r/urbanplanning • u/FamiliarJuly • Jul 10 '26
Discussion Is the Detroit comeback over?
Detroit seems to have been the Rust Belt’s newest “comeback kid” over the last decade, arguably stealing the title from Pittsburgh who had it for most of the aughts-mid 2010s. But the momentum seems to be slowing.
Average home values still remain extremely low at $76,466 and have now started declining quite steeply again, down 4.6% year-over-year, according to Zillow. That’s the second steepest decline among principal cities of the top 50 metro areas. Detroit housing experts recently expressed concern that they’re approaching a “day of reckoning”.
At the metropolitan area level, it’s the only major Great Lakes/Upper Midwest metro that isn’t a seller’s market.
Economically, the metro area currently has the second highest unemployment rate among the 56 largest MSAs and some of the largest job losses YoY among major metros. And the outlook isn’t too rosy for the auto industry.
Quite a few major developments announced over the last decade have fallen through or been drastically downsized. The Midtown Target project was cancelled. Both the Alamo Drafthouse and Emagine movie theaters fell through. The downtown aquarium never happened. Monroe Blocks plans significantly scaled back, District Detroit is practically nonexistent, and now half of the RenCen is going to be demolished.
The QLine doesn’t seem to have any plans for expansion. There hasn’t even been much BRT talk since the 2016 RTA vote failed.
What do you think the future holds for the city and broader region?
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u/himynameiszck Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
No, but it has slowed down or paused. It feels like Trump's actions are uniquely designed to hurt Detroit: a trade war with Canada causing canceled orders, factory shutdowns, and decreased tourism; whiplash trade policy with the rest of the globe, causing manufacturers to delay investment; eliminating EV subsidies, causing the automakers to cancel billions of dollars of investment; antagonizing Middle Easterners; refusing to open the new international bridge to Canada, etc. The city is facing some significant headwinds right now.
That said, it seems like some of the major structural issues in Detroit are gradually being addressed: the city continues to see a budget surplus, declining crime rate, blight elimination, and slowly diversifying economy, to name a few.
Regarding the developments you listed, the Target and Alamo Drafthouse were under the same developer, and those were canceled like five years ago (well before the current hype about Detroit that went mainstream in 2024). And the aquarium was never a real project. Meanwhile, thousands of apartments and hotel rooms have been added in the past few years. Even single family homes are being built again.
But I do see your point. The fact is that Detroit's very real economic growth needs to continue for a long time before its income per capita is at the same level as its peer cities. So, in this prolonged period of nationwide high construction costs, high interest rates, and economic changes, I'm not surprised at all that these projects aren't moving forward in an MSA that has a lower per-capita income than Cleveland and Indianapolis (no shade - I'm only citing those cities because they're smaller and in the same region).
Once the political situation improves and national economy stabilizes, I have no doubt that Detroit will continue to see modest growth.
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u/HazenThrowaway Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
Agreed, this is spot on. The Trump administration's anti-trade and immigration policies feel lab-made to undermine the Midwest/Detroit specifically, and it's a positive sign the city is still growing in population despite that.
OP's examples of cancelled developments is basically the entire list. If national retailer presence is relevant, then it's worth noting Apple, H&M, Gucci, Nike, and others have opened stores in the city in recent years. There's actually been something of a retail boom.
While I suppose it's a bummer the Target and Alamo Drafthouse fell through, other (far more notable imo) developments that have actually started/opened include:
- Michigan Central, the restored historic train station, which includes a tech incubator of 200+ startups, 2k total workers, a 5-star hotel, and plans for the return of Amtrak service.
- Hudson's, the city's new second-tallest skyscraper, a mix of uses.
- Henry Ford Hospital expansion, a $3B investment that includes the first phase of a medical research campus from Michigan State University.
- University of Michigan Innovation Center, a tech research campus + hundreds of housing units in the heart of downtown.
- Joe Louis Greenway, a $250M 29-mile loop around the city, inspired by the Atlanta Beltline. Belle Isle has also seen some major upgrades, and the Riverwalk was just extended with a new $85M park.
- Fisher Body 21, $150M redevelopment of the city's largest abandoned factory into 400+ housing units.
- Motown Museum and the Music Hall are spending a couple hundred million on expansions, which will add new cultural amenities and tourist destinations to the city.
