Detroit looks different these days. Its grand but long-abandoned buildings – vestiges of a bygone era when the automobile was king – have been transformed into galleries and hotels. New glistening towers soar high above the historic skyline. Once blighted neighbourhoods have been redeveloped to keep existing residents while attracting new ones – 12,500 in 2024, according to US census data. There's a sense of optimism here that's hard to find anywhere else in the US.

This transformation is emblematic of a new wave of revitalisation sweeping the Motor City, one that stems from the first seeds of scrappy urban renewal that began to emerge here a decade or two ago. Back then, organic farms and replanted urban forests started to crop up on the vacant plots of former row houses. Creatives made good use of disused warehouses and bank buildings, while journalists eagerly chronicled the hardscrabble, bootstrap narrative – perhaps no more so than with the watchmaker Shinola, which marketed itself as a 'made in America' brand. (A claim the Federal Trade Commission would later dispute.)

'When I moved here ten years ago, Detroit's creative scene was still very raw,' says French-American culture journalist Margot Guicheteau, who recently released a travel book called Soul of Detroit. 'It was like a jungle, but in the best way possible. Everyone was talking about their visions for the city. Now they are actually coming to fruition.'

Detroit's current crop of movers and shakers (artists, architects, designers, gallerists and progressive developers) is taking a more considered approach to urban revitalisation, collectively formulating sustainable, future-proof strategies that other cities with similar conditions could potentially adopt. 'What we're doing here, other places will have to do soon as well,' says Philip Kafka, founder of Prince Concepts, a local developer that's invested in Detroit's Core City neighbourhood.

While downtown Detroit has experienced its share of shiny upgrades (notably with Hudson's Detroit, a 1.5m sq ft development designed by SHoP), there's been substantial growth in the city's neighbourhoods, too. New York firms Office for Strategy + Design and SO-IL are currently working on Stanton Yards, a cultural complex along the Detroit River, set to open in 2027. And in November 2025, Detroit mayor Mike Duggan announced a plan to transform the Albert Kahn-designed Packard Plant, one of the city's most notorious urban ruins, into a 28-acre mixed-use site that includes affordable live-work housing, a museum devoted to Detroit's electronic music scene, and even an indoor skate park.

'There's a misconception that the grassroots, DIY approach left the city,' says Anthony Curis, co-founder of Library Street Collective, the gallery and cultural platform that's spearheading the Stanton Yards project. 'It's very much alive but has shifted, almost exclusively, to the neighbourhoods.' The city's status as a Unesco City of Design and events such as Detroit Month of Design are further securing the Motor City's status as one of the most exciting places to be right now, and there are a number of projects that are putting it back on the map. Among these is the arts centre, The Shepherd.

Central to the rapidly redeveloping Little Village neighbourhood and completed in 2024, this multifaceted cultural campus makes clever use of a stately Romanesque church, its ancillary buildings and extensive grounds. The complex is anchored by an expansive hall for temporary exhibitions, sensitively converted by Brooklyn-based architecture firm Peterson Rich Office, as well as a public library, curated by Asmaa Walton of Black Art Library, and a performing arts theatre.