How Bad Is Crime in Detroit?

MLive.com is reporting that the Rev. Jesse Jackson on a visit to Detroit to motivate and inspire the students and parents of Detroit City Schools had the Cadillac Escalade he was using, stolen, and the "rims" ripped off.  According to the report at MLive, one of Mayor Bing's "security vehicles" suffered a similar fate.

Thirty years ago I visited a college friend who had moved to a beautiful older neighborhood of Detroit.   I was struck by the plexiglas-encasement of EVERYTHING in a convenience store two blocks from his apartment. I had not seen anything like this before.  Bear in mind, I was coming from an equally-large urban American city.  Is this problem simply intractable?