Posted on Sunday, August 26, 2007 - 10:40 am:

quote:

Plenty of people seem to be enjoying themselves these days on the banks of the Detroit River, along a stretch of the city’s newest downtown attraction, the beautifully paved and landscaped RiverWalk. What we witnessed that night was as good a tableau as any to illustrate the new, visitor-friendly face that’s being put on one of the Midwest’s oldest and most challenged cities.

quote:

There are signs of a new optimism in the city, and hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in renovation projects in the metro area, particularly downtown. New businesses, restaurants, and shops have opened, and a number of vacant commercial and industrial buildings have been converted to residential units, with thousands of condos, lofts, townhouses, and apartments created over the past five years.