“...just blocks from the central business district (which actually is booming).”
A couple of years ago, my alma mater played in the Quick Lane Bowl. We stayed out at the airport but as part of the charter. They drove us around downtown Detroit pointing out places like Cobo Arena, the Fox Theatre, etc.
I found myself thinking “Hey, this isn’t so bad looking here. It’s definitely an older looking downtown but it’s not that bad. It looks like they’re trying to clean it up”.
It’s when you go outside of the CBD when you begin to see the “real” Detroit and why the population has dropped from over 2 million to 700k since 1960.