Metro home sales perk up; prices fall
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080507/BIZ/805070389

For example, Detroit had more foreclosure sales in April than regular sales (570 of 932 total), and the median sales price for the month was $9,200, down 68.8 percent from $29,450 last year. Detroit’s median price also was a big drag on April’s median price for all of Wayne County.

Detroit has lost about half its population in the past 40 years.  40 years ago the city was built out, homes everywhere.  Now, there are vast areas of open land.  The city has done a decent job of razing the vacant homes (although there still are plenty of them.)  If you look at some of the residential neighborhoods on google maps, with the satellite view, you can see whole blocks that are vacant land, with just the remains of an alley that used to cut through it.  You can find neighborhoods like this just a mile or two from the center of the city.  It is amazing.

In 100 years archeologists fodder, with reconstructions etc.