Other factors played a part in downtown's decline. At the birth of the auto industry, none of the automakers that became the Big Three chose downtown as its home. Ford Motor Co. went to Dearborn, Chrysler Corp. to Highland Park and General Motors Corp. to a patch of land that became known as New Center. This decentralization of power deprived downtown of a nucleus that might have held the center in later decades. Michigan's system of strong local government also hurt Detroit.
Outlying townships wield enormous home-rule powers to plan for growth without any outside oversight.
As the same time, says Gerald Crane, professor emeritus of architecture and planning at the University of Michigan, the older central city was restrained by laws that made annexing land north of 8 Mile impossible. That meant Detroit could not capture any of the growth benefits. Many earlier plans to revive downtown foundered on the rocks of low real estate values, fear of crime, the high cost of parking and miscalculations. A coalition led by industrialist Henry Ford II built the Renaissance Center in the mid-1970s to save downtown. The late Coleman Young, during his 20 years as mayor, strove mightily to find ways to rebuild.