As someone who grew up in (outside of, but that's the style of Detroit -- no one lives _in_ Detroit) Detroit and takes enormous pride in that fact, it's been funny to see the massive amount of press recently about the fall of the city. I think the rest of the country is just sitting nervously, thinking "what if that happens to our city?!"
The funny thing is, when I was growing up we NEVER went to downtown Detroit. There were basically only two reasons to go there: (1) to watch the Red Wings or Tigers (the Lions didn't even play there until recently, and the Pistons still don't), and (2) to go to the Auto Show. We would just spend all our time in the beautiful suburbs. However, now, when I go back home to visit, it's amazing, we spend ALL our time downtown and talk about how much better it is and how much we love it. Quite the opposite of how the press talks.
If you want some perspective on how Detroiters feel about all this, I highly suggest reading Mitch Albom's article, The Courage of Detroit (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/the_bonus/01/0...). It's long, but try to get through it all.
Cleveland is the city where Rockefeller's Standard Oil began, featured Millionaire's Row, was once the 5th largest city in the nation (now 40th), and featured some of the most beautiful architecture in the world.
That has all been lost to crime, poverty, and urban flight. While the factors listed in textbooks are the decline in the steel market and Rockefeller moving to NYC; the real cause is a lack of innovation. The city should have taken extra steps with the capital it had to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship.
I love my city so much, but I honestly don't know if it will ever rebound now that the hole is dug so deep. Detroit and other cities have fallen victim to the same syndrome and it's a shame.
I think that Cleveland is able to rebound. Just look at its neighbor, Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is reinventing itself as a new tech hub. Cleveland could do the same. It just needs smart leadership.
Half the houses were literally gone, nothing but empty lots. Apparently there's a crack house epidemic going on where houses go vacant, drug dealers set them up as crack houses and rig them for quick incineration when they get raided, Lots of people die and the houses burn to the ground before anything can be done.
Most of the remaining houses in the neighborhood were vacant, with broken windows and empty driveways. My dad's old house was one of the few still occupied, although the front porch had partially caved in and two houses to the left had disappeared. We'd been planning on knocking on the door and doing the nostalgia thing but we were scared to get out of the car.