I thought I recall Eric (Coach) had a Detroit topic on here at one time. I tried finding it but had no luck.
"Detroit is back!"
You hear it every few weeks on the radio. It's not back. Downtown along Woodward it has made great strides. Dan Gilbert (local boy, owns the Cleveland Cavs) has been buying everything he can, but it's downtown in the theatre and stadium district,
$451 million on 62 properties (Apr 2016 article he's been buying more since). In the map in the link above, his building purchases are all within a one mile stretch, with the stadium/theatre area near the top where it says M@dison, near Grand Circus Park.
The Ford family brought the Lions back into town from Pontiac about 15 years ago. The Illitch family built a new Tiger stadium in 1999 (about). They then built a new Red Wing arena 300 yards from the baseball field. The new owner of the Pistons brought them back into town and they also play at the Red Wing arena, aka Little Caesars Arena. They are all within a 1/4 mile of each other. So that has really built up.
The development the city really needs has to take place off the main drags. Everything is happening in a one square mile area, just 1. The city is 149 square miles in size.