Détroit : la ville la plus agitée d'Amérique

Its story is a Hollywood movie script with a crazy soundtrack somewhere between Eminem and Marvin Gaye: the story of a former world capital of the automobile industry, the birthplace of Motown, which, just 10 years ago, was torn apart by violence and mass unemployment? A city that is now rising from its ashes to become one of the trendiest cities in America! Do you find it hard to believe? Of course, because you probably remember those incredible images from 2013, the aftermath of the subprime mortgage crisis, when the city of Detroit declared bankruptcy: thousands of civil servants losing their jobs, public services reduced to nothing, thousands of abandoned houses, and a record crime rate in the USA, on top of mass unemployment? In short, it's hard to imagine that this city will ever recover? And yet, it did, and in what way! It all started with a wealthy Detroit-born businessman, Dan Gilbert, who in just a few years transformed the city center by investing more than $5 billion in building construction and renovations. And in these brand-new offices, he managed to attract thousands of employees from all over the United States. As a result, with the arrival of these young tech talents, trendy bars and restaurants are opening up everywhere where, until recently, these same neighborhoods seemed more like cut-throat areas. And this transformation isn't just affecting Downtown: on the outskirts, where abandoned houses were selling for just a few thousand euros eight years ago, today, once renovated, their value is multiplied by 10, or even more, and that's good news for some developers! And then, as a symbol of a new era dawning, the city is using its vast abandoned spaces on its outskirts to develop urban farms, an eco-responsible model that has since inspired many metropolises around the world. So, among its 600,000 inhabitants, how are the French living there benefiting from Detroit's incredible renaissance?