Ok i've never been to Detroit, but damn...



See Detroit

Is this a accurate portrayal?

I live south of Detroit and have been there hundreds of times. That looks like the majority of the city. I don't know why it looks like that...decades of poor leadership? No money? I don't know. The amount of vacant, dilapidated houes is asstounding.

I was born in Detroit,but I haven't visited that city since the 80s.I have alot of relatives there.

Haven´t been to Detroit yet but I feel as if I´d already been there. It reminds me of the place where I was born. When the shipyards closed and Mercedes Benz and BMW opened factories somewhere else instead of my hometown, things went really downhill. There is some improvement now, though...but it´s gonna take some time.

I also watched a similar documentary about Detroit on German TV and the overall atmosphere was very depressing.I don´t believe that the whole city is like that.

GTFOHWTBS.


I'm IN Detroit. Yeah, there's some run down areas LIKE EVERY OTHER MAJOR METROPOLIS IN THE UNITED STATES.

But there's really nice areas as well that aren't anywhere on that little video.

ButterscotchPimp said:

That's the truth

Mach said:

Well obviously it isnt all like that vid/site...is this all a result of the automotive industry closing its doors in detroit? or are other factors in place here? heavy crime in the inner city?

xperience319 said:

I moved away 23 yrs ago and am not 100% ontop of the info of what goes/went down in my Morotcity ~ Others who still dwell there will fill ya in I suppose

It's a beautiful city like most big cities and with that too comes the not so beautiful aspects that all big cities have

Detroit absolutely has suffered in the wake of a shifting auto-producing market and the emptying out of its core due to crime, racial politics, poor leadership, etc. But there have been successful efforts over, say, the past decade to restore some vitality to the inner city. Comerica Park, Ford Field and the adjacent new clubs and restaurants, for example, are beautiful, and they have been a significant new attraction and source of income for the city. Wayne State University remains healthy and is a driving force in maintaining Detroit's cultural life. There's the new MGM Grand Casino, the Detroit RiverFront Conservancy initiative and several residential projects underway to bring young professionals back into the city to live.

It's fun to beat up on Detroit -- I do it all the time in teasing my sister, who lives there -- but it's not a complete wasteland.

Mach said:

That's the view from Windsor, right? I've always thought Detroit was beautiful from across the river.

Lammastide said:

Yes it is - and yes it is

I am staying right downtown the last week in Oct


a in stay
[Edited 9/23/08 6:59am]

Lammastide said:

Thanks for saying this. The media is always first to blow things out of proportion and engage in beating-up on the city too.

I can tell you one thing, it just makes our resolve stronger. The area is seeing some of it's worst times in the history because of the failings of the auto industry but this video doesn't show ANYTHING that's happened recently. It just shows buildings from the 20's and 30's and makes comparisons to today. The homes it shows haven't been lived in for decades but they're in there too.

The fact is that the people need to change, business in the area needs to change and the leadership that runs the city needs to change. The leadership is in the process of change as is the auto industry. The state is working on becoming a source for renewable energy of all sorts and is changing what industries are growing in the state but these are all things that don't make the news or this video.

Once the state's economy starts to pick-up, you'll see people actually moving back to the state and the infrastructure actually start to pick-up as well. From there old buildings will have to be torn down to make room for the new. Until then, we have people pointing out how bad things are as if we who live here didn't already know.

Slave2daGroove said:

You got it, baby. We've been through recessions like this before and we've always come back. Detroit was once a world-class city -- once called the "Paris of the Midwest" and it's the 10th largest in the US. That's not lost on those who live here.
I've been a Detroiter all my life and I've also traveled quite a bit...and I'll tell you that no other city I've been to has the soul or the feeling that Detroit has.
No other city has the beautiful people that live here.
That being said...you probably won't see photos like this on that Web site:























Historically, attendance of events held in Hart Plaza has often been reported as being well in excess of the 14-acre venue's capacity of 40,000 people, even when crowds were counted by police and city officials. The reported attendance estimates for the electronic music festival were as follows:

DEMF 2000: 1.1 to 1.5 million *
DEMF 2001: 1.7 million *
DEMF 2002: 1.7 million *
Movement 2003: 630,000
Movement 2004: 150,000 **
Fuse-In 2005: 44,920 ***
Fuse-In 2006: 41,000 ****
Movement 2007: 43,337 *****
Movement 2008: 75,000 *****

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...c_Festival

I could go on and on...

Remember, you really can't believe everything you read.
[Edited 9/23/08 11:27am]

More shots from downtown...














[Edited 9/23/08 11:25am]