ont can mean the spread of upscale housing and public parks if developers and the city can work cooperatively. Major sporting events such as the 2006 Super Bowl will draw new visitors to Detroit and improve the city's tarnished image if visitors' experiences are positive. However, if conditions remain as they are, this will almost certainly not be the case and Detroit's reputation as a Renaissance city will be damaged (Kramer 9).
Kate Stohr writing in Architectural Record explains that the city is dangling tax incentives to building owners to repair rundown buildings. The city is also cracking down on numerous building-code violations, and it is investing millions of dollars in street improvements. At the same time, projects ranging from loft conversions, to reuse of historic landmarks, to the redevelopment of the city's waterfront have introduced a sense of progress after years of stop-and-go redevelopment efforts. Stohr writes that Detroit's rebirth has been proclaimed before, but this time the people claiming a Renaissance might be right. Over the years, the city of Detroit has cycled through a series of sporadic and often money-losing revitalization efforts, but the latest wave of building projects has instilled hope even among some skeptics. For example, Detroit's Riverfront Conservancy has begun to convert the city's industrial waterfront into a four mile long corridor of bike paths, skateboard parks, retail shops and fishing areas called the River-Walk.
According to Stohr, the biggest challenges are still ahead. While subsidized investments and tax breaks may be helping to transform Detroit, rebuilding alone is the answer. The biggest challenge for planners remains knitting together the city's sprawling and racially isolated neighborhoods. Another problem is the fact that as the population of Detroit has shrunk dramatically. People left Detroit for its suburbs, and with them went a large part of the city's property tax ...