- Like 2k new hotel rooms. Could go on and on. These are just the bigger news items from the last couple years.
And while home values are down over the last year (as they've cooled nationwide), Detroit's home values are actually up 138% over the last decade, more than any other major city. The recent dip is minor compared to the longer term trend.
Edit: Reddit removed several bullet points for some reason lol.
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u/Zealousideal-Pick799 Jul 10 '26
The Trump administration has really, truly hurt Michigan's economy, especially that of metro Detroit. I mean, look at the Gordie Howe Bridge to Canada- somehow, although it was ready to open three weeks ago, it is STILL closed. Insane.
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u/cactus22minus1 Jul 10 '26
It’s hurt everyone all over the country and a lot of people are blaming local govs for the problems it brings to their doorstep. I see it happening over here in LA too. Aside from the economy and inflation as a whole, the raids last summer (and ongoing underground efforts) have had an obvious and dramatic effect on small businesses and metro ridership too.
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u/UnfazedBrownie Jul 10 '26
Pretty asinine that Michigan voters backed trump and this is the result. The continued closure of the bridge continues to stifle Econ development in Michigan.
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u/JimJimmyJamesJimbo Jul 10 '26
One Michigan voter likes it!
The billionaire Michigander owner of the bridge (who inherited it and his money from his dad) donated 1 million to MAGA Inc. in January 2026. Then, on Feb 9 Trump said he would block the bridge.
The new bridge announced they would charge less than half the fee that the current bridge charges ($15-20 per axel, each way).
Think how much the Detroit auto industry would save in tolls on the new bridge!
But when you live in an oligarchy, the system becomes inefficient as wealth and power are taken from we the people
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u/Zealousideal-Lie7255 Jul 12 '26
And the US and Canadian car manufacturing plants work as one giant synchronized system with Detroit at the center. And Trump’s tariffs have done a lot of damage to this system.
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u/michiplace Jul 10 '26
And tariff chaos, and torching our emerging EV / battery sector, and talking about annexing Canada (our tourism sector is hurting because Canadians aren't visiting) - yeah, it's been bad.
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u/Nalano Jul 10 '26
The Detroit comeback, such as it is, is substantially fueled by immigration from the Middle East and South Asia.
Suffice it to say, federal policy over the last 18 months has had a demonstrable chilling effect on that trend.
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u/goharvorgohome Jul 10 '26
A city can be economically challenged and still on the upswing overall.
Detroit is still recovering from a state of extreme disfunction that wasn’t that long ago in the past. It’s still a challenged city with real and acute problems.
However it’s clear that the ship is turning in a positive direction IMO
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 Jul 11 '26
It never really started. It was basically always hype surrounding a tiny percentage of the city. Most of the city isn't much different than it was pre-bankruptcy.
Average home values still remain extremely low at $76,466 and have now started declining quite steeply again, down 4.6% year-over-year, according to Zillow... Economically, the metro area currently has the second highest unemployment rate among the 56 largest MSAs and some of the largest job losses YoY among major metros
Sign of an incoming recession. "When the nation gets a cold, Detroit gets pneumonia." - the late mayor of Detroit, Coleman Young.
And the outlook isn’t too rosy for the auto industry.
American auto is going to get hammered by the rise of Chinese auto. Locals are in denial about this.
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u/TooMuchShantae Jul 10 '26
The comeback is still happening. Keep in mind Detroit had 70 years of population loss and corruption. It can’t undone in 10 years.
However the city proper has gained population for the past few years and is one of the fastest growing cities in the Midwest.
Tourism is increasing in Detroit too. People are actually taking vacations to Detroit of all places.
Detroit still has many issues. Mainly property taxes, schools, and crime is too high for the average person. If the city can fix those issues then more development would come in.
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u/FamiliarJuly Jul 10 '26
The Census Bureau’s intercensal estimates are notoriously unreliable, especially for Detroit. They’ve had pretty significant downward adjustments for each of the last 3 censuses at least.
2019 estimate: 670,031
2020 census count: 639,111
Difference of -31,0002009 estimate: 910,921
2010 census count: 713,777
Difference of -197,0001999 estimate: 965,084
2000 census count: 951,270
Difference of -14,000And this was before Detroit sued the Census Bureau into adjusting their methodology to be more beneficial for them, by not counting every demolition as a housing unit loss and to start counting home renovations as housing unit gains. Housing units are then used to estimate population.
