The plan requires strict oversight of the city’s finances in the years ahead by a commission that includes representatives of the state.

Detroit’s price tag for lawyers, experts and other costs of the bankruptcy proceedings was $150 million. But the city’s departure from bankruptcy does not mean an end to its challenges. While the court plan permits the city to free up additional money to make desperately needed improvements, it does not ensure that the city will not fall into financial distress once more, or that it will attract businesses that create jobs, or that it can lure enough new residents to end a decades-long population decline.

“We are starting this journey, not ending it,” said James E. Spiotto, a bankruptcy lawyer and expert on municipal bankruptcy. “Bankruptcy is just debt adjustment, but that’s not a solution,” he said. “What you really need is the recovery plan. We can’t lose sight of that. We won’t know for five, 10, 15 years whether Detroit has solved its systematic problem.”

To help him evaluate the city’s prospects, Judge Rhodes hired his own fiscal-policy expert to decide whether the plan of adjustment was feasible, part of what is required for an exit plan to be approved. The expert, Martha E. M. Kopacz of Phoenix Management Services, said her research showed that the plan was feasible and that city officials were enthusiastic about making it work. But there were considerable risks, she said, and the speed of the bankruptcy proceedings had left Detroit with little margin for error.