History UsefulNotes / Detroit

* ''Brush Park'': An area east of Woodward and on the other side of I-75 that is home to numerous Victorian style residences that were originally built for Detroit's wealthiest. During [[TheTwentiethCentury the 20th century]], the neighborhood fell on hard times, and many of these homes were left behind to deteroiate, with a decent number being damaged beyond repair and subsequently demolished. Since relatively late in TheNineties, however, many of the remaining homes have been grandfully restored, and new developments have been constructed on many once-vacant lots, including the only Whole Foods Market grocery store to ever be opened within Detroit city limits.

Fell into a DorkAge during TheSeventies as its status as the metro area's main employment center was displaced by new office centers in the suburbs, and was really showing by TheNineties when Woodward Avenue through the heart of downtown was lined with wig shops, check-cashing places, and other WretchedHive mainstays.

->"''When you hurt, we hurt''\\

''We can never turn our backs on you Detroit, because we are you''"

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/detroitskyline_4075.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300:''[[VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from here]]."]]

In the mid-20th century, '''Detroit''' was the fifth-largest city in the United States, the center of its powerful auto industry, and a bustling hub of music and culture. Things have changed a lot since then; Detroit is now the 27th largest city in the country.[[note]]Though much of that has to do with the flight of many former Detroiters to its sprawling suburbs; the overall metro area is the 14th biggest.[[/note]] It still remains the largest city in the State of UsefulNotes/{{Michigan}} and the focal point of the Great Lakes State's main population center (with a metropolitan population of 4.3 million, or slightly less than half the total state population of 10 million) and economic engine.

This inequality is just one reason that Detroit has one of the least-flattering public images of any major city in the country. The decline of the American auto industry in the TheSeventies, combined with simmering racial, economic, and labor tensions, have made it the poster child for, and butt of many jokes about, [[WretchedHive urban decay and inner-city squalor]] for much of America. Detroit has lost 65% of its peak population since 1950 (from 1.8 million to less than 640,000). For decades, mentions of Detroit in the national media and pop culture have typically referred to it as a PlaceWorseThanDeath, and the crumbling ruins of some of its more destitute neighborhoods have honestly been described as looking [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]]. This tends to seriously annoy Detroiters, who feel that the city's bad reputation is making it harder to revitalize. They also feel that many of the jokes are tired, clichéd, and lazy. The city filed for bankruptcy in 2013, becoming the largest municipal bankruptcy case in U.S. history. Since the bankruptcy, the city's finances are much more stable, and there are a number of projects for growth across the city (especially in Downtown and Midtown). That being said, city redevelopment can be a slow process, as the experiences of many other cities in the U.S. can tell. In recent years, however, the city has seen a number of new major retail openings to compete with those party stores[[note]]a local term for a convenience store that sells alcohol[[/note]], Amocos-turned-[=BPs=], Borons-turned-[=BPs=], Perry Drugs-turned-Rite Aids and Arbor Drugs-turned-CVS Pharmacies.

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.[[note]]As a result, a "[[Music/{{Journey}} city boy born and raised in South Detroit]]" is actually a native Canadian.[[/note]] Detroit itself is surrounded by smaller independent municipalities, which form the Metro Detroit area. With both a Spanish Creator/{{Univision}} station in Detroit[[note]]said station now serves as an affiliate of religious broadcaster Daystar[[/note]] and (until it was shut down in 2012) a Creator/{{CBC}} tower in Windsor rebroadcasting the main Francophone feed from [[UsefulNotes/{{Montreal}} Montréal]], it was for many years the only area in North America where you could watch free-to-air TV in three languages.[[note]]Providence, Rhode Island now has English, Spanish, and Portuguese stations, and UsefulNotes/LosAngeles has English, Spanish and Japanese language stations.[[/note]]

