English: Founded in 1701, the city of Detroit began as the French colonial settlement of Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit, a fortified trading post, located at the nexus of the Lower Great Lakes (Lake Ontario and Lake Erie) and the Upper Great Lakes (Lake Michigan-Huron and Lake Superior). Located on land inhabited by the Kickapoo and Fox people, the French settlement grew to 800 people by the end of the French and Indian War (Seven Years’ War) 1765, being the largest settlement in French North America between the much larger colonies in Louisiana and Quebec. The city grew slowly early on, suffering a setback when it was destroyed by fire in 1805, shortly after being handed from British Colonial control to the jurisdiction of the United States by the Jay Treaty of 1794. The city’s layout came about as a result of Judge Augustus Woodward’s plan for the reconstruction of Detroit, which added radial streets and squares to Downtown, as well as the Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1797, the French land division system, and existing indigenous trading routes across Southeast Michigan, all of which influenced the location of modern-day streets and avenues. The city continued to grow slowly in the early 19th Century, shifting its economy from the fur trade to trade along the Great Lakes and the Lumber industry, before becoming increasingly industrialized due to the abundance of natural resources and ease of transportation through the region during the latter half of the 19th Century. However, the rise of the automobile industry around the turn of the 20th Century led to the city experiencing a period of rapid and intense population and economic growth, quickly becoming one of the world’s largest cities, as well as one of the richest, during the period between 1900 and 1950, expanding its land area significantly in the process. Following World War II, the population and economic activity began to shift towards the suburbs, which, combined with changes in industry, racism and racial unrest, and a series of urban renewal projects and the construction of urban freeways, led to the city declining from a population of 1.8 million in 1950 to just 600,000 today, and creating fiscal problems that led to municipal insolvency and the city’s bankruptcy in 2011. The city today is emerging from this crisis with a newfound sense of determination and is, for the first time since the middle of the 20th Century, seeing a massive influx of investment, which is transforming the cityscape and attracting new residents. Michigan Consolidated Gas Building (Minoru Yamasaki, 1962), Guardian Building (Smith, Hinchman and Grylls, 1928-1929), Comerica Tower (Philip Johnson and John Burgee, 1991-1993), Hudson’s Site Tower (SHoP Architects, 2017-2024), and Renaissance Center (John Portman Associates, 1973-1977) visible in the background.