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Real Estate & Homes in Detroit - Michigan - Detroit, Michiganhomes and communities Detroit
Background Once called the Paris of the Midwest due to its picturesque, tree-lined streets, the industrial revolution transformed Detroit into the modern-day manufacturing Mecca with a tough reputation that is familiar to us today. A city plagued by unusually severe inner-city blight, Detroit is beginning to pull itself into the modern age with downtown revitalizations and a steadily dropping crime rate. Known for its cars, music, and ethnic diversity, Detroit is a die-hard industrial city facing new problems going into the next century. History The Detroit area was settled very early, likely because of its advantageous position on the Detroit River and its proximity to Canada and the Great Lakes. In 1701, French officer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded a fort and settlement on the site; the fort’s original name was Fort Pontchartrain du Detroit. The British took control in 1760, retained it through Pontiac’s Rebellion in 1763, and in 1796 the area was yielded to the new United States. The Legislature of the Northwest Territory incorporated Detroit as a town in 1802. When Ohio became a state, the eastern half of Michigan was attached to the Indiana Territory, but Detroit’s distance from the territorial capital led to the creation of Michigan Territory in 1805; Detroit was its first capital. The city almost immediately underwent a sweeping reorganization after a terrible fire destroyed most of it. The new Governor, William Hull, arranged to lay out a new town that included all of the old city plus an additional 10,000 acres. Detroit was briefly surrendered to the British during the War of 1812, but local control was restored in 1815. The watershed year for Detroit was undoubtedly 1899, when Henry Ford, led there by the already-thriving carriage trade, built his first automobile factory in Highland Park. His manufacturing advances soon led to Detroit’s emergence as the automobile manufacturing capital of the world. The development of this industry caused the city’s economy and its population to explode in the first half of the 20th century. Demands for labor brought hundreds of thousands of newcomers from Europe and the southern states. In the first thirty years of the 20th century, Detroit’s population increased by a factor of six, to nearly 1.5 million. The city also became known for a riverfront lined with factories and for labor disputes. While the Detroit metropolitan area has continued to grow, the population of the city of Detroit has plummeted as residents moved their families to the suburbs and away from the gangs and riots. The infamous 12th Street Riot in 1967 only intensified the so-called “white flight,” which began a spiral of inner-city decay that continued for decades. The city has made great strides in demolishing and rebuilding blighted areas, but many abandoned buildings and neighborhoods still remain in central Detroit. Gang-related crime remains an issue, and Detroit is a regional center for the drug trade. In the last fifteen years, Detroit has begun to drag itself out of the cellar, although its reputation has lagged behind. State referendums have allowed for significant revitalizations of the downtown area and the building of three casinos to increase tourism. The city leadership continues its efforts to give Detroit a new downtown renaissance. Fast Facts City population: 951,000 For more information visit Detroit Homes Guide Community Detroit citizens are deeply divided over the nature of their city, which has a long-standing reputation as a hard working, blue-collar, grimy, crime-ridden Gotham City riddled with ghettos and slums. Disagreements abound over whether this reputation is deserved. Certainly, Detroit is and will probably always be a hard-working, blue-collar city – the city leaders are working on dispelling the “grimy” and “crime-ridden” portions of the mythos. What is true is that Detroit is almost always near the top of the list when cities are ranked for crime, danger and urban decay. Personal experiences of the city differ widely. Some visitors and citizens proclaim that the city is great, the hype is overblown, and they’re never afraid to go downtown at night, or anywhere else, for that matter. Others proclaim, just as loudly, that wild horses could not drag them from the suburbs after dark. The fact is, like any other city, Detroit has good and bad neighborhoods. Part of the problem may be simple PR, but it’s also true that the good and bad parts frequently transition within a space of a block, making it difficult to hide the existence of impoverished areas from visitors and citizens. Prevailing wisdom is that Detroit is no more or less dangerous than any other major metropolitan area (it is the tenth largest such area in the US), and that personal safety is only a matter of common sense. What is undeniable is that the city leadership has expended considerable effort over the last decade to improve the appearance, safety and appeal of Detroit’s