time Book a Cadillac Hotel It opened in Detroit 100 years ago this month, making the Motor City one of the most dominant metropolises on Earth.

At the time, it was the world’s tallest hotel, boasting over 1,100 rooms spread over 31 floors. At the time, Detroit was a place where everyone saw, or wanted to see, the city’s primary industry, the automobile, as facilitating the dawn of mass mobility for the wider world.

The decades since have been less serene, but today Detroit is in the midst of a resurgence.

Recently opened new lab Robots roam the exposed concrete floors of the technology hub, which was once an abandoned library archive for the city school system. Outside, the whirl of electric ATVs echoes through the streets. Inside the building, more than 100 startups are working to explore the future of mobility.

A century ago, immigrants from Syria, Poland and Ireland landed at neighboring Michigan Central Station, and now entrepreneurs and engineers are coming there. Mexico, Norway And the future is pouring down on the city.

Many people choose to come to Detroit over Boston, Silicon Valley, or Austin because of the new wave of innovation, $700 million worth of investments by Ford Motor Company, city tax breaks, and other investments. This is because funds from the family are contributing to the reconstruction of this area. It has long served as a symbol of the death of American cities.

RybackThe startup, founded by David Medina, a 26-year-old entrepreneur from Mexico, is developing an electric all-terrain vehicle that reduces both air and noise pollution in urban environments. Norwegian company wheel me promises to turn any object into a robot capable of autonomously moving large objects, and is working with some of Detroit’s biggest automakers.

“When we wanted to expand into the U.S. market, one of our major customers, Siemens, had a huge footprint in Atlanta, so it was attractive to move there,” says Detroit. says Robert Skinner, originally from the US and managing director of EcoG. , an EV charging technology company headquartered in Munich.

“But when the team went to the Detroit Auto Show, they saw the recovery and everything that’s going on — it’s vibrant here. We had a one-on-one meeting with the governor. I was able to… all of which helped me make the decision to locate here.”

Just a decade ago, General Motors went bankrupt, leaving the city $18 billion in debt and running out of cash, making it the largest U.S. city ever to fail. Over the decades, some 700,000 residents have left the city and an ever-growing list of problems has led to the closure of emergency services.

All the while, the massive Michigan Central Building and the former library archives next door served as reminders of both Detroit’s grand, distant past and recent decline.

In 2018, Ford Motor Company purchased the 90-acre site for $90 million, and since then it has taken 1.7 million hours, involving thousands of craftsmen, to create the stunning Beaux Arts classic. It has been restored to its former glory.

“At its peak, [in the 1940s]4,000 people will walk through central Michigan every day. [taking trains to and from Detroit]” said Josh Shirrefman, CEO of Michigan Central.

“We’ve recently had 4,000 people use this building again. There’s a certain poetry to it. It’s an important statement about things coming to life again.”

The region’s resurgence was marked by last summer’s concerts, where thousands of tickets were sold within hours to see performers such as Detroit native Diana Ross and Eminem.

As the nation’s largest majority-black city, efforts to foster minority-led innovation are part of its recovery story.

In the spring of 2023, Alexa Turnage and her husband Johnny… black tech saturdays After being told that Black tech founders and entrepreneurs “don’t exist.”

“We started here at 10 a.m. on a Saturday and people were still showing up at 5 p.m.,” Johnny says.

Since then, the organization has held dozens of workshops and networking events to support the Black tech community locally and nationally from its Michigan Central location.

“Our greatest accomplishment is Takeover by female founder Last March. Approximately 1,200 people gathered. We occupied all three floors of this building. ”

Hundreds of high school students also took Google’s Code Next program. This program is also available at Michigan Central.

Michigan Central isn’t the only team experiencing a resurgence.

Ten years ago, most of the high-rise buildings in downtown Detroit were abandoned or in ruins. Today, each building has been renovated to various states and all are once again occupied.

For many, the restoration of the Book Tower, a 38-story Renaissance building, is particularly satisfying.

“It is impossible to overstate the extent of the damage done to the building. There was a combination of deterioration and damage, with stone panels flying off the walls and the painted glass ceiling falling in.” -Jamie Witherspoon of Bedrock, a real estate company owned by Detroit billionaire Dan Gilbert, who owns mortgages and the NBA’s Cleveland. Cavaliers.

Bedrock’s flagship project over the past decade has been the rebirth of the Book Tower.

The building remained vacant for six years until Gilbert and his team raised deep pockets to repurpose the former office tower to suit 21st century tastes.

Last year, it spent almost $400 million to create a stunning mixed-use space with five restaurants, hundreds of apartments, 117 extended-stay suites, and dozens of caryatids overlooking life in the revitalized city center. We are now open. architectural digest magazine I named it One of the most beautiful repurposed buildings in the world.

“We saw this as an opportunity to kind of take something that was a symbol of urban decline and turn it into a place that different people could come and experience,” Witherspoon says.

Still, the city faces major challenges.

poverty in detroit almost 3 times On the other hand, housing costs are rising in areas that are becoming more upmarket. I saw some residents‘My life is turned upside down.

When General Motors recently asked the city of Detroit for $250 million to renovate its iconic Rensen skyscraper, some resident groups balked.

But there’s no denying that the city is on the rise.

On the land next to Michigan Central, Detroit City FC hopes to: build a new stadium It’s right near the Mexicantown neighborhood, a community where the soccer team has a lot of support.

last year, The population of the city has increased For the first time since the late 1950s.

“They drive from Ohio and Kentucky.” [and] Tennessee. We have people coming from Baltimore, New York and Toronto. Some people flew in from Brazil,” Johnny Turnage said of those who attended his Black Tech Saturday event.

“I have one collaborator in Los Angeles who is considering moving here.”