Detroit: The Arts City?

Detroit has had its share of bad times. But a new flurry of arts-related development in the city’s dismal Woodward Corridor has even cynical observers speculating that we could be seeing the rebirth of one of America’s most notorious urban failures. “Expansion of [multiple local arts] organizations will increase the already huge economic impact of the arts, which in 2002 pumped $700 million and 11,755 jobs into the Detroit economy. And that doesn’t count the spinoff from those facilities,” which looks like it will be considerable.