These are some excerpts from customer reviews on Amazon, of a book about Detroit that was written in 1990:

"I picked up this book with a few questions in mind. I wanted to know: What happened to the city of Detroit? Why so many abandon buildings? Why so many empty lots?"

"He details the decline of the auto industry, loss of the comfortable jobs high school grads used to assume, the strange oasis of expensive buildings built downtown surrounded by poverty-stricken areas. He gives everyone's perspective from the Black Churches, Chaldean Christian and Arab shop owners who were now able to run little stores in Detroit only with bullet proof glass and an arsenal of weapons behind the counter. He explains the attitude of the suburbanite which accurately described many things I heard from my family. On the other hand he makes it clear the desperation and isolation felt by the Detroiters not in the chosen group surrounding Coleman Young and his machine."

"Blacks and Whites, both, left, if they were able. Anyone who loves their family would have done the same. What the politically correct commentators refuse to acknowledge is that the vast majority of the crime responsible for destroying Detroit was perpetrated by its Black population. Until the conditions that lead to such a pathology are dealt with (dissolution of the family) that city, and a number of others, will continue to decline.
Eric Holder claimed that America was too cowardly to have an honest conversation about race. An honest conversation on this topic is the last thing any of these liberal politicians want. Maintaining the status quo, in this regard, is precisely what they do want. Keeping Blacks impoverished keeps them dependent on the Democrats and government. It also keeps all the race-baiters riding high.
In addition to this dependency on government largess this arrangement also keeps the races divided. As long as the citizens see one another as the enemy they loose sight of the real culprit - namely, our politicians. This is an age old, proven, tactic - divide and conquer! Marxists have employed this formula throughout their history. Now that that baton has been passed to the Democrats they are following in lockstep suit."
These are comments by 3 different readers, I don't know if I should've attributed them or not but they are screen names anyway. I like the remark about the isolation felt by those not on the inside. Predictably, the mainstream reviews of the book at the time all found fault with the writer basically for accurately describing what he saw.
One of the shiny buildings in downtown detroit, their centerpiece, is the Renaissance Center.