This is a feel good story and it is nice to see some old buildings being renovated, however, it does not deal with the two most pressing issues that created this situation in the first place. As a result of massive job losses in an industry that will never come back and a population drop that severely reduces property tax levels, hence, revenue for the city, it makes it very difficult to provide even the most basic services to its remaining residents. Until the private sector starts to invest in Detroit(without taxpayer handouts), it will be a slow, long haul to some sort of recovery.

Mayor Duggan, his team and Detroit billionaires Dan Gilbert and former Mike Ilitch have done a superb job in rebuilding Detroit – Brand new ball parks, Ice rink, theaters, medical complex, and the revival of the mid-town. In the midst of other urban neglect, there are still many opportunities abound. Numerous entrance/exit ramps at the three major expressway corridors (I-75, I-94 & I-96) that crisscross the dilapidated areas of the city can be bulldozed and converted into large gated residential areas. Detroit Windsor border crossing is the busiest commercial border crossing between the two countries. Detroit’s vast blighted areas can be converted into large tracts of warehouses to facilitate the storage and the movement of goods between the US & Canada. Many underemployed Detroiters are ready and eager to be gainfully employed, and they deserve another chance.

The photos are haunting. I feel ashamed to say this but I'm too scared to go to Detroit and images like these (while beautiful) do not help. I come away with the feeling that the entire city is empty, rundown and scary. Where are the pictures of people? Of life? The headline is misleading.

And Mary Barra earns $$Millions and $$Millions of dollars as CEO of GM, where the motto is kill-em cuz they were dumb enough to buy an American car. GM needed Ms. Barra to put on that show before Congress.... her testimony that she could only count to 13 confirmed deaths related to GM's ignition switches that turned off, locked the steering and shut off the airbags. I personally believe Ms. Barra didn't get past 13, because that's how many toes she has. But for the rest of the families who lost loved ones, then got pummeled by GM's lawyers, which numbered at least 124 deaths that Ms. Barra belittled, buying American proved to be their worst nightmare. Instead of wondering why Detroit is in decay, ask why GM is above the law, allowed to kill Americans, produces inferior vehicles and pays Ms, Barra $25 Million. In the 1970, in Flint alone, GM employed 80,000, now its about 5,000. Michael Moore wrote GM "ruined my hometown and brought misery, divorce, alcoholism, homelessness, physical and mental debilitation, and drug addiction to the people I grew up with." For that Ms. Barra has been paid handsomely. She is at the helm as she crashes the freightliner into the docks, destroying both. There is indeed a reason Republican run GM is toxic, killing people, destroying Michigan - having filed Bankruptcy like their Republican leader has 6x - its for their personal financial gain....$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

We are hopping that Norristown, PA (where Cosby was judged), will also emerge from the current abandoned situation.

Everyone loves a feel good story, but there isn't one here. It's just that the bar has been lowered so far on the american dream. Detroit is like the rust belt in which it lies. It had problems and it was left to "The Markets" to iron them out. They never do. We don't admit mistakes in the U.S.A. and that's largely why we can't solve them. We allow those who govern us to spout radical laissez faire capitalist bromides from the 19th century and still get reelected over and over again. We have become a mostly incurious people, spoon fed fiction and entertainment as a substitute for economics and politics. Detroit's problems can be understood — too little density, too much racial strife, too few sectors to the local economy, no new ideas in the one sector that exists - cars, white flight, and on and on. None of these are happy things, but they all have rational solutions based on facts, compromises and hard decisions. None of that is as easy as blaming the poor, and spouting dogma in place of new urban theory, rational use of public / private initiatives, progessive taxation — I could go on. It isn't just fundamentalists or corporate interests that don't like science and other rational discourse, the american people don't like it either, because it requires auto-critique and self awareness. Good luck Detroit. We did it to ourselves. As the Mayor of San Juan said so poignantly last year, "This is not a feel good story."

Not at all a fair or accurate portrayal of current day Detroit, but hey, sensationalistic photos portraying a big, scary Detroit have always sold in the past, so why not stick with a sure (and easy to write) thing?

Visited Detroit a year ago, for the first time, and really loved it. The city has been knocked down and kicked in the gut, but it still has a lot going for it. Wayne State U. is gobbling up tons of cheap space along Woodward Ave. and is doing a lot of things right. Downtown has sporting venues and casinos to help drive more tourism. And the surrounding neighborhoods...miles and miles of great old homes just waiting for new investment. And people forget the greater metro area when they bag on "Detroit." There are miles and miles of affluent suburbs that haven't suffered the same fate as the city. We got lost in Bloomfield Hills on our way to the Cranbrook Art Museum, and there are some very impressive estates. They're my sentimental favorite to get the Google HQ2. It would be a perfect match.

My family took our winter vacation in Detroit and had a great time. Great people, food, beer, art, basketball. Visit. You won't regret it.

