Super Bowl visitors call Detroit ‘beautiful,’ ‘progressive’

Excerpts from the article:

The Big Game gave Detroit advocates a weeklong platform to sell a message of a city poised for a comeback, bursting with amenities, nightlife and economic opportunity. For organizers, hosting the Super Bowl was as much about smashing the city's nagging reputation as a withering, crime-ridden city as it was about a football game.

Two hours into his first trip to Detroit, Scott Randall, 35, of Queens, N.Y., was ready to come back. The Steelers fan kicked, passed and ran his way through the booths at the NFL Experience on Saturday afternoon and said he's already committed to coming back for the NCAA Final Four in 2009.

"What I'm seeing so far is beautiful," Randall said.

Jeff Nelson of Boise, Idaho, saw beauty in Detroit's potential for economic recovery, despite the ongoing woes of the American automotive industry. He sees a kinship between Seattle and Detroit, and it wasn't just Saturday's rainy weather.

"(Detroit) is becoming more progressive, more high-tech," said Nelson, referring to the state's goal to broaden and diversify manufacturing roots.

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