This inequality is just one reason that Detroit has one of the least-flattering public images of any major city in the country. The decline of the American auto industry in the TheSeventies, combined with simmering racial, economic, and labor tensions, have made it the poster child for, and butt of many jokes about, [[WretchedHive urban decay and inner-city squalor]] for much of America. Detroit has lost 60% of its peak population since 1950 (from 1.8 million to less than 700,000). For decades, mentions of Detroit in the national media and pop culture have typically referred to it as a PlaceWorseThanDeath, and the crumbling ruins of some of its more destitute neighborhoods have honestly been described as looking [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]]. This tends to seriously annoy Detroiters, who feel that the city's bad reputation is making it harder to revitalize. They also feel that many of the jokes are tired, clichéd, and lazy. The city filed for bankruptcy in 2013, becoming the largest municipal bankruptcy case in U.S. history. Since the bankruptcy, the city's finances are much more stable, and there are a number of projects for growth across the city (especially in Downtown and Midtown). That being said, city redevelopment can be a slow process, as the experiences of many other cities in the U.S. can tell. In recent years, however, the city has seen a number of new major retail openings to compete with those party stores[[note]]a local term for a convenience store that sells alcohol[[/note]], Amocos-turned-[=BPs=], Borons-turned-[=BPs=], Perry Drugs-turned-Rite Aids and Arbor Drugs-turned-CVS Pharmacies.

In the mid-20th century, '''Detroit''' was the fifth-largest city in the United States, the center of its powerful auto industry, and a bustling hub of music and culture. Things have changed a lot since then; Detroit is now the 27th largest city in the country.[[note]]Though much of that has to do with the flight of many former Detroiters to its sprawling suburbs; the overall metro area is the 14th biggest.[[/note]] It still remains the largest city in the State of UsefulNotes/{{Michigan}} and the focal point of the Great Lakes State's main population center (with a metropolitan population of 4.3 million, or slightly less than half the total state population of 9.9 million) and economic engine.

In the mid-20th century, '''Detroit''' was the fifth-largest city in the United States, the center of its powerful auto industry, and a bustling hub of music and culture. Things have changed a lot since then; Detroit is now the 24th largest city in the country.[[note]]Though much of that has to do with the flight of many former Detroiters to its sprawling suburbs; the overall metro area is the 14th biggest.[[/note]] It still remains the largest city in the State of UsefulNotes/{{Michigan}} and the focal point of the Great Lakes State's main population center (with a metropolitan population of 4.3 million, or slightly less than half the total state population of 9.9 million) and economic engine.

This inequality is just one reason that Detroit has one of the least-flattering public images of any major city in the country. The decline of the American auto industry in the TheSeventies, combined with simmering racial, economic, and labor tensions, have made it the poster child for, and butt of many jokes about, [[WretchedHive urban decay and inner-city squalor]] for much of America. Detroit has lost 60% of its peak population since 1950 (from 1.8 million to less than 700,000). For decades, mentions of Detroit in the national media and pop culture have typically referred to it as a PlaceWorseThanDeath, and the crumbling ruins of some of its more destitute neighborhoods have honestly been described as looking [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]]. This tends to seriously annoy Detroiters, who feel that the city's bad reputation is making it harder to revitalize. They also feel that many of the jokes are tired, clichéd, and lazy. The city filed for bankruptcy in 2013, becoming the largest municipal bankruptcy case in U.S. history. Since the bankruptcy, the city's finances are much more stable, and there are a number of projects for growth across the city (especially in Downtown and Midtown). That being said, city redevelopment can be a slow process, as the experiences of many other cities in the U.S. can tell. In recent years, however, the city has seen a number of new major retail openings to compete with those party stores[[note]]a local term for a convenience store[[/note]], Amocos-turned-[=BPs=], Borons-turned-[=BPs=], Perry Drugs-turned-Rite Aids and Arbor Drugs-turned-CVS Pharmacies.

* Mitt Romney was born in Detroit and raised in Bloomfield Hills. His father, George Romney, was president of the American Motors Corporation;[[note]]though AMC was headquartered in Southfield, its main assembly plants were in Kenosha, Wisconsin[[/note]] the elder Romney was also a Republican Governor of Michigan in the '60s, and was a vocal supporter of the UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement and of equality for blacks within the LDS Church, and [[GenerationXerox a candidate for President]] in 1968.[[note]]He was defeated in the primary by UsefulNotes/RichardNixon.[[/note]]

* Tom Hulce (raised in Plymouth). Famous for playing [[Film/AnimalHouse Pinto]], [[Film/{{Amadeus}} Mozart]], and [[WesternAnimation/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame Quasimodo]].