Great piece. Perfect use of web capacities - no frills scrolling, yet impactful. Great photo essay, really.

Honestly?! Why on this momentous day did the @NYT publish a pictorial filled with desolate “ruin porn” devoid of human context instead of celebrating Detroit’s people and many successes? It’s true many challenges remain but supporting the victories which brought Detroit to this day means something to the people who live here. America, it’s time to let go of what you think you know about Detroit! If you want a “mind blown” experience, come and visit then go home and talk about all the great things you saw. #DetroitLove

So as the gentrification of Detroit expands further and further outwards from the downtown section, where will the poor people who still live there go? Former Ann Arbor girl here would like to know.

The urban feeling of the 100 square miles not in the 35 square mile urban core is gone. Let’s stop pretending it coming back anytime soon. Several Detroit residents have written here to point the author to where it is happening. Detroit actually lost population in 2017. But hey, thanks anyhow for the ruins porn.

You can rebuild the city but that grey sky will remain. Its a mood killer. Cloudy days per year: Seattle---308. Detroit---296 Washington D.C.---162 Denver---120 San Diego---100

Everyone the New York Times is an exceptional source for world and national news, but please remember that all of these recovering rust-belt cities are still home to millions of people and exceptional journalists! Thanks to the internet we can read about their comeback's from story tellers who have spent their entire career there. I highly recommend the Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, Detroit Metro Times or Crain's Detroit Business https://www.freep.com/ http://www.crainsdetroit.com/ Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Buffalo also have phenomenal local coverage that is worth keeping your eye on.

I wrote a comment a couple of months ago to an article in the Times regarding the finalists for Amazon's second HQ, where Detroit was left out. Detroit would have been the perfect choice for their HQ, with so much available land at dirt cheap prices, a great infrasructure including roads and highways that are at undercapacity, homes and apartments that could be built, mass transit that could be expanded and modernized. Detroit needs an outfit like Amazon to lead the way as an example how to modernize American cities. The problems with all the other cities on the list are legitimate worries over lack of affordable housing stocks, rent increases, traffic jams on the highways and already strained mass transit services. Detroit would have not suffered from the traffic jams for the extra traffic load would not even bring the highways to capacity. Rents and housing stock: rents increases would be only minimal and housing stock would be built- plenty of open land and abandoned homes that could be torn down for new homes to be built. Mass transit- light rail and bus service could be built and expanded before Amazon moved in; totally modern and clean. Detroit's current revival would pale in comparison to the revival Amzon would have brought along with it.

Detroit has made amazing progress. Detroit has a core of great progress at its center or "dounut hole" but is surrounded by extreme poverty. Detroit needs more money for schools, are in desparate need of some type of regional transportation plan, and more GREEN SPACE. Detroit is a huge land mass but they are cramming all developement into small areas with no parks and/or communal green space or gardens. Urban living is more than a tiny apartment.

I spent 5 minutes dropping pins at the locations of each of these pictures. The Brush Park photos are all within half a mile of each other and that includes the photo on Woodward. Excluding that they're all within the same two or three blocks, four photos on Erskine in between John R and Brush, and two photos at Watson and Brush. Same with the Poletown photos. Two separate locations, both on Chene, a half a mile away from each other. Three photos on one block (Chene and Theodore,) two photos on another block (Chene, between Willis and Superior.) Overall driving distance between Brush Park photos and Poletown photos is a bit less than 3 miles. Include the train station and final photo (in Mexicantown,) the total driving distance is around 5.5 miles. That's less than a 5k and 10k respectively. That's completely ridiculous. How is that at all a story about a city once crumbling now reviving? The city is 139 square miles, as stated IN the story. I'm tired of reporters parachuting in with this sense of entitlement and not spending time in the city. As others have mentioned below, it's a ruin porn re-hash with some new windows put in for a facelift. Not too unlike the train station, come to think of it.

Yes, where are the people? They are there! Why haven't you gone to Belle Isle, Eastern Market, Concert of Colors, museums, restaurants, river front, stadiums? Disappointed in the NYTs...

It's unclear to me how this is coverage of "revival" is different from the so-called "ruin porn" that has plagued coverage of Detroit in the past few years. Why such an emphasis on vast roads and emptiness? Why no photos of people on the sidewalks (especially downtown, where people do walk on the sidewalks)? Why no photos of people at all? Why are there so few active verbs to indicate any kind of human agency?

Where's the article? And, apparently, Monica Davey couldn't find her way out of the two neighborhoods pictured here. (And, really, most of the images are of one neighborhood, and not a good representation of that.) This is supposed to be the so-called newspaper of record. Yet, the Times insists on publishing articles about Detroit by writers who clearly can't be bothered to spend time here. This is why most people outside of the city have no real ide of what is actually happening here. As others have stated, this is a ruin porn re-hash, and not a very good one. I was waiting for the lines, some version of which are always found in New York Times articles on Detroit: "I drove the freeways, but no one was there. I went downtown on a Sunday, but no one was there. [Insert some basic activity] but no one was there." All experiences one can only have if you know nothing and seek nothing. I give up.

