'Oakland Is the Newark of the West Coast'

It takes some real imagination to recall this today, but there was a time, starting about a century ago during the Gilded Age, when Detroit was known with a straight face as "The Paris of the Midwest." Really boastful natives even left off the Mid- and called it simply "The Paris of the West."

That historical trivia was repeatedly trotted out in stories during the recession about the city’s decline. Look how the one-time "Paris of the Midwest" had fallen! Among the more optimistic – especially, as Chris Reade recalls, after that Eminen Super Bowl Ad – some locals even began to wonder if Detroit could become Paris-like again.