The two primary sides; the East Side and the West Side; are divided by Woodward Avenue, a major thoroughfare designated as Michigan state highway M-1, although there are several lesser-known sides within these two larger sides. Woodward Avenue features a brand new streetcar line called the [=QLine=], opened in 2017, which connects downtown, midtown and New Center, where one of its stops is located across from the city's UsefulNotes/{{Amtrak}} station. Woodward is one of six wide, major throughfares that radiate from the city center into the surrounding suburbs (Woodward extends as far north as Pontiac in neighboring Oakland County), and in some instances, well into outstate Michigan.[[note]]the other five roads are Jefferson Avenue, which extends south to rural Monroe County and north to New Baltimore at the top of Lake Saint Clair (although it carries the names of Biddle Avenue in Wyandotte, Lake Shore Drive in some of the Grosse Pointes, and U.S. Turnpike Road in Monroe County); Fort Street (M-85), which extends through Downriver to the Monroe County line; Michigan Avenue (United States highway 12); Grand River Avenue (M-5), which extends all the way out almost to Grand Rapids; and Gratiot Avenue (M-3), which extends to Port Huron at the bottom of the Thumb.[[/note]]

Detroit is also known as "Hockeytown" due to the [[UsefulNotes/NationalHockeyLeague Detroit Red Wings]], one of the "Original Six" teams of the NHL, and one of four such teams in the Eastern Conference's Atlantic Division[[note]]even though Detroit is very far from the Atlantic Ocean - having moved there in 2013 after over three decades as one of the few Eastern Time Zone teams in the Western Conference, thus allowing the Red Wings to play more road games in their own time zone[[/note]], and a perennial [[UsefulNotes/TheStanleyCup Stanley Cup]] contender. The city has teams in all four major sports, as [[UsefulNotes/NationalBasketballAssociation the Pistons]] had a few dominant runs in basketball and the [[UsefulNotes/MLBTeams the Tigers]] have had their moments in baseball. [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague The Lions]], on the other hand, are have the second longest championship drought of any football team, having not won an NFL title since before the UsefulNotes/SuperBowl even existed.

Detroit is also known as "Hockeytown" due to the [[UsefulNotes/NationalHockeyLeague Detroit Red Wings]], one of the "Original Six" teams of the NHL, and one of four such teams in the Eastern Conference's Atlantic Division[[note]]even though Detroit is very far from the Atlantic Ocean - having moved there in 2013 after over three decades as one of the few Eastern Time Zone teams in the Western Conference, thus allowing the Red Wings to play more road games in their own time zone[[/note]], and a perennial [[UsefulNotes/TheStanleyCup Stanley Cup]] contender. The city has teams in all four major sports, but those have been somewhat less successful, though [[UsefulNotes/NationalBasketballAssociation the Pistons]] had a few dominant runs in basketball and the [[UsefulNotes/MLBTeams the Tigers]] have had their moments in baseball. [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague The Lions]], on the other hand, are truly abysmal and have the longest championship drought of any football team, having not won an NFL title since before the UsefulNotes/SuperBowl even existed.

* ''Film/ItFollows'': the protagonists live in the well-to-do suburbs, and venture into the decrepit inner city for a number of scenes. Yara remarks about the racial and economic divide, reminiscing on how, when she was younger, her parents wouldn't let her travel south of 8 Mile Road, even to go to the state fair. The large body of water seen several times in the movie is not the ocean, but Lake Erie.

* ''White Boy Rick''

* Creator/RobinWilliams spent about half his youth in Bloomfield Hills (his dad was an exec at Ford) and half in NewAgeRetroHippie country, Marin County, California.

* ''Boston-Edison'': A historic neighborhood centered on Chicago Boulevard and Boston Boulevard between Woodward Avenue and Linwood Street containing large mansions which have been home to such notable residents as Ford Motor Company founder Henry Ford, S.S. Kresge and UsefulNotes/{{Kmart}} founder Sebastian S. Kresge, and former Detroit mayor James Couzens.

