Detroit: Ruin of a City

Directed by Michael Chanan and George Steinmetz

With Lowell Boileau, Dan Georgakas, Tyree Guyton and Loïc Wacquant

Detroit, known as Motor City, once the fourth largest city in the United States, home of the Ford Motor Company, General Motors and other major car manufacturers, is nowadays a city in serious decline, which has lost more than half its population and much of its real estate. Until recently, residents would celebrate'Devil's Night' on the eve of Halloween by going out and setting fire to dilapidated buildings. Houses, factories, stores, office blocks, theatres, even the railway station, stand in ruins or have disappeared altogether, leaving vast empty lots that have returned to nature. The home of Motown music, Detroit is also the most segregated major city in the United States, and one of the poorest, struggling to provide public services for its needy inhabitants.