Ouch! Detroit skewered with sylabic style.

Today, Detroit is ground zero of America's economic meltdown, its motor industries bankrupt and its housing market worthless. Entire streets in Warren, the bleak suburb where Eminem grew up, can be brought and sold for less than a family car. Hotels, shops and even bars on 8 Mile, the road that gave its name to the semi-autobiographical film Eminem made, have bars protecting their workforce from feral locals. Across great swathes of the city, the only surviving industries involve prostitution and drugs.

Visitors are warned not to venture out of doors after dark – though the bitterly cold Michigan winter hardly encourages such adventure, particularly now that the state has run out of money to grit or snowplough its roads. Last week, the corpse of a homeless man was discovered encased entirely in a block of ice in the basement of a city-centre skyscraper. No one knew how long he'd been there.