DETROIT, MI

Los Angeles may have perfected urban sprawl, but Detroit invented it. Although the landscape is mostly flat, recreational opportunities abound, most of them centered around water. To the northeast of the city sprawls Lake St. Clair, a shallow but broad lake popular for boating and fishing. The Detroit River is a resource that the city has never fully exploited though a system of parks and greenways is now gradually taking shape.

Downtown The old downtown of grand movie houses and department stores is all but vanished, but lively areas have sprung up around the perimeter of the aging banking-and-commerce center. The north end of downtown is the latest hot spot. Comerica Park, a new baseball stadium for the Detroit Tigers, opened in 2000. The National Football League Detroit Lions, who abandoned downtown in the 1970s for suburban Pontiac, have since returned to Ford Field, which was built adjacent to Comerica Park. Nearby is the glamorous Fox Theatre, the renovated crown jewel of the city's opulent movie houses, as well as the aptly-named Gem Theatre, The Second City... more