Amazing image of old Detroit. Lot of thoughts here:
1) Even back in whatever time this photo was taken, Detroit's housing stock appears dominated by detached housing. It looks very dense, but lacking the rows that I associate with these types of historical photos.
2) Did Detroit have a Hausmann/Moses figure who can largely be pointed to for not just the freeway construction, but also the massive commercial avenues that cut across the city. I see some evidence of a diagonal in roughly the center of this image...I'm guessing that is Gratiot? It looks much narrower and less prominent than its current configuration.
3) I think there is an important distinction that needs to be made between urban renewal for redevelopment (such as public housing, institutional projects, etc.) and destruction of urban neighborhoods for freeways. Urban renewal projects intentionally tore down communities that were thought to be poor, overcrowded, dirty, and old. These areas were often replaced with the modernist ideal-- i.e. LeCorb's 'towers in the park'. It was an intentional effort to erase what was, and create a new cityscape that replaced the chaos of the old neighborhood with modern sterility. Freeway construction also demolished poor/minority neighborhoods, but it was more a matter of expediency. It's simply easier to route a freeway through a poor neighborhood whose residents lack the political agency of richer neighborhoods.
4) Detroit, more than probably anywhere else for the first half of the 20th century, was really the city of the future. It revolutionized industrial efficiency and gave the world the automobile. Given this, is it possible that city leaders embraced modernist ideals more than other cities? Given its high growth and enterprising spirit, I can totally see an attitude of 'out with the old, in with the new' prevailing there. Only problem is the 'new' stopped flowing. I see a parallel to LA here, in a way.
5) I was poking around Detroit on streetview the other day, and came across this very impressive strip on Gratiot near Eastern Market:
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3435...7i16384!8i8192
It gives a glimpse of what Detroit used to be. This is pretty intense urban development outside the downtown core, and one of the few examples remaining that demonstrate how this city must've felt back in the day. It gives me a Wicker Park Chicago vibe, though there is no real neighborhood around it-- just a huge network of weird, insular apartment complexes to the east:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/De...!4d-83.0457538