taxes are exorbitant, we recently had a famously corrupt and arrogant mayor, the schools are [[mostly) terrible, the transit system is barely alive at all, and yet the city government has time to try to prevent people from playing baseball at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull.

When people do come in and try to help in some way, they are vilified unless they do exactly what the city wants when the city wants it.

You fix all that crap and the perception will, over time, take care of itself.

I find it ironic that as I right this, the thread immediately above this thread is about how companies are paying people to live in Detroit.
I agree with you on a lot, but not on this one. I'm under no illusion that Detroit is the greatest city -- or even a great city right now -- but the perception that people have about the place is often ridiculous compared to reality. At first, I chalked it up to the thoughts of just a few irrational people until I realized that nearly EVERYBODY had these absurd ideas of what it's like there.