Detroit, the great city of America's return. On May 5, 2013, that slogan was chosen to represent Detroit in a nationally focused advertising campaign that began last July. Why is Detroit making a comeback and from where? The era of mass production emerged in Detroit in the early 20th century when the Henry Ford Dearborn plant opened in 1913. Much subsequent development was related to the automobile industry. The city's social geographies reflected the highly racialized organization of work within the sector. The city's racial segregation was exacerbated by the suburbanization of the city which brought many of the city's wealthier white residents to new settlements beyond the city limits. This left predominantly black residents to occupy the gradually deteriorating inner-city suburbs. The combination of a narrow economic base, heavily rooted in auto manufacturing, and a stark racial divide between the city center and the suburbs is at the root of the current crisis the city faces. However, the abandonment of such large areas of its city center has opened up opportunities for artists and entrepreneurial urban agriculture projects to make productive use of these spaces (Barrett and Hall, 2012). If one were to examine the history of Detroit, it would be inevitable to ignore Detroit as an icon of the modern world. Yet, Detroit has now become the symbol of the curse of the metropolises of the modern world. Detroit's historic downtown is shrinking, while its suburbs continue to grow. The shrinking of cities, also known as urban shrinkage, has become a huge problem around the world. Especially in the United States of America, the consequences of the shrinking of cities are becoming increasingly visible. Not only are the shrill...... middle of paper ......enges of Globalization, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Mitchell, C. J. A. (2004). Making sense of counterurbanization, Journal of Rural Studies. Elsevier.Pallagst, K., Aber, J., Audirac, I., Cunningham-Sabot, E., Fol, S., Martinez-Fernandez, … Wiechmann, T. (2009). The future of shrinking cities: problems, models and strategies of urban transformation in a global context. Center for Global Metropolitan Studies.Pallagst, K,. Martinez-Fernandez, C. & Wiechmann T. (2013). Shrinking cities: international perspectives and policy implications. New York: Routledge. Power A., ​​Plöger, J. & Winkler A. (2010). Phoenix Cities: The Fall and Rise of the Great Industrial Cities. Bristol: The Policy Press.Schlappa, H. & Neill, W.J.V. (2013). From crisis to choice: reinventing the future in shrinking cities. Saint-Denis: URBACT.