Gotta agree with you there. Folks in Detroit can be quite hospitable - the ones that aren't trying to kill ya, anyway.
Lots of folks don't realize that Detroit's "Paradise Valley" during the 30's to 50's had the highest concentration in the country of successful black-owned businesses, and had a blues scene rivalling anything in Harlem or Chicago. (John Lee Hooker, anyone?). Anyway, this entire area was condemned to be paved over for a 3 mile stretch of interstate, so a stable but crowded populace had to disburse and, with limited venues, many crowded into the 12th Street/Grand Blvd area where a crackdown on an afterhours drinking site sparked the 1967 riots - and, well, the rest is history.
One wonders, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsite, if a successful, established neighborhood had just been left the f alone, might Detroit have developed more like Chicago with more or less intact ethnic enclaves (voluntary, not enforced by lynchings if one ventured out) and a reasonably thriving economy despite a moronic government?
Someone else on the thread mentioned ward accountability. As much as that is badmouthed in Chicago, maybe it does have a place.