Detroit's problem wasn't that it was "vacuum cleaned" by freeways...
...but that it was the Petri dish of Progressive policies that ultimately drove business, then the middle class out after the politicians had sucked all the life out of the golden goose. The freeways just made it easier to leave.
In the urban area I live in, one can see countless square miles of abandoned commercial & industrial properties sitting idle for no other reason that few businesses wish to operate in the city jurisdiction because of the high taxes, overt corruption and racial politics that subvert nearly everything. Cities are usually considered the center of corporate power. Here, the highest concentration of corporate headquarters in the state is literally just outside the city limits.
