“But the thing is, for the last 30 years or more, it has been sustained by the black middle class. “They’re trying their damnedest to hold the line,” said Alan Mallach, a senior fellow at the Centre for Community Progress who has studied Detroit extensively.

In January, the city's newly elected mayor, Mike Duggan, pleaded with residents to hold on for six more months before moving elsewhere. But everyone knows that time is running out.

There is a new sense of urgency to stabilise these communities after decades of population decline, with planners and academics unveiling innovative proposals to combat blight and reimagine the urban landscape, and governments and outside donors pledging hundreds of millions to help. Such are the daily quality-of-life struggles in neighbourhoods like Ravendale, the frontline in the battle for Detroit’s future. Photograph: Charles Ommanney/Getty Images Photograph: Charles Ommanney/Getty Images With grocery shops and restaurants few and far between, a simple task like buying food becomes a logistical challenge. Retail options are few and far between: “I have to go outside of my neighbourhood for everything I need.” Like much of the city, her area has few grocery stores or restaurants, making food a question of logistics, not just health or taste. After a water main break last month, nearby streets became too icy for driving, let alone walking. Ligon has to drive her 12-year-old car wherever she goes, both for safety and due to Detroit’s lack of worthwhile public transit. “Or do I want to go to one of these places that is already there? I want to live somewhere it’s not so difficult to achieve simple things. “Do I want to be a part of it, to grind it out and make Detroit liveable for the next generation? I know I probably won’t see it change,” Ligon said. But like so many people in the sprawling metropolis, home to the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history, she too grapples with Detroiters’ greatest dilemma. She was the project manager for the Lower Eastside Action Plan (Leap), an ambitious proposal to transform vacant land in some of the city’s most blighted areas. Ligon understands the city’s root problems better than most.

The death of great american cities