Image Source: SFC Art Department
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When Claude Molinari first arrived in Detroit in 2011, the city’s reputation preceded it. As the current president & CEO of Visit Detroit recalls, one of the first things he was told was to avoid Capitol Park—then a neglected downtown patch, little more than a holding space for trouble—drug deals, sex work, maybe a ghost of the city’s former self.
But one morning not too long ago, he walked through it and noticed something. Not one thing, actually—many: a patisserie, a bike shop, two coffee joints, a supermarket, even a Detroit City FC team store. He saw a plastic surgeon’s office doing Botox for suburban housewives. “Now, I don’t know how one can determine progress,” he says, “but having a plastic surgeon in a public square is a pretty cool situation.”
What Molinari saw then was a city on the brink. What he sees now is transformation.
Across Detroit, the signs of rebirth are hard to miss. Neighborhoods once marked by abandonment now pulse with innovation and energy. The once-derelict Michigan Central Station has been transformed by Ford Motor Company into a hub for electric and autonomous vehicle development, while nearby Book Tower, left vacant for years, now gleams as a mixed-use space with restaurants, residences, and street-level vibrancy. It’s this mix of reinvestment and reimagination—backed by public-private collaboration—that’s turning Detroit into a modern model for urban renewal. A place not just to visit, but to live.
And that’s happening. Last year, for the first time since 1957, Detroit added residents. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city gained 1,852 people between mid-2022 and mid-2023. It’s not a massive number, but in a city once hollowed out by economic collapse and white flight, it’s a reversal that speaks volumes.
The change, however, didn’t happen by accident. It took bold leadership, major investments, and a commitment to inclusive planning that centered communities as much as it did construction cranes.
Detroit Skyline Photo: courtesy of Bedrock Kellin Wirtz 2019
A decade ago, Detroit hit rock bottom. General Motors had declared bankruptcy. The city itself—$18 billion in debt—became the largest U.S. municipality ever to go bust. Emergency services were slashed. By 2013, the population went from around 1.8 million to 700,000. The Michigan Central Station, once a symbol of early 20th-century grandeur, stood empty, a reminder of what Detroit had lost.
Then came a $90 million bet.
In 2018, Ford Motor Company purchased the abandoned train station and its surrounding 90-acre campus. Backed by $700 million in investment and bolstered by city tax incentives, Ford launched an ambitious project to turn the area into the heart of its electric and autonomous vehicle operations. After 1.7 million work hours, the Beaux-Arts landmark now stands restored—spectacular and forward-facing. The district boasts more than 100 startups working on the next wave of mobility, including the country’s only electric vehicle charging road.
Capitol Park isn’t alone. Corktown—once the kind of place locals joked would steal your car before you finished parking—has become the nerve center of America’s mobility future.“That area now is really the hub of automobility and electrification in the United States,” Molinari says.
Private development has also played a key role in reshaping the city’s core. Dan Gilbert, co-founder of Rocket Mortgage and owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, has made downtown Detroit the centerpiece of his investment strategy. Through his real estate firm, Bedrock Detroit, he undertook the painstaking revival of the Book Tower—a 38-story architectural gem left vacant for years.
With nearly $400 million poured into the project, the newly opened space includes five restaurants, hundreds of apartments, extended-stay suites, and ornate flourishes like dozens of caryatids that now overlook a reawakened city center. It’s not just a building—it’s a symbol of Detroit’s rebirth. “More people work downtown. More people live downtown,” Molinari says. “And this is after the pandemic, where there are still a lot of people working from home.”
Photo Credit Rob Kohn The District Detroit
Yet while marquee developments dazzle, the work happening in Detroit’s neighborhoods is equally crucial to the city’s revitalization. Detroit Future City (DFC), a nonprofit think tank and policy advocate, has been instrumental in steering equitable growth, especially in terms of land use and community resilience.
Kimberley Faison, DFC’s vice president for Thriving, Resilient Neighborhoods, oversees programs designed to activate vacant land and foster sustainability. For her, revitalization begins and ends with the people who live there.
“We start with engagement,” she explains. “Working with local organizations to develop a plan, to develop designs, to really consider how the end product will be used and what impact it will have and how it will foster the community’s needs… It’s very community-engaged.” From tree planting to water retention features to public art, DFC supports land-based solutions that serve environmental, social, and economic purposes.
One such initiative included a bus tour where residents visited successful land-use projects, igniting visions for how green space could support not just sustainability but local identity. “Those have included strategies for increasing tree canopy… arts and culture, small business. It’s about how land connects us,” Faison says. “That’s how you build vision. That’s how you connect people to the land and the future of their neighborhoods.”
Image Source: Vito Palmisano
Those green spaces may soon neighbor even more ambitious projects.
A few blocks from Ford’s Michigan Central campus, Detroit City FC, the city’s beloved soccer team, hopes to build a new stadium on a site adjacent to the Mexicantown neighborhood—a symbolic and literal link to the communities it represents. The proposed location ties together the city’s growing sports culture and grassroots connection.
Molinari points to the value of sports as a powerful economic and cultural engine. “The Lions, Tigers, Red Wings, and Pistons all play in relatively new or brand-new arenas right in the heart of downtown,” he notes. “No other city in the world has that.”
Big events bring big exposure. The 2024 NFL Draft, hosted in downtown Detroit, drew over 775,000 attendees and was broadcast to over 60 million viewers. “It’s like a huge infomercial for your city,” Molinari says. “All these drone shots… the Detroit River as bright blue as the Caribbean. It’s a moment to say: check us out.”
Detroit Fireworks Photo courtesy of Bedrock Rebekah Witt 2019
For cities seeking to emulate Detroit’s revival, Molinari emphasizes “relentless positivity” and a willingness to promote what makes a city shine. “You have to sing the praises of your city,” he says. “Just the hospitality and tourism revenue for southeast Michigan is equivalent to selling 235,000 Jeep Grand Cherokees, which is 12,000 more than they sold last year.”
Faison echoes the sentiment, stressing inclusion as an economic strategy. “Even large investors and developers have seen the value and opportunity in engaging communities,” she says. “Incorporating arts and culture and programming that’s designed by local people, connecting small business opportunities and contracting opportunities, and all kinds of resident-driven, resident-supportive activities, really goes a long way, even in economic development.”
Detroit’s renaissance isn’t just about rebuilding structures—it’s about rethinking systems, reshaping spaces, and re-centering residents. From billion-dollar campuses to neighborhood greenways, from plastic surgeons in public squares to soccer pitches in Mexicantown, Detroit is writing a new story—one of resilience, ingenuity, and hope.
“Every sector, every system that you can think of,” Faison says, “has been in a mode of rebuilding and envisioning and really thinking about what is possible for the future.”