center city, and they have been putting forth a lot of positive press to combat the city’s negative reputation. They may not have to work very hard: conditions in Detroit are improving. A study released this year, which compiled crime data from 2001-2004, found that downtown Detroit had a crime rate lower than the overall national rate or the state of Michigan rate. Rapes declined 36%, burglary was down by 40%, and felonious assaults were down 44%. Another long-held belief about Detroit concerns its racial makeup. Popular opinion views the city as heavily African-American, when, in fact, the black population is a relatively modest 21%. Where the discrepancy may come is that virtually all cities with larger black populations are in the south (Savannah, for example, is 35% black; Birmingham is 30%). Relative to the comparable cities in the Midwest, 21% is unusually high. A comparison might be made with Cleveland (17%), Columbus (13%), Milwaukee (15%) or Indianapolis (14%). It is also true that Detroit has a larger percentage of African-Americans than either New York City or Chicago. What is not true is that such a percentage necessarily translates into negative characteristics such as crime, drug use or property value. The communities with large black populations include Inkster, River Rouge, Oak Park, Pontiac, Southfield, Ecorse, and Highland Park. Whatever the reasons or the results, metropolitan Detroit is strikingly segregated. Most of the black population resides in the downtown and close-lying suburbs, while the outlying suburbs such as Livonia, Troy, Farmington Hills, and Sterling Heights are predominantly white. The intense segregation of Detroit is visible in another statistic: the 21% black population figure quoted above was for the entire metropolitan area, but the percentage for the city of Detroit runs as high as 80% by some calculations. The city’s immense industrial growth during the birth of the auto industry also brought wealthy, affluent families to the area. Detroit is famous for having communities which range from the poorest slums to the most extravagant mansions and everything in between. Some of the city’s wealthiest suburbs, such as Grosse Pointe, Royal Oak, Plymouth and Dearborn rank among the country’s wealthiest. Mostly mostly working-class families populate the southern suburbs, collectively known as Downriver and including Riverview, Wyandotte, Trenton, Southgate, and Taylor The presence of other significant ethnic groups in Detroit, as well as its high percentage of African-Americans, is the result of the large early-20th-century migrations to the city from all over the country (especially the South) in search of jobs in the automotive industry. Currently, Detroit is home to the largest single concentration of Arab-Americans in the nation, most of whom live in the suburb of Dearborn. Detroit also has the largest concentration of Belgians outside of Belgium. Most of the rest of the native population is descended from the Poles, Irish, Italians and Greeks who arrived during the industrial boom, which saw Detroit’s population increase six fold. One particular ethnic community that merits special notice is Hamtramck, an independent borough that is very strongly Polish in character; in fact, one of the local high schools still offers Polish language classes. With a population of 23,000, Hamtramck is almost totally encircled by Detroit and shows its Polish roots in family names, street and business names. The city is also famous for its world-class Polish food, known to draw visitors from all over the world. Attractions As befits a city of its history, Detroit features a number of attractions related to the automotive industry. The largest and move well known is the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. The Museum grew around the seed of Henry Ford’s personal collection of auto-related memorabilia and artifacts; the modern museum features a huge collection of inventions, toys, art, and exhibits from the history of the American automobile. Favorite exhibits include the limousine from the Kennedy assassination and the bus that Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of. Greenfield Village is an open-air museum that consists of a reconstructed town, including Edison’s entire Menlo Park laboratory. The town is historically accurate and includes farms, business, and restaurants and arcades featuring period artisans and guides. Other notable auto-related attractions include the Walter P. Chrysler Museum, the Motor sports Museum & Hall of Fame, the Plymouth Historical Museum, and the Automotive Hall of Fame. In addition, there are a number of other museums of note to visit in the Detroit area: the Museum of African-American History and the Detroit History Museum, just to name two. The Detroit Zoo, located in the nearby suburb of Royal Oak, is one of the largest in the country. Featuring attractive architecture and natural habitats, the Zoo tops the list of Detroit family activities. As a point of interest, the Detroit Zoo was also the only zoo to voluntarily give up its elephants for humane