As a resident of the city of Detroit for all of my adult life, it pains to me to see the state of disarray that this city is in. More importantly is the stigma that it leaves on this entire region as a whole. There has much talk about comebacks, rebuilding and how slow the entire process is painstakingly going to be. But all of this just seemed to be the same old rhetoric as far as I was concerned. There would be bright spots such as hosting the MLB All-Star game in 2005, Super Bowl XL in 2006 and the NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four in 2009. But, unfortunately with all of these steps forward it always seemed that we would take several steps in the wrong direction afterwards. The steps backwards ranged from text message scandals in the mayor's office to the bankruptcy of what was "In 1950, Detroit was the wealthiest city in America on a per capita income basis. "(Skorup) .
Fast forward a bit now to 2011. This is when I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel as far as the national perception of this city was concerned. This is when Chrysler debuted an advertisement during the Super Bowl for their new Chrysler 200 vehicle. The commercial featured Detroit born rapartist Eminem driving through the streets of Detroit in the new vehicle with the instrumental to his song Lose Yourself playing in the background. It was such an instant hit that the momentum has been tsunami like in my opinion. That one 90 second ad has spurred more positive change in the past three years to this city than I have seen since I can remember.
Based on the popularity of this ad, it seemed as if people around here had reason to hold their head up and admit that "I am from Detroit ". With this sense of community came all sorts of investment particularly in the downtown and midtown areas of the city. Pop-up companies and storefronts have begun to spring up seemingly everywhere. With this development and progress has come a bit of controversy as well.