One thing that most peeps from the East/West coast don't realize about Detroit is how big it is, compared to it's population size.
The city limits of Detroit proper encompass about 143 square miles.
While it's not that large of a city compared to others, you can fit the cities of San Francisco (46.7 sq miles), Boston (89.6 sq miles), and Manhattan (22.8 sq miles) within Detroit city limits.
While you process that, the 2017 population of Detroit is about 672,000 people, compared to the 3.12 million people who live in SF(860k), Boston (618k), and Manhattan (1.64M)
While it's growing for sure, if you get off the highway you'll see really fast that Detroit is still a ghost town.
There are entire neighborhoods/subdivisions with streets lined with houses except all of those houses have been abandoned. For DECADES. It's like the Walking Dead minus the zombies.
I'm psyched for Detroit (I grew up in the Detroit suburbs) and am rooting hard for it's recovery. With that said... the city of Detroit has lost 61% of it's population since it's peak in the 1950s.
61 PERCENT! While I remain optimistic, I'm also realistic. I'm psyched that Detroit is on an upswing, but there's a long way up to go.
> While it's not that large of a city compared to others, you can fit the cities of San Francisco (46.7 sq miles), Boston (89.6 sq miles), and Manhattan (22.8 sq miles) within Detroit city limits.
Sure, but Boston is only a part of what people think of as Boston. When Paul Graham talked about Boston in "Cities and Ambition", he meant Cambridge.
...you have a 'city' encompassing 160 sq mi, which is bigger than Detroit.
That standard doesn't generalize -- I grew up in the DC area, and the metro there goes all the way out to Rockville, which is generally considered to be an exurb, practically flyover country. (IMO, that's an unfair assessment, but it is what it is.) But it seems about right for Boston.
Does Detroit have central parts that aren't part of the city proper, the way Boston has Cambridge and Somerville and San Francisco has Berkeley and Oakland?
The city limits of Detroit proper encompass about 143 square miles.
While it's not that large of a city compared to others, you can fit the cities of San Francisco (46.7 sq miles), Boston (89.6 sq miles), and Manhattan (22.8 sq miles) within Detroit city limits.
While you process that, the 2017 population of Detroit is about 672,000 people, compared to the 3.12 million people who live in SF(860k), Boston (618k), and Manhattan (1.64M)
While it's growing for sure, if you get off the highway you'll see really fast that Detroit is still a ghost town.
There are entire neighborhoods/subdivisions with streets lined with houses except all of those houses have been abandoned. For DECADES. It's like the Walking Dead minus the zombies.
I'm psyched for Detroit (I grew up in the Detroit suburbs) and am rooting hard for it's recovery. With that said... the city of Detroit has lost 61% of it's population since it's peak in the 1950s.
61 PERCENT! While I remain optimistic, I'm also realistic. I'm psyched that Detroit is on an upswing, but there's a long way up to go.