Category: North and Central America

RE-URBANIZATION OF A “GHOST TOWN”?
What is striking about the use of space in the downtown area is the large proportion of areas that are used as parking spaces or are open spaces. In addition, there are numerous buildings in the center, most of which are empty. This also includes some skyscrapers. The vacancy rate in the city is estimated to affect around 4,000 structures, and in all of Detroit the figure is 80,000. A third of the total area of ​​the city is fallow. This process of decay (“Urban Decay”) has earned Detroit the nickname of a ghost town. Detroit is now considered a typical example of a shrinking city.

Detroit was a prosperous city at the beginning of the 20th century and was known as the “Paris of the Midwest” because of its magnificent buildings, making it a symbol of the American dream. The current development of the city into a “place of the third world in the middle of the west” is described as “American Nightmare” or “Humiliation of History” (Jerry Herron). The Michigan Theater, which opened in 1926, is a symbol of decay: once a magnificent cinema with 4035 seats, it has been a parking garage for the other tenants of the building since 1977.

The city has been trying to counteract this development since the 1970s. The Cobo Hall for exhibitions and the Cobo Arena for pop concerts and the like were opened in 1960.

Since its completion in 1976, the Renaissance Center has been the tallest building in Michigan at 221 meters high. It is currently the headquarters of General Motors. The company is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world. The name of the building should be the program and an entire district should be revitalized with the help of a prestigious major project; this attempt is considered to have failed. The areas on the Detroit River to the southwest of the Renaissance Center were redesigned in the 1970s as Hart Plaza, a mixture of green spaces and paved areas. The public square is now used for concerts, festivals and demonstrations, among other things.

More successful than the re-urbanization measures of the 1970s was the “Greektown” project in the 1990s, a historic quarter with low-storey buildings in the Greek style that contains numerous Greek restaurants and one of Detroit’s three casinos. This street is an island of vitality in the sea of ​​desolation.

The other areas of recent large projects are mainly used for retail and entertainment or have a mixed use. Examples are the sports arenas and casinos. The Detroit Tigers (baseball) stadium was inaugurated in 2000, and two years later the Detroit Lions (football) stadium was in the immediate vicinity. The new MGM Grand Casino was officially opened in 2007, replacing the old casino building to the south. The problem with such large-scale projects is that they often only bring the downtown area to life temporarily. For example, on match days, the parking spaces in the area are temporarily full, but the district is completely deserted after a few hours. For more information about the continent of North America, please check oxfordastronomy.com.