[valarauca1]

Bloomfield is nowhere near the city limits. Its a suburb. Detroit is all about the suburban sprawl. Its total area is massive. I think we're at about 200 miles east/west 250 miles north/south.

Its gotten to the point that some suburbs are big enough to develop their own suburbs. Notable Troy, South-field, Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor, Sterlining Heights.

These started out as satellite cities to Detroit, but since Detroit suburbs grew, the satellite cities suburbs grew. Its just a massive sprawl.

[jerf]

The thought has crossed my mind more than once that while Detroit may well pull out and survive that it will be a very long time before it leads the area again, because in the meantime a lot of the surrounding area has learned how to survive and even thrive again without Detroit qua Detroit. On a long enough timescale its geographical positioning theoretically gives it an edge (Ann Arbor will simply never have a port, for instance, Southfield can't have an international border without a lot crazier things than the collapse of Detroit happening), but that might be a while before it dominates.

[Igglyboo]

Grosse Pointe doesn't count? IIRC it has a literal boundary with Detroit.