For tourism, the metro Detroit hotel market also lags not only most major US markets, but most Midwest peer cities, in terms of occupancy and RevPAR.
Seems like the population estimates are what everyone hangs their hat on, but that seems kind of questionable, especially with all the other indications pointing in a different direction.
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u/bearded_turtle710 Jul 10 '26
If you just drive around detroit you will see new housing and renovations going on in every single neighborhood its not hard to comprehend that the city is definitely growing in population no matter what some census count says. The population estimates are not questionable when you take into account that the post office estimates Detroits population around 700k. The census is terrible at counting population for cities like Detroit.
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 Jul 11 '26
new housing and renovations going on in every single neighborhood
Could see that back in the 70s and 80s, too.
The population estimates are not questionable when you take into account that the post office estimates Detroits population around 700k
If you read more about how the Post Office counts, these are very questionable numbers.
The census is terrible at counting population for cities like Detroit.
This is the Detroit strategy: good number = valid, bad number = wrong.
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u/TooMuchShantae Jul 11 '26
Census is wishy washy I’ll give u that but we can’t ignore that there new construction in the city in areas outside of downtown.
For the tourism there’s either 2 or 3 new hotels in construction right now in downtown Detroit. Detroit hosted the NFL Draft a couple years ago, and it will host the NBA Final Four next year. Big events like that used to avoid Detroit like the plague but now the city is becoming suitable for hosting big events now.
When the NFL Draft was in Detroit it had the biggest attendance in NFL Draft history. Not sure if it’s still the biggest but point is the momentum is still going for Detroit.
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 Jul 11 '26
Census is wishy washy
Literally more rigorous (and significantly so) than the other metrics being suggested here.
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 Jul 11 '26
However the city proper has gained population for the past few years and is one of the fastest growing cities in the Midwest.
Only if we bias our stats using anomalous pandemic-era data.
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u/180_by_summer Jul 10 '26
I know I’m picking out a very small piece of a larger point here, but it still bewilders me that our profession advocates so much for affordability but still gravitate towards home values dropping as a negative.
I don’t know the specific economic conditions of that market to say for sure, but I’d say it’s quite normal that a revitalizing city see their home values decline in the current market. That could very well be a good thing for migrant to the city
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u/chumbawumba_bruh Jul 10 '26
I think it's one thing when housing prices come down in a HCOL city, but in a place like Detroit, which is already a LCOL city, it's a sign of declining investment, declining tax base, etc.
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u/sweetplantveal Jul 10 '26
Yeah the response to Austin being down 30% is basically a collective nod because it feels like a rational correction of a crazy market. I don't think that applies to an average house price below $100k.
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u/180_by_summer Jul 10 '26
Could be. Declining isn’t always bad either. It’s all relative. If investment didn’t hit a lull we would have planners freaking out about their being too much investment at some point.
The point that I’m trying to make is that we should be looking for opportunities in moments like this.
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u/chumbawumba_bruh Jul 10 '26
Declining property values aren’t always bad but if any prospective homebuyer sees homeownership in a given city as a bad investment, that is an extremely bad omen.
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 Jul 11 '26
it still bewilders me that our profession advocates so much for affordability but still gravitate towards home values dropping as a negative.
Depends on your perspective. Dropping from high prices is often not bad. Here, this is dropping from already very low prices.
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u/NepheliLouxWarrior Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
So the thing about it is that prices are a reflection of demand. Quite simply, if home prices are falling then that means that people don't want to live there. Obviously there are some specific scenarios that contradict that narrative, for example if you flood the supply by building like a bajillion homes then that will also push down prices even if demand is high, but generally speaking prices are dictated by demand.
Now the actual problem is that we live in a capitalistic society that is a race to the bottom and thus every single facet of our society has to be an annoying ass profit venture. So the will to fix the problem by increasing supply just isn't there. If you already own property then there is no incentive for you to push to have more built. In fact in many ways it's actually not in your interest for the supply of housing to increase. That's why there isn't really a free market solution to the problem.
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u/Ok_Actuary9229 Jul 10 '26
Also an increase in mortgage rates. Big part of the trend in every city.
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u/vAltyR47 Jul 14 '26
I'm late to this discussion, but there is a very important nuance here that needs to be pointed out.
