They are looking to start a large project in a neighborhood and I was hoping to do a little bit of demographic research for them.Are there any reliable demographic sites?

Straight up wholesale deals have always been and remain over 90% of my business.National statistics show that over 30% of homeowners do not have ANY mortgage on their property, and they remain the best demographic for getting wholesale deals.

Or if you just want to sell it, you can market to the specific demographic who would want a 2/1 - retired couple or singles.

In fact, I hear KC and Indianapolis are extremely similar cities in feel, demographics, layout, etc.

Chicago's demographics are changing.  

I neither agree nor disagree with your findings because I'm neither a demographer nor an economist, but I do see a lot of the usual suspects on your top ten list (although Detroit was a surprise but understandable).  

Are the demographics good?

@Tom Ott  the old rust belt cities have such huge swaths of demographic shifts with erosions of values to the point the homes cost 1/4 of what they would cost to rebuild .. these areas have turned into the land of the turn key operator or landlord rental area.. and as such the values are more commercial in nature IE they will never really move unless rents move... as long as rents are stable ( which in my 20 years of working in those markets they have)  Investors just back into what they will pay for a given cash flow.. the property is just a vessel if you will.. since there are more homes than butts to put into them in many of these areas.. like Detroit you could bull doze 30k homes and still have left over housing for the population.Down town resurgence is happening in virtually every big city as the millinial buyer and older folks as well are tired of commuting and want a different life style.. and developers are filling that niche.I know in Portlandia its very true. 

The owner of a 6-10 units building is not the same demographic as the owner of the 100 units property.

google earth pro is a resource I use in larger MSA's for demographics, traffic, parcel info ect.; they recently made this free to everyone.