That, and the mayor is effective and not corrupt. That has brought businesses, suburbanites and tourists back. It's amazing, really. It was a horrible place to be my entire childhood and most of my adult life. I'm glad my Dad got to see the rebirth.

He'd tell me stories of how great a city was when he was a kid in the 50s and 60s all the way up to the 67 riots. Looking at it through my 80s and 90s lens, I thought it was a)sentimental crap and b) even if it were true, that it would be impossible to recreate. It'll never be like it was pre-riots of course but Detroit, like Pittsburgh, has made a remarkable comeback. It was basically Beirut when I was a kid.

Edit to add: I recall corruption early on , can't speak to later stops such as head of DMC.


Interesting career, he's combined corruption with excellence every step of the way as a proper disciple of McNamara (not sure about mayor, haven't been around the city recently) and at the same time every place he went got better under his stewardship. When he ran the Detroit Medical zone center he made some unpopular decisions but it seems like that too improved.

Even so, I didn't think he could successfully tackle the whole city which has destroyed many a strong politician recently but it looks like he did. It was really cool to come back this last fall to a couple of Lions games, obviously game day is when the city is at its best but the whole drive in has a different feel.

I will agree that the downtown area is much improved.

Then again, rebuilding the downtown (like with the word Renaissance attached to the Center, People Mover, etc) was the goal in the 1970s, and the rest of the city continued to decline.

About once a year, I drive past where my mom and dad's families both grew up in Brightmoor (and feel like I am risking my life for the memories). Not only are both houses gone, the whole blocks are gone. There is virtually no infrastructure (restaurants, movie theatres, grocery stores, doctors, etc.) for miles and miles.

As a CC grad who went there in Detroit and Redford - I also can never see CC moving back to either place (as well as any Catholic high schools that haven't gone bankrupt since 1980 coming back to Detroit or any new Catholic high school either without heavy subsidies from the order of priests who run it.) In fact, CC would be out of business now if they hadn't left for the suburbs.

It will take hundreds of thousands of middle class people (families) to move back and start building again. I can't see that happening - at least not in my lifetime.

mid-70’s and ended up, I believe, on the Cass corridor. It was like a war zone. Pretty scary.