Yes it was.

RoboCop, Dallas - The only time Detroit ever appears in the film is the opening aerial shot. Downtown Dallas was enjoying a modern skyscraper building boom at the time of the filming. To Paul Verhoeven, it was a natural incarnation of "New Detroit" being under construction. Dallasites be warned... Before you start thinking "our city is better than your city," Verhoeven was also convinced that the worst parts of Dallas could pass for the worst parts of Detroit. The movie needed that contrast of crack house and luxury high rise. Anyone who has seen the Dallas skyline from Fair Park or Oak Cliff knows what I am talking about.

RoboCop 2, Houston - Houston looked like a completed "New Detroit," plain and simple. Houston has a core of modern steel and glass high rises set against a sprawl of heavy industry. Again, the ghetto element could pass for Detroit's.

RoboCop 3, Atlanta - "New Detroit" no longer has that new car smell. Atlanta's skyscrapers provided a slightly older (but still modern) look, and its neighborhoods are more historic. Finally, anyone who has seen more than one episode of Cops knows that Atlanta's ghetto element can hold its own.

 

Something else to consider with these cities, taken directly from the 2000 Census...

Rank - Metropolitan Statistical Area - 2000 Pop. - 1990 Pop.

5 - Dallas/Fort Worth/Arlington, TX - 5,161,544 - 3,989,294
8 - Houston/Baytown/Sugarland, TX - 4,715,407 - 3,767,335
9 - Detroit/Warren/Livonia, MI - 4,452,557 - 4,248,699
11 - Atlanta/Sandy Springs/Marietta, GA - 4,247,981 - 3,069,425

Very interesting.

 

Finally, one more thing worth noting...

Detroit

See the modern skyscraper to the right? That's Renaissance Center.

Atlanta

See the modern skyscraper in the middle? That's Peachtree Plaza.

Let's take a closer look at these two buildings...

Detroit's Renaissance Center

Atlanta's Peachtree Plaza

Look a lot alike, don't they? Well they should. They were both designed by the same architect, Mr. John Portman.

This is not a terribly uncommon phenomenon. Observe...

Thanksgiving Tower in Dallas, TX

IDS Center in Minneapolis, MN

 

Well done...

 

Hahah, you can see the building I work at in that ATL picture!!

 

i heard this on drew and mike today and almost crap'd myself with excitement

 

soooo...detroit, wow, big deal? it could be on the moon next time  

 

Detroit may not seem like much in Norway, but here...

...it's paradise.

 

I thought it was funny.....................................hey man it's Detroit..........duh!

 

I think it is so funny how everyone's impression of Detroit is what they see on TV. If you have never lived here, then you don't know anything. I lived in Detroit for 26 years and never saw any of the typical stuff people think of when you say Detroit. Like alomost any other city it has it's good and it's bad.

 

Folks:

I rode Amtrak from Toledo to Detroit about a year before the station closed. At that time, it was very old and dusty but still in decent shape. I remember all too well those great vaulted ceilings and fantastically big wooden benches you can see in this old postcard:

http://www.forgottendetroit.com/mcs/hist-02.htm

What a sad sight the place is now, left to rot and be ruined by transients and vandals that are nothing better than paint-pissing dogs, caring only to leave their mark. Why is it that we can't have such grand and beautiful public spaces any more? The train stations of yesterday were grander than the cathedrals we build today.

 

Agreed. Taller skyscrapers may have been built since, but are any of them really more beautifully intricate than the Chrysler Building? Not saying all architecture in the modern era is crap, but for a great deal of it the bottom line chokes any beauty. If I see one more big box (Wal-Mart, Home Depot, et al.) be abandoned and later turned into an evangelical, non-denominational "Bible Church," well... I am just losing my faith in imaginative and sustainable development.

 

I guess since there is no need for a cotton picking georgia slave scene..