* ''Palmer Woods'': An upper-class neighborhood north of Palmer Park, known for its large elm trees and large brick and Tudor homes on large lots.

* ''Indian Village'': Established early in [[TheTwentiethCentury the 20th century]], its famous homes were originally built for some of Detroit's most prominent citizens.

* ''Grandmont'' and ''Rosedale Park'': Two adjacent neighborhoods centered around the six-way intersection of Grand River and Fenkell avenues and the Southfield Freeway (M-39) that began development in the 1910s-20s on land deeded by former U.S. president Andrew Jackson in 1835 and feature large homes in a multitude of architectural styles with street names adopting an English country theme.

* ''Corktown'': Detroit's original Irish neighborhood, which dates back to the 1850s, it is still primarily residential, despite being right across the Lodge Freeway from downtown. It was cut in half in TheSixties by the construction of I-75, with the northern half becoming ''North Corktown'', and the southernmost portion similarly was demolished and reveloped into an industrial development known as ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin West Side Industrial]]''. Baseball's Tigers called this neighborhood home from 1912 to 1999 before their relocation to downtown.

* ''Hubbard Farms'': Located across I-75 from the American customs plaza for the Ambassador bridge, this neighborhood features architectural styles spanning the late 19th and early 20th centuries along its residential streets, and is also home to Clark Park.

The Detroit area is the center of America's automotive industry. Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler have headquarters there and it is known as the "Motor City" for this very reason.[[note]]Ford and Chrysler's headquarters are actually located in nearby Dearborn and Auburn Hills, respectively, and while General Motors maintains a large plant and its corporate headquarters within the city, its main research and development campus is in neighboring Warren.[[/note]] Its most recognizable structure is the Renaissance Center, a cluster of late-'70s-era skyscrapers that serve as GM's headquarters. The Center notably clashes with the rest of the city's skyline, built much earlier in the century; at the time it was built, it stood as a promise for a bright future for the city, and it now serves as a visible reminder of the region's stagnation.

* Max Gail, best known as Wojo on ''Series/BarneyMiller'' (Grosse Ile)

Detroit is also known as "Hockeytown" due to the [[UsefulNotes/NationalHockeyLeague Detroit Red Wings]] (one of the "Original Six" teams of the NHL, and one of four such teams in the Eastern Conference's Atlantic Division - even though Detroit is very far from the Atlantic Ocean - having moved there in 2013 after over three decades as one of the few Eastern Time Zone teams in the Western Conference, thus allowing the Red Wings to play more road games in their own time zone) being a perennial [[UsefulNotes/TheStanleyCup Stanley Cup]] contender. Other, less flattering nicknames include "Murder City" and variations on such, as Detroit has one of the least-flattering public images of any major city in the country. The decline of the American auto industry in the [[TheSeventies 1970s]], combined with simmering racial, economic, and labor tensions, have made it the poster child for, and butt of many jokes about, [[WretchedHive urban decay and inner-city squalor]] for much of America. Detroit has lost 60% of its peak population since 1950 (from 1.8 million to less than 700,000). For decades, mentions of Detroit in the national media and pop culture have typically referred to it as a PlaceWorseThanDeath, and the crumbling ruins of some of its more destitute neighborhoods have honestly been described as looking [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]]. This tends to seriously annoy Detroiters, who feel that the city's bad reputation is making it harder to revitalize. They also feel that many of the jokes are tired, clichéd, and lazy. The city filed for bankruptcy in 2013, becoming the largest municipal bankruptcy case in U.S. history.

Since the bankruptcy, the city's finances are much more stable, and there are a number of projects for growth across the city (especially in Downtown and Midtown). That being said, city redevelopment can be a slow process, as the experiences of many other cities in the U.S. can tell. In recent years, however, the city has seen a number of new major retail openings to compete with those party stores[[note]]a local term for a convenience store[[/note]], Amocos-turned-[=BPs=], Borons-turned-[=BPs=], Perry Drugs-turned-Rite Aids and Arbor Drugs-turned-CVS Pharmacys, including two Meijer supercenters, two 7-Eleven stores, a Whole Foods Market in midtown, and even an H&M in the heart of downtown