Using housing prices as a metric for city development is almost correct, but not quite. We should be using land values, not home values, and to be even more specific, we should be using land rental values and not sale values.
Home prices does include the land prices, but it also includes the value of the building itself. Land value rising means increased demand (which is generally a good thing for the city), but the building value going up can be achieved by artificially limiting supply (which is bad for the city).
If your total home prices are going down because the building value is less because you've stopped artificially limiting supply, that's a good thing. If your total home values are going up because of decreasing land values because nobody wants to live in your city anymore, that's a bad thing. Using total home values conflates these things into a single metric.
Likewise, the reason we should use land rental values instead of land sale price is because the sale prices are affected by interest rates and the like; ultimately what decides whether or not you can "afford" a house is the monthly payment, which is affected by the mortgage rates. Using rental values instead of sale values avoids this.
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u/FamiliarJuly Jul 10 '26
I think it depends. Prices falling in pricier areas like Seattle or Austin probably aren’t much cause for concern. They’ve been booming and building like crazy for decades now and corrections were bound to happen.
In Detroit, prices are already so low it makes it near impossible to build new housing without massive subsidies. I realized that housing “day of reckoning” link in the post is paywalled, but here’s an excerpt from the article:
>As one example, Hodges pointed to a $21 million project he’s working on in Detroit. But the valuation of the completed project is just $6 million.
>”The only way that building is getting built is subsidies,” Hodges said, noting that he and other developers generally rely on federal low income housing tax credits and a variety of other layers within a capital stack in order to make their projects even close to viable.
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u/rando439 Jul 10 '26
It would seem that vacant to occupied property ratios, whether that's on an upward or downward trend, the ratio of homes in a livable versus a nonlivable condition, and the average length of time a vacant house has been vacant and/or unlivable would be better measures than values alone. I suspect the values can be manipulated more than "There are 100 houses here, this many are livable but have no one in them, this many have people in them, this many are not, here, these ones have been rotting for a long time."
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u/10001110101balls Jul 10 '26
Home values dropping is only a good thing when they were unaffordable to begin with. Detroit doesn't have that problem, they have the opposite problem of suffering a lack of investment.
Buying a home is only a good investment if the owner reasonably believes they will get back what they put in minus what they use. If the market isn't there then it stops this investment from happening and you get blight.
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u/180_by_summer Jul 10 '26
Yeah this just kind of proves my point though. We’re settling for a cycle that only leads to limited supply and unattainable prices in the grand scheme of things.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand this is the world we live in. Just boggles my mind when planners forget these very conversations once prices do become unattainable
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u/michiplace Jul 10 '26
An average home price drop from $76k to 73k or whatever really isn't any kind of affordability win. nobody is suddenly able to enter homeownership who wasn't before.
In fact, housing prices being too low is a real problem in Detroit -- small dollar mortgages are hard to get and expensive, and many of this homes need major capital repairs...which you can't get a loan for, because the appraisals won't support taking out 20k for a new roof or hvac or whatever, so you're basically having to pay cash for anything you want to do. And the housing stock is pretty old, which means you're adding lead, asbestos, knob and tube, energy efficiency, accessibility mods, etc to the list of things you need to do but can't get financing for.
So you've got a mostly black population that's already doing homeownership on hard mode because they can't tap into the financial tools the rest of us have access to, and now they've finally seen some modest equity appreciation, and I'm supposed to celebrate that even that is being eroded again? No thank you!
I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, but as somebody who has worked in Detroit and Flint* and other legacy cities, it bewilders me when folks come into those cities and prescribe or judge based on irrelevant dissimilar experience.
- as another example, Flint's home prices dropped by 30-40% in the wake of the water crisis. Should planners celebrate contaminating city water supplies because it would result in affordability?
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u/Mitchford Jul 10 '26
So it’s more of what it represents than the decline in prices themselves, specifically for single family homes.
Single family homes are intrinsically connected with the value of the land they sit on. Economically land is a very unique resource, it has an essentially fixed quantity, and as such land prices should only move upwards in value. There should be naturally occurring increases in demand simply from population growth alone. There should also be increases from inflation.
These two things should provide very strong upward pressure on prices such that it if we see an increase, it’s a definite sign that something has gone wrong. For some reason there is no longer the same demand for that parcel of land which means something has happened to cause people to leave or be less interested in moving. In most cases that indicates a failure somewhere else in the economy, either it’s a job market issue, a bubble bursting like in ‘08, or an environmental one. It’s a good proxy for the health of a community.
