Is the Eminem movie "8 Mile" an accurate representation of Detroit?

I haven't seen it yet, but after reading this thread about how ravaged Detroit is, I'm wondering whether I should.

To anyone here who's seen the movie AND who's been to Detroit, my question is: will the movie give me an accurate feel of what the city is like?

there are some pretty awful places, still burned out from the 1960s. There are also some really upscale suburbs, and there is some stuff to do downtown. What are you planning to do?

but, as anywhere else, there are good areas of the city and suburbs, and some REALLY bad areas.

The movie is supposed to be good. Not being a huge rap fan, I really don't have a desire to see it.

For a movie I LIKED that had scenes in Detroit, I would recommend Out of Sight with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez (probably her best role).

but 8 mile is a pretty decent film. (And I say this as someone who can't stand Eminem's music.)

This post serves no purpose, but it had to be said. ;)

Say Nice Things About Detroit! She's had her ups and downs but you won't find a more resilient City in America. She will rise again, of that I have no doubt. It is sad to see the neglect though.

For those that haven't been/plan to go someday you may wanna try for the 4th of July weekend. The BEST fireworks show anywhere! And you get to see them with a million of your closest friends down by the river, get there EARLY for a good seat! It'll be warm/hot and possibly muggy, but if you give it 5 minutes the weather WILL change! Enjoy and be nice.

I'm from Toledo originally, so I've heard all of the rust belt crap. It is a great area of the country.

not just Detroit. Every city has it's more seedy sections and warehouse rows and trailer parks...Was a bit idealistic, but hey, it's a movie....

It was a good movie in my opinion...I'd watch it again...

upbringing so there is a tough side of the City shown, but it's not all like that. If you live near any major city it's the "same". There's good, bad, better, worse, best and worst areas just like all major cities. Chicago is the city of broad shoulders, Detroit is the city of the strong back (my saying).

I've lived in the Detroit area since 1987, and lived in Detroit from 1989-2001. I saw the neighborhood I lived in go from a liveable one to hell. I drove down my old street last week and there are several abandoned houses that were quite beautiful only 3 or 4 years ago. I live in Warren, just north of 8 Mile Rd, and drove by the trailer park from the movie every day while they were shooting it.

If you want to see the devastation, Detroit is not as dangerous as the media plays it to be, at least during the daytime. There is plenty to see, both good and bad.

1. Downtown is getting rehabbed, but it is a Potemkin village. Plenty of those older skyscrapers are completely empty.
2. There are few good grocery stores left in the city. Kroger just closed their only store left, and Farmer Jack's are now Food Basics, and allegedly aren't really full service grocery stores. There is no WalMart, no Target, no Meijer in the city. There is one super K-Mart, but it is on Telegraph and is only in the city by about a half mile or less. The other grocery stores are small, usually dirty, and sell poor quality food (some even smell like rotting meat).
3. The neighborhood where Rabbit and his friends burn down the crackhouse is in Highland Park, which is a suburb within the city. HP is worse than the rest of Detroit. It used to be where Chrysler's world headquarters was-they moved to Auburn Hills and left the city to die.
4. The incident in the movie mentioned above was somewhat based on real events. There were some guys who were aquitted of arson by a jury who burned down a crack house. Also, there was a series of attacks on girls on their way to school-men would drag them into abandoned houses and rape them. This was 4 or 5 years ago, and scared parents to death.
5. Some of the buildings on Chene that you see in the bus scenes have burned down since the movie was made. The gun range is still there, as is the abandoned golf-themed bar. That's a stretch of road that still had viable businesses on it in 1987. My office isn't far from there.

When I was a kid, my grandparents lived in Detroit and we visited them frequently. In the late 60s, it was a beautiful city. In the early 70s, the elm trees started dying from dutch elm disease. After the riots, white people started moving out en masse, and selling their homes to rental companies. Banks wouldn't make business loans to african americans very easily in those days, and arabs came with the cash to buy the corner stores and such. Rental companies did not keep the houses up properly, and that helped lead to the decline of neighborhoods. African americans were cut out of the business end of their own community. Then, the bottom fell out of the automotive industry and that was followed up by 8 years of Reaganomics.

If you come to Detroit in warmer times, I can recommend some interesting things to do. One is visit the Heidleburg Project, a community art project on the city's near east side. Tyree Guyton, the artist behind it, is like an urban Howard Finster.
Take a Diamond Jack boat tour on the river. You can see some really cool architecture of houses and apartment buildings built along the river.
Visit the Detriot Institute for the Arts. It is a world class collection. The Detroit Symphony is also awesome, as is the hall they play in. The Fisher Building, Symphony Hall, and the Operal Hall all have some amazing ceilings-The Fisher Building in the New Center area is a classic deco building. The museum of african american history is a cool building in and of itself, plus it has a great collection of ancient african musical instruments. The Science center is next door-it's not as good as Chicago's or Toronto's, but it is still good and has an IMAX theater. The New Center/Wayne State area is the artistic center of the city, except for the opera house, which is downtown.
Visit Belle Isle. Remember there used to be horses to ride there, a children's zoo, and snack shops and other buildings now closed. They are currently closing the aquarium, unless someone donates a whole lot of money in a hurry. Don't try to use a bathroom there, however, rumour has it that the facilities are rarely cleaned and absolutely disgusting. Don't go swimming, either-the Detroit river is nasty and has an undertow.
Drive by the old Tiger Stadium at Michigan and Trumbull. It'll probably get torn down in the next few years, so see it while you can.
Eat at Southern Fires, Magnolia or Sweet Georgia Brown's for some really good soul food. Eat in Greektown for flaming cheese and moussaka. Don't waste time or money in the casinos,theres an underground railroad station in the basement of the baptist church on the corner of Monroe and Beubien, and a historical marker on the front of the building. The people mover is kind of fun to ride in, and you can guess which buildings you pass are empty and which ones aren't.
The Pistons don't play in Detroit, but the Tigers, Lions and Wings (if the NHL ever starts up again) do.

My aunt lived in Detroit in the 1960s and we visited frequently and it was great - American Dream neighborhoods, 3-4 bedroom houses on friendly streets, back yards with roses, those cool driveways that are two strips of concrete..... we knew her neighbors and played with them (we were children.) We would go to the Fisher Theatre with my grandmother and eat at Al Green's Celebrity Room.

I agree that any hope they had in the 1970s vanished during the Reagan years.

I believe they will make some sort of eventual comeback, but as a smaller city.

And the DIA is great.

I own a t-shirt that says exactly that. I've never seen any movie that represented Detroit accurately

Born in Royal Oak, or Royal Joke as it is sometimes known. Most of my relatives are in the Detroit area, though I rarely go back there, and neither do my brothers and sister.

The bad parts are as scary as any place I have ever been, the good parts are quite beautiful, there are thousands of small lakes around Detoit, as well as Lake St. Clair.

There are not a lot of attractions there, though, for tourists.

One fond childhood memory: being a small kid in Huntington Woods, and being able sometimes to hear the lions roaring over at the Detoit Zoo if the wind was blowing the right way.

The Detroit Institute of Arts is very good, too, the area around it falls into the scary category.