Detroit is important as the fitting exemplar of the American Dream. People of all races could pull themselves up by the shoe strings via the burgeoning motor trade there, back in 1950-62 but things went rather sour or at least downhill after that.
However, the times of high success brought wealth enough to the people to indulge themselves in culture as well as in clothes and cars and nightclubs. Think free houses for writers, dapper fashions, top-shelf blues and R&B .Detroit's the birthplace of “The Motown Sound" and Techno.