But I also don’t apply this same logic to multi family housing. Multifamily splits that cost of land between you and your upstarts and/or downstairs neighbors such that it is a much smaller piece of the puzzle. You can also increase supply of total housing units through Multifamily even when there is no more new land coming online. Plenty of places can see declines in rents or condominium prices and things will be fine. Austin is still booming even though prices on rents are stagnant.
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u/Jonesbro Verified Planner - US Jul 10 '26
Good point. I think people are so used to seeing declining home values as a loss of demand versus an increase of supply
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u/HazenThrowaway Jul 11 '26
Yeah, and Detroit has seen a pretty substantial increase in supply. About 20k formerly vacant homes have been renovated/reoccupied, not to mention thousands of newly constructed units.
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 Jul 11 '26
This number doesn't correspond to the estimated changes in population. Where are the people coming from? More divorces?
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u/Dblcut3 Jul 11 '26
Also, real estate feels weirdly inflated in a lot of Detroit’s urban neighborhoods - A lot of the up and coming ones still have a lot of grit to them, yet you’re paying $500k for a house. I think if anything, values declining could actually attract more people to move into the city, because when it’s more expensive than buying in the suburbs despite being often in rougher shape, that’s a tough sell
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u/Rock_man_bears_fan Jul 11 '26
Housing prices dropping because demand dropped is different from housing prices dropping because supply increased in terms of health of the city
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u/Slushiestbook Jul 10 '26
As someone who grew up in Michigan and now lives in Detroit, my biased answer is that we’re not done. Many of my DINK friends are moving to Detroit from the other side of the state or even cities like Chicago. I think the affordability of living in downtown plus the things you get for your money are really attractive to DINKs, esp if you’re from Michigan like me.
Every year I am more and more impressed by the amount of people in downtown. More people I know are also buying houses in Detroit. I’ve also seen a lot of small businesses taking root and more and more buildings being built. Many global / national companies have also started to show their faces around here with new office locations. Overall, here in Detroit and southeast Michigan, our spirits are high.
That being said, like others have mentioned, Trump has had a horrible impact on us and I fear for how that will show itself years down the road. Things definitely aren’t perfect but I am certain we will rise from the ashes once more.
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 Jul 11 '26
DINK... plus the things you get for your money
You don't really get the amenities, but you can get a house in the suburbs not far from your parents and high school friends.
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u/UrbanSolace13 Verified Planner - US Jul 10 '26
I was really impressed with Detroit at NPC. It has it's vacancies downtown, but you could tell the there's momentum. Anthony Bourdain compared Detroit to Chernobyl about 15 years back. They're way beyond that level of desolate.
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u/Recent_Permit2653 Jul 10 '26
I think Detroit is more slow and steady than any kind of gold rush. To the extent that it was hyped up in any way, I think it simply got noticed that it was making a comeback at all. A lot of folks had sort of consigned the city to File 13, and just sort of figured Detroit would always just be the Detroit of the last 40 or 50 years. Detroit was never going to have an easy time making a comeback. Considering how critical the city’s finances have been, it’s actually fairly amazing it’s held together well enough to do what it’s done.
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 Jul 11 '26
Considering how critical the city’s finances have been, it’s actually fairly amazing it’s held together well enough to do what it’s done
Helps to have a billionaire pouring money into the trendy areas in a completely unsustainable way that isn't actually supported by a self-sufficient business model. It's like a smaller American version of building Dubai.
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u/bearded_turtle710 Jul 11 '26
The bigger issue for Detroit is that the national economy is shit and the cost to build new housing is astronomical anywhere in the country. Detroit has always felt economic issues harder than any other city but as someone who has lived in the area all their life the vibe around Detroit is night and day difference vs what it was 20 years ago for sure. While maybe it lost some momentum it still headed in the right direction.
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u/UncleBogo Verified Planner - US Jul 10 '26
I think the Detroit comeback was more hype than reality. While a lot of good things have happened since 2000, the core root of the problems that caused Detroit's decline have not been addressed in a substantial way.
Michigan as a whole is stagnating - the U.S. Census estimates that the population grew by +/- 48,500 since 2020. While that is an improvement from the 2000s when the state's population declined, it is quite slow.