* ''Film/BrickMansions'' (the English remake of ''Film/{{Banlieue 13}}'')

Detroit is also known as "Hockeytown" due to the [[UsefulNotes/NationalHockeyLeague Detroit Red Wings]] (one of the "Original Six" teams of the NHL, and one of four such teams in the Eastern Conference's Atlantic Division - even though Detroit is very far from the Atlantic Ocean - having moved there in 2013 after over three decade as one of the few Eastern Time Zone teams in the Western Conference, thus allowing the Red Wings to play more road games in their own time zone) being a perennial [[UsefulNotes/TheStanleyCup Stanley Cup]] contender. Other, less flattering nicknames include "Murder City" and variations on such, as Detroit has one of the least-flattering public images of any major city in the country. The decline of the American auto industry in the [[TheSeventies 1970s]], combined with simmering racial, economic, and labor tensions, have made it the poster child for, and butt of many jokes about, [[WretchedHive urban decay and inner-city squalor]] for much of America. Detroit has lost 60% of its peak population since 1950 (from 1.8 million to less than 700,000). For decades, mentions of Detroit in the national media and pop culture have typically referred to it as a PlaceWorseThanDeath, and the crumbling ruins of some of its more destitute neighborhoods have honestly been described as looking [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]]. This tends to seriously annoy Detroiters, who feel that the city's bad reputation is making it harder to revitalize. They also feel that many of the jokes are tired, clichéd, and lazy. The city filed for bankruptcy in 2013, becoming the largest municipal bankruptcy case in U.S. history.

Detroit is also known as "Hockeytown" due to the [[UsefulNotes/NationalHockeyLeague Detroit Red Wings]] being a perennial [[UsefulNotes/TheStanleyCup Stanley Cup]] contender. Other, less flattering nicknames include "Murder City" and variations on such, as Detroit has one of the least-flattering public images of any major city in the country. The decline of the American auto industry in the [[TheSeventies 1970s]], combined with simmering racial, economic, and labor tensions, have made it the poster child for, and butt of many jokes about, [[WretchedHive urban decay and inner-city squalor]] for much of America. Detroit has lost 60% of its peak population since 1950 (from 1.8 million to less than 700,000). For decades, mentions of Detroit in the national media and pop culture have typically referred to it as a PlaceWorseThanDeath, and the crumbling ruins of some of its more destitute neighborhoods have honestly been described as looking [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]]. This tends to seriously annoy Detroiters, who feel that the city's bad reputation is making it harder to revitalize. They also feel that many of the jokes are tired, clichéd, and lazy. The city filed for bankruptcy in 2013, becoming the largest municipal bankruptcy case in U.S. history.

The Detroit area is the center of America's automotive industry. Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler have headquarters there and it is known as the "Motor City" for this very reason.[[note]]Ford and Chrysler's headquarters are actually located in nearby Dearborn and Auburn Hills, respectively, and while General Motors maintains a large plant and its corporate headquarters within the city, its main research and development campus is in neighboring Warren.[[/note]] Its most recognizable structure is the Renaissance Center.

Although much diminished from its 1920s-60s heyday, '''Detroit''' remains the largest city in the State of UsefulNotes/{{Michigan}} and the focal point of the Great Lakes State's main population center (with a metropolitan population of 4.3 million, or slightly less than half the total state population of 9.9 million) and economic engine.

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.[[note]]As a result, a "[[Music/{{Journey}} city boy born and raised in South Detroit]]" is actually a native Canadian.[[/note]] Detroit itself is surrounded by smaller independent municipalities, which form the Metro Detroit area. With both a Spanish Creator/{{Univision}} station in Detroit[[note]]said station now serves as an affiliate of religious broadcaster Daystar[[/note]] and (until it was shut down in 2012) a Creator/{{CBC}} tower in Windsor rebroadcasting the main Francophone feed from [[UsefulNotes/{{Montreal}} Montréal]], it was for many years the only area in North America where you could watch free-to-air TV in three languages.[[note]]Providence, Rhode Island now has English, Spanish, and Portuguese stations, and UsefulNotes/LosAngeles has English, Spanish and Japanese language stations.[[/note]]