We often treat
Detroit as a
convenient
relative we only
visit when we
have a very
good reason.
Detroit neighbourhoods
Gifts And Clothing
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Tapestries
Masks
Jewellery
We’ll go there to buy their products, enjoy their
restaurants and rock the night away, but we do it with a sense
of caution and detachment. We often treat Detroit as a
convenient relative we only visit when we have a very good
reason.
Maybe it’s the barbed-wire fences and broken-down
homes that keep us away in 2014. Since the economic
struggles of the 2000s, culminating in Detroit’s declaration of
bankruptcy in 2013, our relationship with Detroit has changed
once again. Both cities were
built on the backs of the auto
industry; both cities hoped
casino gambling would restore
prosperity. And both cities have
seen property prices stagnate
or fall.
Detroit was once full of
beautiful homes, which now
are nothing but rubble. The
fires from the riots and the
financial decline of Detroit led
to many boarded-up houses
and sad fragments of structures
that used to be.
“The homes were beautiful in downtown Detroit... Now
you go down there and you just see remnants of it,” says
Fields. “You can see what it would look like back in 1910, 1920,
1930, just gorgeous homes and those areas are now decimated,
they’re gone and they’re slums.”
Windsorites can draw parallels; on Indian Road, the fate
of many properties and property owners hangs in the balance,
while downtown neighbourhoods have become a haven for
absentee landlords, decrepit multiple