This is such a great project/post thanks for doing this.
Out of curiosity, when you react to articles like this, do you send the columnist a link to YOUR article? Do you send them to anyone?
LOVE your writing, btw. I come here daily, to see what is really happening in my home state.
Your photo is an amazing view of the sad state of affairs in the grand ol' city of Detroit. I always stand up for the ol' girl when I hear outstaters badmouth my hometown. I hope that the city will recover, but I know it won't happen quickly or easily.
Thank you for your wonderful writing and photography.
I think this is fantastic in a very tragic, unfortunate way.
Wow! That is incredible. We hear about the crisis but never see it in full swing.
Beautiful and heartbreaking. I think of the people who lived there, the people that could live there, the resources wasted in those crumbling homes. Thank you for sharing these with us, it gives those of us who are not in cities like Detroit a window into what is happening.
Those beautiful old Craftsman bungalows go for upwards of $700,000 in Seattle. I wish they'd just knock it all down and take it back to grasslands. But that seems to be happening naturally anyway. Sigh.
completely heartbreaking.
thank you so much for doing this.
As always, poignant.
I visited a friend in the Detroit 'burbs over the weekend and we headed into the city to see the Motown museum and to look at the architecture.
Wow. I echo bensmom's sentiment... the beauty and the waste. I remember seeing this in Gary, IN, as a child visiting my grandparents, living in this on Chicago's southside prior to Chicago's renaissance in the '90's. Now, I live this in Cleveland, but not on such a grand scale, and we watch daily as houses are boarded up and/or demolished around us.
What I found so striking about Detroit's housing stock, similar to Gary's, is that these are not the wooden shacks atop one another that predominate Cleveland. These are substantial houses, on good-sized lots, many made of brick, and, up to recently, loved in some manner. The architectural loss is staggering, not just of the houses but of the civic buildings (a boarded up library with the most lovely entry I've ever seen).
I have more understanding of your passion, Dutch. Thank you for your work.
whoa. just whoa.
This photography and "stitching" as you call it is amazing. It needed to be seen! I come from a happy little suburb in CA and rarely see anything like this but in the movies. I was visiting my friend in Baltimore once a few years back, and was surprised to see blocks of abandoned homes. I couldn't believe the City wasn't able to do something productive with all that land, where in this day and age, land and life is so precious.
This is such a shame. The homes on the street are wonderful. The street sorta reminds me of where I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio - small modest homes that I imagine at some point were filled with children and happy families. Why is it there are so many burned homes?
it is important to remember that in detroit the shock value of abandoned land and homes is but a proxy for what is truly shocking: the abandonment of an entire class of people living in poverty, ignored and forgotten in cities like this all over the "wealthiest nation in the world."
I struggle with it because the people are my favorite part of Detroit: even among beautiful ruins the people are where the true beauty of this city lies. but photographing people feels so exploitative, especially for this kind of consumption. yesterday the kids and I spent the afternoon talking to a woman who lives out on the "urban prairie" keeping up her intricately-decorated old house alone on its block. She was amazing. After I worked up the nerve to ask if I could take her picture in front of her home, she said not when her hair wasn't done right. I respected that.
photos like this tell only one part of a city's story.
sadly, sometimes it's easier to reach the heartstrings using proxies like buildings, houses, books, and dogs. . .when considering one's fellow human beings, there is often a disconnect when it comes to sympathy.
Remember that classic "Seinfeld" episode where Kramer found himself in deep downtown Manhattan at the corner of First Avenue and First Street and he screamed, "I'm at the nexus of the universe!"
If only what you documented here could be that entertaining. Instead, it's just terribly depressing.
well, the center of the universe is naturally going to look different from the omphalos of the new depression.
I will not be able to shake the sheer magnitude of houses pictured here for a long time. I live in an area with many empty and foreclosed properties.
Six years ago, my husband and I were young pioneers, moving into a quiet condo complex where mostly retired, older whites had lived for two decades. In just five years over half of them would sell to other young families and low-income immigrants for three-times the cost of their original mortgages.
And now, the overwhelming majority of those loans have defaulted or already foreclosed. Our neighborhood is riddled with empty units. Our HOA is deeply underfunded. Maintenance and repairs are starting to be delayed. Our home value has been reduced by about 45%. In just 6 years. People who bought in 2005 have lost much more.
All that to say, I look at the block and i see our future. I see blocks like that erupting all over the country. This is the block my grandmother lived on until her death a few years, ago: http://tinyurl.com/cxb4oe (use street view and scroll around). It's a south side Chicago neighborhood that has long been poor and crime-filled. But their used to be houses everywhere. And people lived here. I don't know where they've all gone, but prairie is starting to emerge.
I see this and think, among everything else, how exhausting and how perilous it must be to be a firefighter in Detroit.
That post and the image give me chills. The singularity. That would be a good band name, too.
