[dc_denizen]

Originally Posted by Crawford

The problem isn't really "will and creativity", it's market reality. There isn't much of a housing market in Detroit, and the problem has nothing to do with housing quality. The housing in Detroit is often better than that in the suburbs.

Detroit was a rich city, and still has very above-average housing stock. The West Side is mostly solidly built, often sizable, brick homes.

The problem is that, for the most part, people don't want to live there, and you can't force them to live there.

Also, people tend to forget that Metro Detroit is doing relatively ok. The economy is pretty good, the population is stable, and suburban Oakland County is one of the wealthiest counties in the U.S. Bloomfield Hills and Birmingham are as nice as the fanciest suburbs of other major cities, and in Birmingham, you don't get anything decent (single family home) for less than 600-700k, which is damn high in the Midwest. Somthing nice will be in the millions.

In some ways, it's more accurate to say that Detroit "relocated", instead of declined. The city basically picked up and moved north and west.

market reality or market failure? As you said, ppl don't want to live in Detroit for the most part. There are things the state and federal governments could do to restart the market though and correct this.

I recognize that metro Detroit has plenty of nice and desireable, even urban areas. It would be great to see some pictures of said areas on these forums!