The view from above
What watches your block
Walk down a Detroit street and you move through layers of watching — most of them invisible, most of them feeding the same room. Here is the system, plainly, and the part that's harder to say out loud: it doesn't watch everyone the same.
We don't publish exact camera addresses — for privacy and because the city's own list shifts. What we can show is the system and, from independent mapping, where it concentrates.
The layers
One street, many eyes
Project Green Light cameras
High-definition cameras at stores, gas stations, apartments, and parks that livestream to police — the oldest and largest layer.
License-plate readers
Automated readers logging plate, time, and location across the city — about 262 of them made by Flock — on a contract through 2029.
DataWorks Plus facial recognition
Software that can run a face against camera images. Tied to three wrongful arrests; limited — not banned — by the 2024 settlement.
The Real-Time Crime Center
The hub where it converges: Green Light, plate readers, a camera-equipped surveillance van (2024), freeway readers, and newer bus cameras all feed one room.
Police drones
Not yet approved. Detroit has described first-responder drones as “on the road map” for 2026 — the next layer, still up for public debate.
Not everyone is watched the same
Where the system points
A camera on every corner would at least be equal. The reality documented again and again is that this kind of watching falls hardest on Black and brown neighborhoods — which is why where the cameras go is as much the question as whether they work.
Of 69 facial-recognition searches DPD ran in 2021, 68 were of Black people. The technology isn't pointed evenly.
DPD 2021 reports via ACLU of Michigan ↗Detroit is 77% Black, and independent mapping finds Green Light cameras densest in its predominantly Black neighborhoods.
U.S. Census; independent camera mapping ↗Mapping 25,500+ NYC cameras, Amnesty found the higher the share of non-white residents, the higher the camera concentration — a pattern researchers see widely.
Amnesty International (2022) ↗You can't opt out of a street. The least a city owes its people is to decide — in the open — what gets to watch them, and where.
Show up when it counts
Decisions get made in rooms.
We'll tell you which room, and when.
The most powerful thing a resident can do is be present before the vote. Subscribe and we'll email you ahead of every City Council session, Police Commissioners meeting, and public hearing that shapes our city.