If you care about Michigan, please support our work.
Donate TodayDetroit
In-depth reporting on Michigan's largest city and surrounding communities, including deep dives into the big changes afoot in Detroit, its schools, neighborhoods, institutions and city hall.
Articles
Is Detroit coming back? It depends on the neighborhood.
Bridge Magazine examines four corners of Detroit. The numbers say the city is improving. The people sometimes tell another story.
Warrendale: ‘I don’t feel like we’re part of a renaissance’
Cheap homes are attracting new residents. But dumping, crime and a feeling of disconnection from City Hall pervade this far-west neighborhood.
Osborn: Bulldozing gives hope in crime-ridden corner
City Hall has spent four years demolishing hundreds of homes in this northeast neighborhood. Many more remain.
Islandview: New development, fears of displacement
Detroit is planning big changes to a little neighborhood near Belle Isle. Some wonder who will benefit.
Bagley: New residents, more investment, old worries
In one of city’s most self-reliant neighborhoods, City Hall plans improvements as old brick homes get new owners.
Q&A: Meet the man reimagining Detroit, one vacant lot at a time
Maurice Cox’s plan for the city: Make its biggest weakness a strength.
Owe taxes? That’s OK. Wayne County will still sell you foreclosed homes.
A law was supposed to stop land speculators from buying homes at tax auctions. It hasn’t worked out that way.
Diary of a longshot: Inside Coleman Young’s no-frills bid for Detroit mayor.
He has a name, but little money. So Young relies on his speeches in his uphill climb to unseat incumbent Mayor Mike Duggan.
Detroit police improve response times. But not all neighborhoods are equal.
A Bridge analysis shows that police responses to emergencies are roughly the same in all neighborhoods, but vary wildly for lesser crimes.
A Michigan deportee adjusts to Mexico. ‘I don’t wish this on anybody’
Raised in America, a young Detroit woman is a stranger in a violent land in Mexico after she is deported.
Promises, meet reality: Measuring Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan’s first term.
Bridge Magazine scours State of City speeches to filter fact from promises of Detroit’s mayor.
Why residents left Detroit. And why some are coming back. (video)
Bridge Magazine and the Detroit Journalism Cooperative gathered Detroiters past and present to share their choices. A theme emerged.
Poor in Michigan with no ID. “I am somebody. I just can’t prove it.”
Laws passed to prevent terrorism and identity theft have made it harder to get the state-issued ID needed to escape poverty. A peek inside the poverty trap.
A Detroit bathhouse cleans up its act. Welcome to the Schvitz. (Slideshow)
Once steamy and seedy, a North End sauna has booted the swingers and is investing big money in rehab work. Can it be a Detroit spa destination?
Slideshow: Gorgeous postcards offer valentine to bygone Detroit
Architecture buff turns postcard collection into picture book. Take a peek at the fabulous and familiar with 11 images from Detroit’s colorful past.
No time for sleep. Nikolai Vitti has a school district to save in Detroit (slideshow)
Detroit’s new superintendent only gets three hours’ sleep per night. There’s no time to waste if he’s going to fix a district pushed to the brink.
Are there two Detroits? A new report says yes, but...
Downtown and Midtown Detroit get more tax breaks and investment than neighborhoods. Why? That’s where the good jobs are.
Kid Rock slams critics. ‘I am king of Detroit’ and ‘love black people’
The controversial singer weighs in on protests that began after a Bridge Magazine column criticizing his concerts this week at Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena.
Eleven surprising facts that define Detroit’s ‘139 Square Miles’ (Slideshow)
Detroit’s middle class is shrinking and poverty remains rampant, but neighborhoods are stabilizing, a new report shows.
Detroit is a city with many needs. So why are bikes such a priority?
The city’s neighborhoods are still in need of many improvements, but they’re getting striped set-asides for cyclists. Transportation evolution or an amenity for the few?