Detroit's Super Bowl Facade

Critics "say much of this busy urban landscape is simply a façade designed to fool the more than 100,000 visitors who are expected to come here and generate an estimated $300 million in revenues in celebration of Sunday's kickoff at Ford Field.

Painted murals of football scenes cover the street-level entrances of one building, camouflaging a burned-out doorway of an abandoned structure... Along Woodward Avenue, visitors and locals can gaze at dozens of new window displays. But less than a third of the buildings have tenants. Ornate architectural renderings and balloon-colored shutters that hang as art cover up forgotten lobbies and empty shops.

...Since Detroit landed its bid with the NFL in 2000 to host the Super Bowl, city officials have been focused on one goal — putting a new face on the city's blight... For decades, city officials have been banking on Detroit's downtown area to help turn around one of America's most troubled urban hubs, which has been scarred by riots, crime and the flight of both its upper and middle-classes."