Earlier this month, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing went door-to-door in his city's troubled east side, imploring locals to sign up for an annual Halloween campaign to guard against arson.

His plea was simple: take to your streets and watch out for troublemakers.

Though the yearly mobilization began in the mid-1980s as a community response to the rash of so-called Devils' Night arsons, this year, there has been a greater sense of urgency.

While many U.S. cities have been swamped by the foreclosure crisis, Detroit -- with its unemployment rate of about 27 per cent -- has been among the hardest hit.

In an urban landscape already pockmarked by abandoned buildings, an additional 40,000 homes have been abandoned by their owners over the past year alone, according to some estimates.

In many neighbourhoods, the number of abandoned homes now outnumbers occupied ones, leaving arsonists with thousands of more targets and the city with a massive task of patrolling an area spanning 370 square-kilometres.

"We are asking our angels to come out this weekend to prevent anything negative as it relates to our fine city," said Bing at a press conference. "We're going to fight this, and we're not going to take anything and lie down."

Bing also warned youths to stay off the streets as police enforce city-wide curfews. Still, early indications weren't encouraging.

Three weeks ago, about 11 homes suspiciously went up in flames within hours of each other in a neighbourhood considered to be a safe haven from the fires. Since then, there have been other suspicious fires across the city.

According to community organizer Steve Ogden, the foreclosures over the past year have weighed heavily on the city.

"That heightened everyone's awareness, because of the sheer amount and volume of the vacancy in the portfolio this year," he told CTV.ca over the phone from Detroit on Friday.

Adding to this year's concern were the recent budget cuts announced by mayor Bing, including a reduction of city services like public transit.

In tough times, Ogden said that "morale and volunteerism have a tendency to suffer."

Against the odds

As of last week, only 20,000 volunteers had signed up for Angels' Night, fewer than half of the number who patrolled the streets last year.

But Ogden said that despite the odds, the city and its supporters managed to turn the tide at the last minute.

"Thankfully, we rallied near the end and got the same amount of residents as last year."

The night previous, Ogden -- who runs a revitalization group called the Next Detroit Neighbourhood Initiative -- was among of 50,000 volunteers who walked city streets watching for fires.

"Thank God it was a boring night last night," he said.

At last count on Thursday night, Ogden said only about 28 homes were set ablaze, "which is a normal evening activity in Detroit."

According to numbers reported by The Associated Press, Devil's Night peaked in Detroit in 1984, when 810 homes went up in flames over the nights of Oct. 29, 30 and 31.

Responding to shocking images of flames lighting up the night sky, the city and community leaders fought back as thousands of volunteers began patrolling the worst neighbourhoods.

Last year, 136 fires were reported and 94 of them were labeled as suspicious. In 2007, those numbers were 142 and 111, respectively.

Ogden credits that decline to the efforts of officials and volunteers -- many of whom are former residents who travel into town just to help out.

"When it was called off at (last night) at 12:30 a.m., there were people who said 'I haven't missed one of these in 16 years.'"

Getting suburban Detroiters to co-operate has also addressed allegations that absentee landlords were using the night to rid themselves of unwanted properties in the inner city, Ogden said.

"It has turned from something very ugly into a show of support for the city."

The aftermath

With the falling fortunes of the Big Three automakers over the past year, much ado has been made about Detroit's problems.

But the city's issues began much earlier. In 1950, nearly 2 million people called the city home. These days, the number has shrunk to less than 900,000.

According to local worker Luther Keith, he's been swarmed by reporters from all corners of the globe, all of them inquiring about the city's poverty, high unemployment and urban blight.

"TIME magazine is here, reporters from Paris, Tokyo, Canada," said Keith, who runs a non-profit coalition of community groups called Arise Detroit.

"It's like a deathwatch for Detroit."

But he says that those reports simply scratch the surface and concentrate on the city's negative aspects.

"Don't judge everything by just rolling down the streets," he told CTV.ca.

"Hundreds of thousands of people have not and will not give up ... they are working furiously, all they need is some help."