Planning, Politics and the Media in Detroit

Over the past few decades, Detroit was hit with a number of challenges including deindustrialization and outsourcing, as well as two major riots, which many argue that Detroit never fully recovered from, as social and economic unrest is still prevalent today. More recently, the City of Detroit declared bankruptcy, which was the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. Detroit is at a crossroads; between the state of Michigan, Wall Street and private developers, with large-scale private investment in the downtown core, which has fuelled rumours in the news of Detroit's comeback. Creative professionals and developers continue to take interest in the city, in search of a new frontier, with this narrative being fuelled in part by the media. This paper attempted to uncover competing discourses of development in Detroit, both the mainstream media and local reactions to Detroit's new found coolness.