History UsefulNotes / Detroit

* ''RoboCopTheSeries''

* ''Film/{{RoboCop}}''

* ''RoboCop'' again

* S. Epatha Merkerson, a.k.a. [[LawAndOrder Lt. Anita Van Buren]]

* ''{{Film/Sparkle}}''

* "Film/Sparkle"

The city just filed for bankruptcy, becoming the largest municipal bankruptcy case in the US ever.

The Metro Detroit area is home to a myriad of cultures and ethnicities, including one of the largest Arab populations in North America, centered in Dearborn (with a sizable [[UsefulNotes/{{Lebanon}} Lebanese]] outpost in West Bloomfield -- where they get along rather interestingly with the large Jewish population). It is also very economically and racially-segregated, with poorer minorities living in the city, the white working-class in the eastern suburbs, and the predominantly white and Asian American upper-middle-class in the western suburbs and Grosse Pointe. The Metro Detroit area ranks second in the nation in racial segregation, after Gary, Indiana.

* Music/BigHoodoo

* Creator/PsychopathicRecords artists Music/InsaneClownPosse, [[Music/AnybodyKilla ABK]], Music/BlazeYaDeadHomie and Music/ZugIzland.

* ''SisterSister''

-->-- '''{{SFDebris}}''', "Carpenter Street" ([[Series/StarTrekEnterprise ENT]])

* SamRaimi (Royal Oak)

* BruceCampbell (Royal Oak) Attended school with...

* Sixto Rodriguez

-->-- '''{{SFDebris}}''', "Carpenter Street" ([[StarTrekEnterprise ENT]])

* ''FourBrothers''

* Frequent death threat recipient MichaelMoore isn't from Detroit. He's from Davison, a suburb of Flint, which is 66 miles from Detroit. It's only a part of the Motor City if you inflate Metro Detroit or use "Detroit" as a metonym for the auto industry.

It is geographically notable for a few reasons. Despite being separated from Windsor, Ontario by the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair, it features the busiest U.S.-Canada border crossing -- the Ambassador Bridge. It is also the only place in the contiguous 48 States where Canada is ''south'' of the U.S., since Windsor juts out to the west just so. Detroit itself is surrounded by smaller independent municipalities, who form the Detroit Metro area, and whose people get kind of cheesed off when everyone just lumps them in. With both a Spanish {{Univision}} station in Detroit and a Creator/{{CBC}} tower in Windsor rebroadcasting the main French feed from UsefulNotes/{{Montreal}}, it was for many years the only area in North America where you can watch free-to-air TV in three languages. [[note]]Providence, Rhode Island now has English, Spanish, and Portuguese stations. And Los Angeles has English, Spanish and Japanese-language stations.[[/note]] [[note]]As of July 31, 2012, the CBC tower broadcasting in French was shut down.[[/note]]

It is geographically notable for a few reasons. Despite being separated from Windsor, Ontario by the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair, it features the busiest U.S.-Canada border crossing -- the Ambassador Bridge. It is also the only place in the contiguous 48 States where Canada is ''south'' of the U.S., since Windsor juts out to the west just so. Detroit itself is surrounded by smaller independent municipalities, who form the Detroit Metro area, and whose people get kind of cheesed off when everyone just lumps them in. With both a Spanish {{Univision}} station in Detroit and a {{CBC}} tower in Windsor rebroadcasting the main French feed from UsefulNotes/{{Montreal}}, it was for many years the only area in North America where you can watch free-to-air TV in three languages. [[note]]Providence, Rhode Island now has English, Spanish, and Portuguese stations. And Los Angeles has English, Spanish and Japanese-language stations.[[/note]]

* Creator/PsychopathicRecords artists Music/InsaneClownPosse, [[Music/AnybodyKilla ABK]], Music/BlazeYaDeadHomie, Music/{{Twiztid}} and Music/ZugIzland.