reasons; believing that their amount of available space wasn’t sufficient for the animals’ comfort, the Zoo sent them somewhere where they’d be happier. Another frequent destination is Belle Isle. Located in the Detroit River, the island was landscaped by renowned landscape designer Frederick Law Olmstead, designer of Central Park and the grounds of Biltmore Estate. The island has recently fallen into hard times (the zoo and aquarium there have closed) but it is still a beautiful site for picnics, swimming and outdoor leisure. Among Detroit’s other major attractions, local residents recommend the Renaissance Center, home to the General Motors main headquarters; Eastern Market, a farmer’s market featuring fresh foods and interesting shopping, and Hart Plaza, the large open-air festival space featuring fountains and beautiful views of the river and Belle Isle. For sightseeing opportunities, there’s the Diamond Jack River Tour, a two-hour narrated boat tour down the river that views most of Detroit’s major sites. Arts & Culture In Detroit, to put it bluntly, music is huge. Just as Nashville is the center of the country-music universe, Detroit is the center of the Motown and R&B universe. The headquarters of Motown Records, Detroit saw the rise of the careers of artists including Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Four Tops, the Temptations, and too many others to list. The city has also produced a great deal of hard rock, heavy-metal and contemporary alternative music including artists such as Eminem, the White Stripes, and Kid Rock. As if that weren’t enough, Detroit also considers itself the home of techno music, honoring its tradition with a large electronic music festival each spring. Live music is a tradition in Detroit; two of its local venues, the DTE Energy Music Theater and the Palace of Auburn Hills, usually rank in the top five concert venues in the country for attendance and box office gross, outstripping even venerable Madison Square Garden. Detroit is also home to the Motown Museum, chronicling the history of this uniquely American sound that is so closely tied to the city. Detroit is home to a large symphony orchestra, several large music venues, the Michigan Opera Theatre, several live theater companies and several dance companies. The Detroit Institute of the Arts is the sixth largest fine art museum in the United States, housing more than 60,000 pieces of art in more than 100 galleries. It features a central lobby decorated with a series of murals by Diego Rivera and a well-rounded permanent collection. In addition, its location right next to the new Science Center and the African-American Cultural Museum makes it convenient for an entire day of cultural and enrichment activities. Education Detroit is well represented in the worlds of sports, manufacturing, and music, but comes up short in the category of major colleges or universities. When compared to the large numbers of institutions in cities like Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Boston, Detroit seems to lag behind in this area. The University of Michigan is located in Ann Arbor, which is about half an hour away from Detroit. Although it is still considered part of the Detroit metropolitan area, it is far enough away to be categorized as a separate municipality. In the immediate Detroit area, the largest post-secondary institution is Wayne State University, a research university with an enrollment of about 35,000 students. The campus is located in the heart of Detroit, consisting of over 100 buildings covering 203 acres. Wayne State has the largest single-campus medical school in the United States (it is the third largest medical school overall). Other local colleges include University of Detroit Mercy, a catholic school, and Marygrove College. Sports & Recreation When it comes to sports, Detroit is a one-stop shopping city; it is home to franchises of all four major North American sports. Of these, the Detroit Red Wings hockey team enjoys what is arguably the most fervent hockey following of any team not based in a Canadian city. The Red Wings are one of the oldest teams in NHL history, founded in 1926, with an impressive 10 Stanley Cups to their name. The Red Wings play in Joe Louis Arena, located right on the Detroit River and named after hometown boxing superstar Joe Louis. When hockey is not in season, Detroit citizens enjoy NFL football with hometown team the Detroit Lions; however, since the Lions haven’t won a league championship since 1957 and have never gone to the Super Bowl, it’s understandable how the local citizens have turned to the Red Wings for vicarious sports victory. Of equally dubious competitiveness are the hometown baseball team, the Detroit Tigers, who have not won a pennant since 1984, although they have four World Series championships to their name. The Tigers were the center of recent controversy concerning their venue; venerable Tiger Stadium was tied with Fenway Park for the nation’s oldest active baseball stadium when it was replaced with the new Comerica Park. Sports fans that don’t care for hockey might be better advised