Located in Detroit, the neighborhoods of Paradise Valley and Black Bottom emerged in the 1920s as a thriving business and entertainment district. It hosted more than 300 black-owned businesses ranging from drugstores and beauty salons, to nightclubs and theaters. For decades these districts served the adjacent and densely-populated Africa-American community in Detroit as well as the near east-side neighborhoods. The citizens of these two districts generated intersecting cultural lives informed by multiple histories. Their neighborhood was vibrant, optimistic, and hopeful. But the changing political landscape and a disdain of the city’s mayor for slums, along with a federal mandate to construct highways in our urban cores, skewed the future for these districts in irreparable ways. These economic and political shifts eradicated vibrant and self-sufficient neighborhoods supplanting them with modern housing (Lafayette Park, for example) and new freeways (Interstate-75). Today, and with the assistance of a progressive city government, a new vision for these existing neighborhoods is being implemented under the leadership of the Paradise Valley Conservancy. Envisioned as a design-forward district featuring world-class restaurants, lounges, and unique cultural programming, Paradise Valley looks back at what once was and builds on this legacy to inspire generations to come.