* Although frequent death threat recipient MichaelMoore isn't from Detroit. He's from Davison, a suburb of Flint, which is 66 miles from Detroit. It's only a part of the Motor City if you inflate Metro Detroit or use "Detroit" as a metonym for the auto industry.

* Mitch Albom, sportswriter for the ''Detroit Free Press'' who moonlights as an author, most notably ''TuesdaysWithMorrie''.

* He may not sound like it, but James Lipton, host of ''InsideTheActorsStudio'' was born and raised in Detroit.

->''[[ItIsBeyondSaving "This city has no viable future."]]''
-->-- '''Michael Casserly''', executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools

The Metro Detroit area is home to a myriad of cultures and ethnicities, including one of the largest Arab populations in North America, centered in Dearborn (with a sizable [[UsefulNotes/{{Lebanon}} Lebanese]] outpost in West Bloomfield -- where they get along rather interestingly with the large Jewish population). It is also very economically and racially-segregated, with poorer minorities living in the city, the white working-class in the eastern suburbs, and the predominantly white and Asian American upper-middle-class in the western suburbs and Grosse Pointe. The Metro Detroit area ranks second in the nation in racial segregation, after Gary, Indiana.

Depending on who you ask, the city may be on the cusp of a rebirth, or completing the slide from DyingTown into GhostCity.

* ''{{Dreamgirls}}'', following the famous "Motown" music label and genre (the play is based in Chicago, but the movie places it in Detroit to make it closer its inspiration).

* ''Out Of Sight'' (based on the novel by beloved Detroit resident ElmoreLeonard)

* ''{{Hung}}'' (Shot in West Bloomfield; set wherever rich women live in Metro Detroit, meaning mostly Oakland County)

* Music/{{Eminem}} (Born in Saint Joseph, Missouri, though he spent most of his life in nearby Warren)

* Most of the Creator/{{Motown}} Records artists in the 1960s and '70s, including but not limited to the Four Tops, the Temptations, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and Martha Reeves and the Vandellas.

* Although frequent death threat recipient MichaelMoore isn't from Detroit, he's from Davison, a suburb of Flint, which is 66 miles from Detroit. It's only a part of the Motor City if you inflate Metro Detroit or use "Detroit" as a metonym for the auto industry.
** To be fair, Flint is pretty hard to tell apart from Detroit. Both are/were heavily dependent on the automotive industry, and both are [[TakeThat nearly indistinguishable from]] [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic wastelands]].

* Mitch Albom, sportswriter for the Detroit ''Free Press'' who moonlights as an author, most notably ''TuesdaysWithMorrie''.
** Actually born in New York state, but has since made Detroit his home. Which is cool, because most people get famous then move away.
* RobinWilliams spent about half his youth in Bloomfield Hills (his dad was an exec at Ford) and half in NewAgeRetroHippie country, Marin County, California. That may or may not explain how he turned out.

* Jim Benton, creator of "It's Happy Bunny" (Bloomfield Township)

* [[TheFairlyOddparents Butch]] [[DannyPhantom Hart]][[TuffPuppy man]] (Highland Park)

* Grant Achatz, a [[CordonBleughChef Molecular]] [[SupremeChef Gastronomist]] chef (currently based out of UsefulNotes/{{ Chicago}}) who got his start in cooking with his family's chain of kosher pie restaurants in Oakland County.

** His father, George Romney, was an executive at the American Motors Corporation [[hottip:*:AMC was based in Kenosha, Wisconson, however]]; the elder Romney was also a Republican Governor of Michigan in TheSixties (and was a vocal supporter of the CivilRightsMovement and of equality for blacks within the LDS Church) and [[GenerationXerox a candidate for President]] in 1968 (he was defeated in the primary by RichardNixon. One wonders how things might have been different).
* Grant Achatz, a [[CordonBleughChef Molecular]] [[SupremeChef Gastronomist]] chef (currently based out of [[TheWindyCity Chicago]]) who got his start in cooking with his family's chain of kosher pie restaurants in Oakland County.