Part of the appeal of AirBnB was to live like a local. But if all the neighbors are other tourists than what makes it any more unique than any other resort full of tourists?
You would be hard pressed to find any decent apartment within a mile of downtown for less than 1k/mo. Many nice apartments in downtown go for $2k - $3k. I personally would love to live downtown and many of my peers share the sentiment, there just needs to be a larger supply of apartments on the market.
Do I want to live four miles away from Detroit in a run down neighborhood? Not particularly- if I'm already getting into my car to drive to work, why not go a few more miles away into any one of the nice suburbs that surround Detroit?
It's hard to analyse such things without actual numbers. But it seems slightly icky to always go for the "Your're Detroit! You can't afford the luxury of zoning/safety regulations/firefighters/...".