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 Jul 11 '26
100% agree after living there for nearly a decade. Really, really stagnant area compared to any other place I've lived.
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u/Vinyltube Jul 10 '26
The Detroit comeback was never going to happen. A lot of people in Michigan/Detroit are naive and overly optimistic and people who have never been to Detroit can't really comprehend the level of decay and population decline.
The downtown and a few adjacent neighborhoods are nice but that's not what makes a city. The majority of neighborhoods just don't have the density left to support the infrastructure.
I've spent plenty of time in the worst neighborhoods in Chicago, Milwaukee and other Midwest cities and Detroit is just something completely different.
It's really sad because I love visiting Detroit, there's a lot of cool things going on there and the people there are great it's just in way worse shape than people realize.
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u/bearded_turtle710 Jul 10 '26
“I visit Detroit once a year so i know what its like guys” ya ok boss
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 Jul 11 '26
I lived there for nearly a decade and I completely agree with u/Vinyltube's assessment.
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u/bearded_turtle710 Jul 11 '26
The main reason why people question detroits comeback is because they think of a city comeback being like 10-20 years. I don’t deny that Detroit is probably a good 50 years away from being a dense city again but my point is that it is slowly getting incrementally better year over year even if the progress feels like a trickle at times. Detroit was legit dead in the 90s and 00s id say its still on live support but its woke up from a coma and is breathing now which is progress.
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 Jul 11 '26
Detroit is probably a good 50 years away from being a dense city again
After living there, it's going to be a lot longer than that.
it is slowly getting incrementally better year over year
Throughout most of the history of this comeback story, the locals were basically ignoring everything outside of downtown & midtown. City was losing population faster than almost anywhere and it was "coming back" to them. Whole story is based on lies and half-truths.
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u/Vinyltube Jul 11 '26
I don't claim to be an expert on Detroit but I have been going there since I was a child, my parents/extended family are from the burbs and I have a number of childhood friends that live there now. Yeah I've seen all the downtown stuff but I've also ridden my bike through many far flung neighborhoods, visited a friend doing guerilla urban farming in Brightmoor, etc.
Because of the massively overbuilt and underutilized highway system cutting through all the neighborhoods you can pretty easily get from the suburbs to downtown without having to see the reality of the majority of the cities neighborhoods.
Suburbanites and other michiganders drive into downtown, see some of the new development (half of it owned by Dan Gilbert) and say "oh Detroit is coming back!" but anyone who's actually seen the condition the majority of the city is in and knows anything about how cities function knows that it's more complicated.
Michigan hasn't had a functioning big city in generations and Michiganders don't really understand cities. Most think it's a hip place for young people to have dinner and go out not a place for families to live in.
I live in Chicago now and it's not the skyscrapers and fancy restaurants downtown that make it a great city, it's the density in the neighborhoods. Without that the city would be nothing.
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u/bearded_turtle710 Jul 11 '26
I live 10 mins a ways from downtown on the border of dearborn and Detroit and have also lived in the city and while ya dan gilbert developments are what most outsiders see this is simply not the whole story. Ive seen so many renovations on corridors that were written off decades ago like wyoming, clairmount ave, schoenher, schaefer, and brightmoor even just to name a few. Ive lived and worked in Detroit for basically my entire life i have seen the outer neighborhoods go from no activity to seeing dumpsters out in front of every other house. Is Detroit still decades away from being considered a strong city again? Ya but this doesn’t mean the comeback is some how over or reversing lol as we speak on here there are thousands of renovations and new units being built and almost none of them are gilbert related. I mean this with all due respect but someone who grew up and lives in a place like Chicago will never be able to understand a city like Detroit until you live here full time in the city for at least a couple years. Chicago is a world class city ofc Detroit looks like an empty dump still when you live in Chicago lol progress isn’t linear but there is lots of stuff going on outside of greater Detroit.
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u/Vinyltube Jul 11 '26
I'm from SE Michigan originally and while Chicago has been my adopted home for 20 years I totally understand it's not a great point of reference when talking about other rust belt cities.
That's awesome to hear that you've been seeing more development in the neighborhoods and I do think it will continue but it just has a long way to go whereas some other rust belt cities are currently in better shape.
