Back in the early 1990s I frequently traveled to Detroit on business.
Downtown Detroit.
When I told people I was going to Detroit virtually all of them said that I should get a gun.
During my stay a few of us would go out a night and walk around the streets, walk about 8 or 10 blocks to “The Joe” and “Greek Town”. What was striking was that we could walk in an 5 or 10 block radius and literally not see a single other person.
No potential victims = No criminals.
I was doing the same thing back in 2004. I worked for Compuware. I was staying at that five cylinder hotel (forget the name) and would walk to greek town and watch people play roulette. I’d walk back at around midnight or so. I only saw one or two street people each time - once I got a block or so from Greek town.
I sat in the upper floor lunchroom of Compuware and watch the street below. There were almost no people on the sidewalks and all of them were street people, each of which would diligently check the contents of every trash container they passed. But they were all empty, for obvious reasons.
It was then that I started calling Detroit the country’s first “ex-city”.
Downtown is looking pretty good these days and is filling up.