This story is about Detroit!

Gary Malerba / Special to The Detroit News. "A big city has so much more depth," says Leah Voytal, 25, left, joining Christopher Arvanites, 32, clockwise, Mike Martorelli, 37, Kerry Doman, 24, and Kevin Wobbe, 32, outside Pulse in Detroit. Voytal is moving to the city. (Click through to the Detroit News articles for larger versions of these images.)

While most cities continue to militantly discard lessons from urban development history, Downtown Detroit (where there are some buildings that are left as opposed to the 55 square miles of vacant land elsewhere in the city) is experiencing a resurgence of a sort, as old commercial buildings are converted into housing. Today's Detroit News reports, in "Heart of Detroit is on a roll," that "Downtown real estate bucks trend, lures those willing to take a chance."

From the article:

Last year, Detroit led the area with 1,039 building permits for houses, condos and apartments, according to data compiled by the city planning agency. It was first time the city was tops in housing permits since 1982. Officials credited downtown for much of that growth.

In a lousy real estate market where housing can languish on the market for months, downtown real estate is red hot to moderate, say eight real estate agents and developers who have sold a total of more than 400 properties since 2000, many of which were new dwellings.
Steve Perez / The Detroit News. Neil Greenberg, left, of Birmingham, Nick Medel of Holly and Austin Black II of Troy walk near their future home, The Ellington.

Tell me, looking at the opening photograph, would you guess Detroit? And recognize that Michigan's economy is in the tank right now, in the tank, or haven't you been reading the stories about GM, Ford, Delphi, and other companies?
Gary Malerba / Special to The Detroit News. Leah Voytal, 25, who grew up in Northville, says she's tired of socializing in Ferndale and Royal Oak. She'll move to Detroit soon.

Note the skyscraper in the background of this photo. I'm not sure, my memory isn't the greatest now about my hometown, but I think it's the Penobscot Building.

Even the Book-Cadillac Hotel is finally going to be redeveloped, if the latest proposal truly goes through, which it looks as if it will, because the developer, from Cleveland, has one of the nation's best track records with difficult adaptive re-use projects. See "Detroit's tipping point?" from the Detroit News.

A few e-resources about Detroit include:
-- Detroit Blog
-- Fabulous Ruins of Detroit
-- Girl in Detroit
-- Model D (Detroit) Magazine.

I am quite impressed with this project as well, which is a model for all cities:
-- Detroit Orientation Institute.
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Update: Bird to the North calls our attention to a BBC radio program (and article) featuring Dedjan Sujcic, architecture critic for the Guardian and author of The Edifice Complex, about Detroit, entitled "Making Cities Work: Detroit." Click through for the article and the radio show.

I'm also adding a link to BBC's "Urban Planet" coverage in the Urban design journalists link in the right sidebar.

Index Keywords: urban-revitalization