DETROIT—Detroit has recently gained a great deal of notice due to the resurrection of its downtown. But one question that has remained is whether the stupendous growth in its office employment and residential occupancy will have an impact on the vast city beyond the core. Gregg McDuffee, executive director of the Detroit-Wayne Joint Building Authority and outgoing chairman of Urban Land Institute-Michigan, tells GlobeSt.com that he already sees the ripple effects of downtown development and expects the wider city to benefit even more in the future.

“It's important to understand that Detroit was the first middle-class city in the early 20^th century,” he says. “It was an incredible melting pot that brought people in from all over the world.” And as the city grew during these decades, thousands of people, many attracted by the burgeoning auto industry, built single-family homes. “When you look around Detroit, you'll see that we've got very solid neighborhoods throughout the city.”

Those neighborhoods have gone through some rough times, he admits. “After the 2008 financial crisis, we saw precipitous declines in values even in the good neighborhoods.” In the past few years, however, several developments have started bringing the city back from that low point. The auto industry was returned to health, for example, and the city went through its bankruptcy proceedings and then got a new mayor and city council.