The above video, about the construction of Detroit's Renaissance Center mega-project in the 1970s, seems naively optimistic (delusional?) in its predictions of impending revival for the city. It is interesting that in recent years, the "ruins" of Detroit have garnered more attention than this multi-million dollar megaproject of massive towers which dominates the city's skyline.

While Detroit's decline began in the 1950s - with thoroughfares and automobiles facilitating the flight of people and employers to the suburbs - it accelerated and gained more attention after the 1967 riots. Hence, the Renaissance Center megaproject of the 1970s aimed at reviving the city centre.

Obviously, given events of the following decades, the Renaissance Center did not succeed in this goal.

The Renaissance Center was constructed as a "city within a city" with offices, a hotel, as well as shopping, entertainment, and dining facilities. Though being a "city within a city" was ultimately the core of the problem, as the Renaissance Center was practically walled off, isolated and inaccessible from the rest of the city, in the end doing little for surrounding neighbourhoods or the city center as a whole which continued to decline.

In an article for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy the failure of the Renaissance Center to bring on a renaissance is highlighted by the fact that while the megaproject cost $350 million (in 1970s dollars) "in 1996, the Center was sold to General Motors for just $76 million, a fraction of what it cost to build."

In recent years, the more promising route to Detroit's revival has been smaller scale local initiatives, grassroots efforts of artists, musicians, and entrepreneurs - institutions such as Wayne State University and walkable human-scale neighbourhoods such as Midtown which contains many arts and cultural facilities. These have proven more promising than the Renaissance Center. All this has made the city attractive to high tech companies like QuickenLoans and Twitter which have set up offices in the city.

The following quote from the Strongtowns initiative is worth noting:

"The worst part of the economic 'hunting' strategy is that is takes the focus of the local community's home-grown economic activity. A necessity in the New Economy is not seeking that one business that will bring in fifty jobs, but instead working with fifty local businesses to grow one job each. Not only is that a more sustainable and resilient approach, but one where every community has the capacity to be successful."

Where the massive Renaissance Center did not succeed, local efforts, human-scale walkable neighbourhoods, offer a more promising route to revival.