Detroit is situated in the flat plains of southeast Michigan, located strategically on the Detroit River immediately north of Windsor, Canada - one of very few places where a Canadian city is south of its US neighbor. Not surprisingly, Detroit serves as a major gateway to the Great White North. It also holds the distinction of being the largest metro area on any international border in the world. Detroit is just northwest of Lake Erie and not far from Lake St Clair (the two of which are connected by the Detroit River). Chicago is 275 miles (440km) west, or five hours by car.

 

History

Lots of people know that Cadillacs come from Detroit. But what they probably don't know is that Detroit came from a Cadillac. Enterprising French trader and explorer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac stumbled upon what is now Detroit in 1701, figuring it would make a good base from which to send furs to Canada. Cadillac named his new find Ville d'Etroit (City of the Strait) because the Detroit River connects Lake St Clair with Lake Erie, and from that point on the town grew steadily, using its river as an economic channel to the world.

Detroit might have remained little more than a stomping ground for trader types had it not been for an ambitious industrialist named Henry Ford. Born on a farm in nearby Dearborn, Ford left for Detroit to establish the Ford Motor Company in 1903. Within five years he was mass producing cars and perfecting the assembly line. The assembly line inspired another Detroit innovation known as the United Auto Workers (UAW), who kicked off the industrial union movement from the 'Motor City.' Driven by the automobile's success, Detroit was the first city to have a paved concrete road (in 1909), the first to install a traffic light (in 1915) and the USA's first to have an urban freeway (in 1942).

Pre-car, Detroit was an important station along the Underground Railroad, a network of escape routes used by abolitionists and African-American slaves who traveled from America's southern states, through the US north and into Canada. Said to have been in place as early as the colonial period, the height of Underground Railroad activity was between 1830 and 1865. Detroit was a major escape route because of its proximity to the Canadian border. The new arrivals brought with them the beginnings of jazz and blues music. From the late 1800s on, African-American musicians played an important role in Detroit's entertainment scene, and the city was the first to have an integrated musicians' union. Mississippi transplant John Lee Hooker recorded his first blues hits here in the 1940s. Hooker and his peers paved the way for Motown - the biggest American music phenomenon of this century and African-American Detroit's ticket to the big leagues.

But Detroit's prominence on the world music stage didn't prevent the city from imploding. While everyone was dancing in the streets, businesses - following Ford's earlier lead - started fleeing for the suburbs, and middle-class whites followed in painful numbers. Detroit lost nearly a million residents between the 1950s and 1980s and, as the auto industry downturned, hyper unemployment set in, disproportionately affecting African-American men. Along the way, bloody race riots in 1967 and a cruel recession during the 1970s were just a few of the nails in the coffin.

Today, downtown is quiet, boarded up, desolate in some areas and economically segregated, leaving Detroit with one of the worst reputations for violence, crime and decay. Not all of Detroit is depressing, though, and currently the local economy is on an upswing and unemployment is down. The city's rich history, riverfront locale and considerable dedication to rejuvenation will really take hold of you, if given the chance.

 

Population: 1 million
Country: USA
Time Zone: GMT/UTC -5 (Eastern Time)

Attractions

Cultural Center

A few miles north of downtown is the Cultural Center, a cluster of world class galleries and museums. The collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts spans 5000 years, but its pièce de résistance is a Diego Rivera mural called Detroit Industry, which takes up all four walls of a large interior garden court. Rivera painted the 27 fresco panels in 1932 to depict the auto industry and contrast the area's natural resources with its factories. Little did he know that times would get tough for both the industry and its workers a few decades later. The Ford Motor Company's plant at River Rouge (south of Detroit) served as a model for parts of the mural. The Detroit Historical Museum, a couple of doors away, fills in the blanks of Detroit's earlier days. Its exhibits include Detroit at work, a chronology of the auto industry and recreated Detroit streets from the 1840s, 1870s and early 1900s.

Detroit was an important station along the Underground Railroad, a rough and tumble network of escape routes used by abolitionists and African-American slaves who traveled from America's southern states, through the US north and into Canada. The Second Baptist Church of Detroit was the city's first African-American church and served as a leading 'station' on the Underground Railroad in the mid-1800s. Today it gives tours of the crawl spaces where the slaves were hidden on their journey. The Museum of African American History is the world's largest African-American historical and cultural museum with exhibits, classes, a library and theatre. The museum is in the heart of the Cultural Center, one block from the Institute of Arts and near the Detroit Science Center, a space dedicated to scientific interaction and featuring an IMAX theatre.

Detroit Zoo

Opened in 1928, the Detroit Zoo was one of the first to have barless animal exhibits, developing a system of moats and other natural barriers to keep hungry lions, tigers and bears away from grandma and the kids. The Penguin House is the most fun of all. The zoo's goal is to provide a natural habitat for its animals, who number in the thousands and include over 50 endangered and threatened species, as well as two that are extinct in the wild. Over a million people visit the zoo every year. The zoo also has a reputation for technological savvy, with state of the art graphical kiosks accompanying many of the lounging animals.

Eastern Market

Eastern Market is a gigantic semi-covered farmers' market, held every Saturday rain or shine, that sells everything from goats to olive oil. It attracts farmers and consumers from as far as Florida, plus Martha Stewart devotees in fur coats and panhandlers singing the blues. There's no better place in Detroit for people watching or picnic packing. The area surrounding the market is also great for cheap eats. The market lies on the northeast outskirts of downtown.

Motown Museum

A young, black Detroiter, Berry Gordy Jr, started Motown in 1959, naming it after his city's loose way of shortening its 'Motor City' moniker. Confident and cocky, he bought a house in the northern part of Detroit, built a studio and quickly put a sign on his new company that read 'Hitsville USA.' The sign still sits on the roof. Once the hits - by artists like Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations and the Supremes - really started hitting, Gordy bought six other houses on the block. The museum features a short video introduction to Motown's history and then you're off for a tour through the original recording studio, passing through rooms full of photos, album covers, newspaper clippings, gold records and Michael Jackson's black hat and sequined glove. Though at times a bit kitschy, it's hard not to get wrapped up in the history and good times that the Motown sound represents.

Rivertown

While walking through much of downtown Detroit can be like touring a not-so-amusing ghost town, the eastern area along the riverfront is a vibrant and rather attractive section of the city with lots to see and do. Detroit's black circular glass Renaissance Center (RenCen) is full of offices, hotels, restaurants and shops. From the top, it has a stupendous view of the Great Lakes, Michigan's prairies and nearby Canada - worth a peruse either from the revolving restaurant or the free viewing deck.

Walking distance from the glitzy RenCen is Greektown, a packed 8-block hub of Mediterranean life, full of traditional Greek restaurants, fresh-baked baklava bakeries, bustling coffeehouses and ouzerias. There's also an active Greek orthodox church that's quite easy on the eyes. Nearby is Trappers Alley, a historic fur trapper's warehouse that now houses shops and a museum.