Do you think Detroit will become a ghost town?

19 comments

1. probably not.

2. It looks to me like the population decline has slowed dramatically and is going to bottom out somewhere in this decade. And many of the remaining 600,000+ Detroiters seem to be people who really give a damn about their city. It may not become a city of 1.9 million again but I think the next 50 years are going to be a much more inspiring story than the last 50 years.

3. I don’t think it will ever be the pinnacle of rock and cars again, but I highly doubt it will just die out. New business will move in if it gets cheap enough, supply lines are still there for any manufacturing that wants to get bigger

4. No, I don’t think a city of 630k+ people is going to become completely abandoned barring some massive disaster in the area.

5. I think the population decline has stabilized somewhat at this point. It may actually see a long term population growth again with cheap real estate and being a possible climate change safe haven in decades to come.

6. Detroit is 650 feet above sea level and surrounded by fresh water. They’ll be fine long after all those great sun-belt cities we built in the desert become uninhabitable.

7. Is this Detroit proper or metro Detroit?

8. No, not at all. I suspect populations will rise again. Population loss has almost already stopped.

9. No. The popular has been stabilizing since the bankruptcy, so I think a turn around is quite possible.

10. No, especially when you consider that some of Detroit’s suburbs are among the wealthiest in the country.

11. Mining towns were filled with young, mobile guys — not poor families. You could move to a place, get a job and a place in a boarding house for cheap. You could support a family with much less money.

    The days of being able to support yourself with a brand new entry level job are over. Families are WAY less mobile.

    People aren’t just going to all move out of Detroit to greener pastures. There’s no place to go.

12. No. Detroit is a lot better than it was 25+ years ago

13. Large urban area with depressed property values during a national housing shortage. I expect there will be at least some growth.

14. No, I’ve heard thr city center is fine and there’s plenty of population in surrounding towns.

15. No, I’m from there originally and there is a ton of investment now especially in the city center which is booming with new hotels and all kinds of gentrification bars and restaurants and Lululemon and Warby Parker etc. You can google to read about this and learn more about the city if you are interested. The issues are more about severe inequality within the city, not that it’s going away. And if you look on Zillow you will see houses more than $800K IN Detroit. Plenty of Detroit neighborhoods have become very desirable now.

16. I mean probably eventually but suspect all cities will inevitably reach that point. I don’t think Detroit will be abandoned any time soon.

17. No industry is diversifying around here and getting away from the auto industry. The metro never took that big of a hit with population loss so the people have always been here for the most part. Furthermore downtown is pretty vibrant with more investors coming in every year.

18. My Uncle lives out in Ann Arbor and works at Ford in Detroit. I think some of the rust belt cities like Detroit and Cleveland have started to level off and are revitalizing! I visited Cleveland a little over a year ago and it totally felt lively (may have just been because of a baseball game going on), so hopefully the same revitalization happens over in Detroit.

19. Tell me you’ve never been to Detroit.