Welcome!
And since you are from Detroit I must ask: Is it really as scary, violent, and desolate as everyone says?
I can answer that.
The core of the city - yes. Without a doubt. It is in crisis.
However, the suburbs are among the richest in America, and there are many beautiful areas around the city.
I played a hockey tournament near Detroit in 2008. The area we landed, and where the rink is, was very very nice. We instantly thought that the rumers about Detroit were a lie, so the next day after our games we went to go check out the Joe Louis Arena and the other sight seeing things. It was not great, but didn't seem much worse than the bad areas of LA or SD, so I was not scared and felt comfortable there. That evening when we left, we got lost on the freeway and exited to get directions.
Dilapidated shack likes houses, destroyed buildings (piles of rubble like they demoed it and never cleaned up) and people just standing around on the corners for no apparent reason - ok it was a bit more sketchy but maybe it's a crew meeting up to go somewhere, whatever. We went in the nearest gas station liqueur store, behind the counter was a wall of security camera monitors, showing the exterior of the building facing toward and away the building, and in front of the counter was a what seemed like a inch thick glass partition and a slide out drawer for transactions. The guy behind the counter said "why are you here?" before we could even ask for directions, and he said get out of there and gave us directions to "a better area". He seemed generally concerned for our safety.
There were other stories from the trip, but that certainly explained to me that there are very nice areas of Detroit, and there are very very bad areas of Detroit.
Edit: Welcome to the forum Grolt, always fun to meet another new-comer!