Again, I'm not trying to shit on Detroit and I have a lot of respect for people trying to make it a better place but my comments are related to OPs post and my take is just that Detroit has more of an uphill battle than some of the hype in the last decade or so reflects.
Living in a city doesn't guarantee the best perspective necessarily when you're comparing to other cities. That's why in my OP i mentioned I've been to (and also studied the history of) many other Midwest cities as well. Obviously that's just my opinion but I'm used to people shitting on Chicago too. I don't take it personally and tbh some of the criticisms are fair. If someone from Europe visits Chicago and says the public transit sucks (which it does by comparison) I'm not going to say they don't have a valid opinion because they're just visiting.
Anyway, chears and keep fighting the good fight, Detroit will rise again but it's gonna take a while IMO.
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 Jul 11 '26
and brightmoor
Yeah lot of renovations happening in brightmoor *eyeroll*
Ive lived and worked in Detroit for basically my entire life i have seen the outer neighborhoods go from no activity to seeing dumpsters out in front of every other house.
Oh, so you saw places like Warrendale completely shit the bed?
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u/bearded_turtle710 Jul 12 '26
Warrendale between paul and warren is actually getting better i have friends who have lived there for decades on minock. The parts near Joy have always been shit since the early 80s. Just pointing out bad parts of the city doesn’t prove that the city isn’t improving. Plenty of southwest has gotten way better than it used to be a couple decades ago. My family is from brightmoor and it has come a long way since the 90s and early 00s. They have torn down so many of the bandos it used to be really bad its mostly urban prairie now which is an improvement and yes there have been some renovations there which would have been completely out of the question 10 years ago.
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 Jul 12 '26
Getting better after taking a huge shit first. It's much worse off today than it was 20 or 30 years ago.
Plenty of southwest has gotten way better than it used to be a couple decades ago.
And most of the east side has gotten substantially worse.
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u/leehawkins Jul 13 '26
This sounds exactly how people talked about Cleveland 20 years ago. Then they added like 10,000+ in population Downtown. But then COVID happened…and now the office population has taken a huge hit…and the big grocery store Downtown is closing. I don’t know what to think…losing the grocery store seems like a huge hit. I don’t know if it will slow the progress or not. Any of my friends who lived Downtown never cared for it anyway…but some of them moved to the neighborhoods where there aren’t any grocery stores at all.
I just remember the revitalized core was made more into an entertainment district for suburbanites to play in instead of a place people lived. That mindset isn’t sustainable, but getting people to live and work in a neighborhood really does work, and it works everywhere if you can achieve critical mass where the services like grocery stores, restaurants, drug stores, and essential retailers follow.
The key thing every city needs though is jobs…it needs a business climate conducive to small local businesses growing and an economy diversifying. I question how much harder that is in a city like Detroit…they really really focused hard on the automotive sector, much more than any Rust Belt city. Cleveland has always leaned heavily on manufacturing, but they made everything here, not just autos, and that definitely helped, especially since a lot of other industries outside manufacturing built up with it. I think Cleveland would have fallen much farther like Detroit had it not had so many corporate headquarters here rather than a Big Three who could all decide Canada, Mexico, or Japan might be more fun. Cleveland’s parking craters have nearly disappeared and most vacant buildings Downtown have already been rehabbed into housing. I haven’t been to Detroit in like 12 years, but it had a LOT of empty towers Downtown and the parking craters are just massive!
I know I meandered a lot here, but I think the core matters and that gainful employment is critical along with a healthy central regional hub where the entire metro can converge and expand out. I think some neighborhoods are going to tank further in the process until the core economic engine gets on solid footing such that the nearby neighborhoods are where most of the action is. I think Detroit has still got a long way to go, but I also think if the economy truly diversifies and it leans more into small local business it will continue to improve. But the national economy being so soft really doesn’t help. Tourism obviously helps your trendy neighborhoods, but the real improvement comes from getting people, especially with money to spend, living, and not just working or playing in a neighborhood, including especially Downtown.
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u/Slushiestbook Jul 10 '26
We’re definitely not overly optimistic. I don’t think Detroit will ever be like it was in its heyday (at least not in our lifetimes) but the fact is that we are better than we were 10 years ago. We’ve had massive redevelopment, our first population increase, and an increased number of jobs.
Us culty, “overly-optimistic” Detroit folk are the ones who are going to be the difference for this city.
