Urban Affairs

Mayor Mike Duggan’s fight against insanely high auto insurance rates is winning fans in the city. With a skeptical Legislature, though, that may not be enough.

Personal injury protection rates on auto insurance vary wildly across the state, which one state senator blasts as “redlining.” Use our interactive map to see who’s getting a good deal, and who’s, um, not.

A no-frills toilet in one city park has proven indestructible to vandals, yet potentially mortifying to patrons. Has Detroit prototyped the public restroom of the future?

A local muckraking journalist found that the city’s count of 70 hydrants in disrepair does not match his own survey, which suggests the number could as high as 1,800. Broken hydrants mean more homes could be swept up by fires.

An Olympic-style velodrome may not have been the first priority for Detroit urban planners, but one developer is betting Detroit kids will flock to his project.

Like many impoverished, obscure corners of Detroit, the neighborhood of Eden Gardens knows it can’t afford to wait for the cavalry to arrive. While residents are eager for blight removal, they’re not waiting for the city to fix their community.

Advocates say the county is overestimating property values and that many people are losing their homes because they don’t know they can challenge their assessment.

The Detroit Journalism Cooperative will extend its exploration of Detroit’s financial issues and engage citizens in finding solutions to challenges facing the city

Despite government and philanthropic attention, the eastside community of MorningSide remains a neighborhood on the brink

Real-estate developers have discovered Milwaukee Junction, the semi-anonymous district northeast of Midtown. Will black Detroiters share in its revival?

Real estate developers have descended on this long-ignored district to plan lofts, art galleries and other amenities in what many are predicting is the city’s next hot neighborhood.

Faced with derelict properties across the city, leaders choose a strategy that produces measurable results in a few, targeted neighborhoods.

See which neighborhoods are getting the city's attention, and which are being ignored.

Detroit officials must pick winners and losers in deciding which areas get homes demolished first. Those that must wait: neighborhoods already too far gone.

For ordinary Detroiters like Fatima Mixon, finding a job is just the first step. Securing transportation to get to work can feel like winning the lottery. In Mixon’s case, that’s exactly what happened.

Fatima Mixon is one of many jobless Detroiters struggling to learn new skills to support her family. Can she overcome the obstacles of daily life?

Separating fact from fiction, the Detroit Journalism Cooperative digs into the difference between what’s enough money to survive versus the amount needed to be stable.

Resignation offers piercing criticism, insider glimpse into high-powered coalition studying Detroit’s schools.

Boosters promise the streetcar system, now under construction along Woodward Avenue, will spur downtown revitalization, brushing aside critics who fear another People Mover.

Detroit’s newly minted Department of Neighborhoods has unleashed a squadron of district managers, pledging to respond to residents’ calls that went unanswered for decades.