I'm a Detroiter, and lived there from 1997-2007. The revitalization of Brush Park has been ongoing for quite some time now, as has Corktown. The principal changes in Detroit can be seen mainly on Woodward Avenue, the heart of Downtown, consisting of new stadiums, new condos, restaurants, and a few businesses that have moved from the suburbs, and likewise for midtown. By far the biggest challenge is what to do with around 75% of the rest of Detroit, which has assumed legendary status as one of the worst plights of any major American city, attracting city planners from not just the U.S., but from all over the world. What to study? The results of a city immersed in a history of racism, an almost total decline in a once famous manufacturing center, the subsequent city government corruption, the 30 year flight of white people into the suburbs, and with poor public transportation into the suburbs, and few jobs in the city, one of the highest unemployment rates of any city in the country. This is Detroit, 2018, with the exception of the above. The major population decline is the result of Blacks leaving the city for working class suburbs. I think the gentrification of the city will be slow, but sure. The suburbs haven't really had a downtown for 50 years. I think the present development is for them.

Jeff Bezos, put Amazon HQ 2 here. Tim Cook, put Apple's Second Campus here. I do not care what round one eliminated. When US taxes were higher than they have ever been, Detroit was one of the largest cities in America and that tax wealth was diverted by the Federal Government to then down at the heel, backward and crude sunbelt states. Now that the tables have turned, America and corporate America owes Detroit. Just like with a startup company, Amazon and Apple can build on brown-fields and make the city over. Your workers can build or rehab the house of their choosing. Once the city fleshes out it will be far more difficult and expensive. The Number One Public University in America is a Hop Skip and Jump over in Ann Arbor, Detroit has started on a mass transit system. It has a heritage of cultural jewels. It has plenty of land. It sits on the Canadian Border. And It- unlike Texas, California and many other places - has plenty of high quality water. NBA Pistons, NFL Lions, NHL Red Wings, MLB Tigers- is that enough Pro sport? The Big House and Crisler Center- where the legendary Wolverines play is an easer drive than going from Palo Alto to San Francisco for a game. Not far outside the city a different Michigan exists for weekend getaways and second homes. That other Michigan also produces a wide variety of fresh fruits from Apples to Peaches to Grapes to Blueberries to Cherries and more. If you miss the train on this one you will have blown a great opportunity.

"Here's How It's Reviving?" Really? New windows and left abandoned?? You told me where Detroit revives. I saw nothing about "how" Detroit is risen. Maybe I'm too hung up on an esoteric urban construct .... "Here's WHERE It Is Reviving!"

So happy to see Detroit bouncing back and becoming a more vital city. I read Charlie LeDuff's Detroit; An American Autopsy and strongly recommend the book to understand how corrupt politicians and weak auto executives contributed to the downfall of this great American city. The people of Detroit are the real heroes of this story!

The Times treats the world west of the Hudson as though it's Mars, and stories like this suggest that you keep one eye on the clock and one hand on the return ticket in your pocket. The coverage of replicable, transferable best practices moving in and out of places like Detroit are the news here, not the photos of these ruins. They aren't "how it's reviving". What are these "economic indicators" that foretell the city's future? What's driving them? Who's deciding to invest and why? And what mistakes of past paradigms and practices need to be left behind? Those are the real ruins.

There is so much new construction you could have photographed and shared with a wide audience. Detroit has challenges, yes, but the leaps taken over the last 5 years are missing here. This story is a continuation of "ruin porn" which has served it's purpose. The whole picture needs to be known, a but furthering the "Detroit has a lot of run down old buildings" theme is not News. Try again, it's not hard to find.

Stunning images. In all senses of the word.

Cheap land, and extended tax abatements. Treat it like empty tracts in need of new settlers.

I grew up in Detroit during the 1930s and 1940s, and left it in 1951 when it was still a vibrant city. It was painful to see what had happened to Detroit since then, "Detroit, Then and Now", www.efn.org/~hkrieger/detroit.htm

What if Amazon moved in? Bringing with it money for Wayne State and other educational programs, money for the school system, great housing, local food production. Land is bedrock for economic activity. Detroit has what many of the "prized candidates" cities do not. There's room here for housing and traffic.

visited DEtroit 2 weeks ago. Stayed in a wonderful series of restored brownstones. Visited the spectacular, customer friendly (great docents!) Art Institiute of Detroit, the Museum of African American Art, the Detroit City Museum and ate in the same area. Felt safe and comfortable in Midtown Detroit. Should not be missed by any art lover.

Having grown up in a once vital Detroit I have mixed emotions viewing the progress that has been made in some sections and the vast emptiness between buildings in other places. Detroit will not "return" until there's enough decent paying work and enough real safety for all its residents. Until then, it's more a Potemkin Village for the 1% than a home for the other 99%.