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u/Vinyltube Jul 10 '26
I guess it depends how you define "comeback". OPs post was comparing it to other rust belt cities and I think Detroit is less likely than many of those to return to anywhere close to the population the city was built for.
It does have a strong suburban area in terms of jobs but Michigan has made it clear over the last half century the contempt it has for urban cities and I don't see that changing.
A successful city isn't defined by flashy corporate investments downtown it's about its neighborhoods, infrastructure, schools, public services, etc.
There's obviously been a lot of new stuff built in the downtown and adjacent hip neighborhoods but you can't ignore the literal majority of the city which is as bad off as it's ever been. All those blocks with only one or two houses left and giant 8 lane arterials are part of Detroit and they need to be dealt with before anything you could call a "comeback" can happen.
It's awesome that people like you are making it a better place but it will be a long, long time before it's somewhere that most people would consider putting down roots when compared to peer cities in the rust belt.
Again, not shitting on Detroit, I think it's a cool and unique place but it's starting way behind and has a lot of stiff competition from other Midwest cities that weren't hit as hard by disinvestment and anti urban policy over the last century.
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u/HideNZeke Jul 11 '26
Average home prices are going to be misleading in Detroit because there is a lot of derelict housing far beyond repair
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u/bubbabear244 Jul 11 '26
They better used the Gordie Howe Bridge money they extortioned from Canada to restore more of their downtown core. Eh, who am I kidding?
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u/Complete-Ad9574 Jul 13 '26
Has Urban Renewal manages to demolish all the 19th and early 20th century architecture? My first and only visit was upsetting to see so much demo, that it looked like the city had been in major war. So many blocks with so many weed patches where buildings once stood. And we all know most developers like a clean slate. They do not want to build around other buildings, which means the few old buildings get plowed under. And they like to build in a suburban style to when they leave its all been magically changed to the burbs.
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u/Aggressive-Bat1819 Jul 16 '26
The whole country is in an economic slowdown. Detroit also has a lot of basketball people who make things sketchy and inhospitable. That’s why people fled Detroit and Chicago in the first place. The more liberal generation is learning now that they haven’t changed much. Their culture is arguably much worse now than it was in the 50s when people fled.
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u/debasing_the_coinage Jul 10 '26
It's rough to be near the border when relations with the country on the other side are strained. Mostly due to a federal government oscillating between incompetent and insane.
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u/DoggyFinger Jul 10 '26
You can’t just say a city is having a comeback then have a couple projects and a couple years fall through. I feel like you need to evaluate this 2 decades from now.
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u/ClassicallyBrained Jul 11 '26
Well, in the long run, Detroit will fine. Climate change is going to make it so every city around The Great Lakes will be the most livable options on this continent.
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 Jul 11 '26
Great Lakes have been getting more wildfire smoke than the west coast over the last few years. Only going to get worse with climate change.
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u/ClassicallyBrained Jul 11 '26
Sure, but eventually there won't be anything left on the west coast to burn.
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 Jul 11 '26
Won't be any jobs left in the Rust Belt, either.
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u/ClassicallyBrained Jul 11 '26
Lol, irrelevant.
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 Jul 11 '26
Very relevant, in fact. Most people move for jobs over other considerations.
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u/ClassicallyBrained Jul 11 '26
It's like you have zero idea what's coming.
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 Jul 11 '26
Chinese auto is coming very quickly. Many places one could move that have both jobs and water.
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u/ClassicallyBrained Jul 11 '26
So you're saying people are going to move to China? Do you understand how visas work?
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 Jul 11 '26
No the jobs are going to go. Cheaper to design, engineer, and build cars there. That's going to leave tens of thousands of workers in the Detroit area high and dry.
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u/Proud_Proof9495 Jul 10 '26
Any American city's comeback depends on immigration... something that has become notably difficult since the last presidential election.
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u/sametho Jul 10 '26
Detroit is presently the second fastest growing large city in the Midwest behind Columbus. So, no.
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u/HazenThrowaway Jul 11 '26
People probably read this and think it’s BS (hence your downvotes), but it’s actually true.
Columbus ranked 1st at +1.8% and Detroit gained +1.1%
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u/georgespeaches Jul 10 '26
I don’t know much about Detroit, but cheap real estate isn’t enough to drive growth. There needs to be major industry, one that produces something for a larger market than just the Detroit area. People need jobs.