Thank you again for your observations and sharing. I love Detroit and wish I could 'heal' it.
amen to your comment. its not the homes but the people.
I live in a suburb on the east side of Detroit and occasionally take side streets home. I'm always struck by the vast expanses reverted to nature. And most of the homes left standing are burnt out. (I know you've written/photographed a lot about this area). I think about how the land could be used and what it must be like to be one of the few still living there. I didn't realize there were streets like that right off of Woodward by Palmer Woods.
I heard this story on the radio the other day and thought about your blog and all the open spaces in Detroit.
http://www.publicbroadcasting.ne...7&
sectionID=756
You say, "Click on this image below..." Okay, I did that. Now what? You're right that proxies stir sympathies. Now that you've stirred them, help us direct them. Help us do something for Detroit. Tell us what we can do. You're in the thick of it. I expect you should know.
Wow. That just blows my mind. Your photo makes it very real.
terribly sad. and very imposing in a way. this makes me count my blessings.
so haunting. What can we do? I am so tired of feeling helpless.
Thanks for posting. It's good to see what's really going on in other cities right now. I live in Las Vegas and we are supposedly at the top of the list of abandoned cities right now. Hopefully I don't start seeing neighborhoods get like this here. Seeing your photos makes me grateful for what I have. Thanks!
I'm a fan, of your writing and your photography. I bought one of your prints, the one of the abandoned book warehouse. My heart bled for all of those books, just left to deteriorate on the floor of that building.
And then I saw this.
This portrait of a single street in Detroit - it makes me unable to breathe, when I think of what has been lost: yes, people, and architecture, and a neighborhood. But a piece of all of us is gone, too, burned to the ground, or left to rot alone.
We need to help in some way.
We just do.
thanks for sharing a glimpse of something i've only seen once in my life (houston). i'm from southern california but have been away for long enough that i haven't seen the effects of foreclosures on the built environment.
i am sheltered from so much of this--cambridge (ma) is more or less unaffected...
What can be done? Well, honestly, people need to move to Detroit. It doesn't all look like this, although obviously parts do. It's a huge city, though. And an exciting one.
Clearly not everyone can move to Detroit, but I have a great deal of frustration with people locally who talk about how badly they want Detroit to "come back" but won't be a part of the solution. "I'll move in when it gets better." Well, it won't get better until people move in. Everyone seems to waiting for someone else to fix the problem. Which is a CLASSIC SE Michigan attitude.
That is much more frustrating to me than seeing another street of burned out abandoned houses (which from an aesthetic point of view deserved to be burned down anyway).
Everyone else, what can you do? How about considering an American car the next time you look for a vehicle. That'd help too.
I live near this area, and coming back from the bank I took a different side street home, and saw a similar view. It was the first time I realized what an apocalyptic-looking city I'm living in. Thanks for capturing this.
Ain't no amount of "buy American" is gonna fix this.
It looks like that where I live, too. Where I live we also have 10 acre subdivided lots with streets, plumbing and electricity but just one built house -- the rest are empty, weedy lots. Previously the land was forest or a ranch.
I'm surprised more people didn't comment "it looks like that near me, too." Las Vegas, half of California, half of Florida -- doesn't it look like that most everywhere?
This is probably large swathes of Riverside County right now, except take away brick homes and imagine flimsier McMansions. I have a friend living in the midst of this near Lancaster, CA.
I think I've probably pimped it out to you before but everytime I see your pictures I think of Alan Weisman's original essay (I think it was in Nature??) and his new book on the theme of what happens to manmade edifi post-abandonment.
Long time reader, first time commenter: I grew up outside of Detroit and, later, Grand Rapids. Sadly, I don't live in Michigan anymore, but continue to believe it's an amazing place and Detroit is a great city.
Your photo was incredible. Sad. Terrifying. Gut wrenching. It truly moved me. My mom grew up on Fordham in Detroit. We did a GoogleEarth search for it one day and her childhood home is gone; the footprint of a former life the only thing visible from space. I just can't get my arms around it.
Thanks for a great post, as always.
I can imagine this neighborhood's past life: children riding their bikes on the sidewalk, people sitting on porches keeping an eye on things and catching up with one another. Seeing it all be left to die a slow death - the neighborhood and the houses in it - is just too sad. Part of me wants to cheer for the people still living on this street - whether it's by choice or by circumstance. The other part of me, though, knows that it's only a matter of time before they, too, leave ... and wonders how someone goes about trying to make a dying neighborhood like this breathe once again.
I can't help but look at those pictures and think of a grander time when people used to spend time out in their yards. Or greet their spouses on the porch when they come home from work. Or stand out on the street at the end of the day chatting with the neighbors while kids and dogs frolicked in the yards. I am sad for those times that have long passed.
Very nice, Jim. We have some friends who are trying to buy up some vacant lots on the east side, so we took a drive through that neighborhood the other day. My husband's dream is to live on the urban prairie, so it's tempting to get involved.