to support the Pistons, Detroit’s basketball team, who has won an impressive list of division and NBA championships in the past twenty years. Although the Pistons are officially known as the Detroit Pistons, they actually play in nearby Auburn Hills, a suburb of Detroit. Festivals When it comes to festivals, Detroit has an unusually wide variety and number, many of them related to cars. It starts in January with the North American International Auto Show, the largest regular auto show in the United States. Held in Cobo Center, the show attracts almost 1 million visitors from all over the world and is thought to contribute half a billion dollars to Detroit’s economy. Summer shows are dominated by music and food, starting with the electronic music festival, which has gone by a variety of names since its inception in 2000. Although the festival enjoyed early success, in the last few years it has faced financial problems and decreasing attendance, possibly due to venue changes. The traditional July 4th celebrations are shared with across-the-river neighbor Windsor, Canada, in joint celebration of Independence Day and Canada Day (Julyl 1st) with one mammoth International Freedom Festival, although the festival only continues on the American side today. Included in the Fourth of July festivities are Comerica Tastefest, a five-day outdoor food and entertainment festival at the Detroit New Center featuring four music stages, restaurants selling food samples, and a marketplace. As the summer progresses, the city hosts a Middle Eastern Festival, the Wyandotte Street Art Fair, the mid-July Ribs ‘n’ Soul Festival (which coincides with the Polish Festival) and then the Afro-American Music Festival, followed by the Arab and Chaldean Festival. August brings the Michigan State Fair and the African World Festival. Dining As one might predict given the many immigrants who came to Detroit for jobs in the auto industry, the local dining scene is dominated by several large ethnic demographics, but there is one particularly notable exception. The local eatery most often mentioned is Lafayette Coney Island, the most beloved of the many local hot dog joints who serve the famous Detroit-style coney dogs (that’s with chili, mustard and onions). Lafayette has stood on its downtown corner for decades, and it’s not much for ambiance or variety, but it’s a local institution that’s a must-visit for most tourists and returning expatriates. The local soul food and Cajun market is a strong one as well, and residents agree that the best place to go to enjoy the fare is local chain Fishbone’s Rhythm Café, where the spicy Cajun food goes hand in hand with live music and Southern atmosphere. Detroit has a large Greek population, and Greektown is a favorite neighborhood to visit for good food. While most residents agree that just about any door you duck through will have good food, Pizza Papalis is especially recommended, as are Hellas, the Parthenon, and the Acropolis. Greektown is also home to the most popular of the Fishbone’s locations. Due to the very high Arab population in Dearborn, there is a corresponding wealth of Middle Eastern restaurants. Local Lebanese chain LaShish is especially recommended. For Middle Eastern food, there’s Cedarland, La Pita, and the slightly more upscale chain Talal’s. No overview of Detroit dining would be complete without a mention of Hamtramck’s Polish restaurants. The most famous of these is Under the Eagle, featuring such Polish favorites as pierogies, blintzes, sausages, and the famous dill pickle soup. Although other local eateries such as the Polish Village Café and Polonia offer similar fare, Under the Eagle regularly beats them out in best-of competitions. For upscale dining, the restaurant most frequently recommended is the Whitney, a stately restaurant housed in the 21,000 square foot Whitney mansion. Remodeled and reopened as a restaurant in 1986, the main restaurant is famous for its exquisite dining. The facility also features an upstairs bar and lounge with live music, and a garden that hosts summertime garden parties. The Sunday brunch is also recommended, as is their weeknight after-work garden party, which provides a buffet, live music and cash bar for a low cover price. Economy Detroit is not a wealthy city, despite its status as a manufacturing powerhouse. As home to the Big Three auto companies (General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Daimler Chrysler), Detroit has a solid manufacturing base, yet it is one that is excruciatingly sensitive to the country’s economic cycles. The slightest blip on the auto industry has a magnified affect on Detroit’s economy. Detroit and its suburbs are also home to Fortune 500 companies Kmart, Borders books & Music, Comerica, Kelly Services and Lear. The city is currently running a fairly severe budget deficit and will likely raise taxes soon. The median income in Detroit is $29,526 for households and $33,853 for families. These figures are low, but Detroit’s crime rates have driven down property values and housing costs.
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