Also, I love the photo of the kids in front of the graffiti on the side of Avalon. My husband took at picture of that same naked man last week, and wanted me and the baby to pose with him. Creepy indeed.
Yes Yes Yes, Thank you for this Jim, this is great.
I was scrolling through the photo when my four year old came into the room. I've been looking at houses in Virginia online for about a month now, in preparation for an upcoming move, so my son is used to me looking at pictures of homes and asking his opinion.
As I moved from left to right through the set he said "Not that one, it's too crooked. You'd get dizzy living in a house like that. There! That one is good. We just need to clean off the grafitti."
That we all could be so optimistic.
Your pictures of the abandoned houses reminded me of the houses in New Orleans that people deserted and have not come back to rebuild since Katrina. So many forgotten people. Thank you for your pictures and writing.
I'm in my mid 20s and all my friends are having babies and buying houses, and posting pictures of their new babies and houses online. Most of their houses are the twins of these, except they're a few states over in St. Paul, MN. Across the country in Seattle, WA I couldn't afford a house of the same age and size. But now that employment is nearing double-digits here, I wonder what will happen in the next few years. It's easy to feel sorry for myself (I just graduated with a masters in museology, the least practical degree EVER), but every day I see something that reminds me to get over myself and think of everyone else.
When I read the statistic that Detroit loses the equivalent of one family every 12 minutes, I thought of you, this blog, your photos.
I think about the people who are still living there, and whether they can still get help from police, fire, trash pickup. Without that property tax base, how does the city keep going?
damn, that's insane.
so one day it will be like "the neighborhood that surrounds Jane Cooper School" ... just that: area.
I have no ties to Detroit or Michigan. Yet, I am strangely drawn to your site.
Looking at your pictures, I begin to think - we need a modern homesteading act. I know there's no public transit in these neighborhoods and I know there are so many obstacles. But it looks to me like we have homeless and we have homes. Granted not all homes are habitable. But surely there's a middle ground?
Another thought: Not too many years ago -- maybe two or three or four -- the mortgage industry was making loans on these places. It's not uncommon to find standing-burnt places for sale for $1, that last sold for $65,000 in 2006.
it's so surreal to me, because nyc is the monster that does not stop growing, ever, even in this economy. construction may slow down or change (two and three family units instead of the mcmansion, now) but never, never, do you see this type of urban prairie here. it's incredible.
jim, you've touched on this before, and i commend you for it- it is so much easier to feel sad over an abandoned home or school or movie theater that clearly show their bones and architectural magnificence as they slowly decay into the earth.
but what of the community that slowly decayed before the buildings were abandoned? unlike katrina (although what has happened to that community is a tragedy to be sure, albeit different) this doesn't seem to me to have been overnight- slowly, detroit has been abandoned, house after house, block after block, neighborhood after neighborhood. what of those people? did the original owners die or move out to the burbs and were the new owners commercial landlords (i.e. did it turn rental? what is the percentage of rent/own in detroit for single family homes?) or people that were on the margins financially and never had a chance to support a mortgage? or were they working class families that suffered the crushing collapse of the detroit economy and lost their jobs, then their homes, etc?
and what of the increase in the poverty rate in this country? why is it so easy to feel sad about an abandoned house but not an abandoned person/family/community- because they are poor? not born here? a different color? unfortunately, i think this will keep on happening- until we can be as outraged over the people who lived and worked and breathed in these places being abandoned by us- all of us- as we are about the buildings themselves. as much as i love to try and save things and places, what the fuck are we doing to save the people that are disappearing as well?
I clicked on this expecting to see shacks, but these are decent homes - homes that many families would be proud to live in. It baffles me that they are just sitting there rotting away.
Wow. Wow. Thanks for making this record.
The article you linked is sad and scary, but not completely surprising. Newly and quickly emptied blocks can be some of the most turbulent vacant spaces out there (versus places that have been abandoned for a long time). There are still a lot of pillage-able resources left, and the number of eyes left to guard them is dwindling rapidly. Control of the space is up for grabs. The only actually "bad" block I ever lived on had this kind of dynamic going on. But it sounds like you didn't have any weird-enough-to-mention experiences while taking these photos, and that's something.
My pals and I stopped to photograph the porch of a vacant Detroit house this morning, and the neighbor drove up to us, asking with desperation-level hope: "Did you buy that house?"
The tire dumping just baffles me...everytime I see the piles, I still don't get it.
btw, to everyone looking for answers on how to solve the problem that is Detroit, there aren't any. The city's too big and too abandoned for any one answer to work. The only solution I can think of is to try and reclaim it one area at a time, and then branch out from there. Oh, and I love the 'return to nature/farmland' approach...it's the only city I can think of where it might actually work.
Why are so many of the houses burnt?
The houses are burned by arsonists for the usual reasons, but also, sometimes, by the neighbors, usually to drive out undesirable parties -- squatters and drug dealers.
I wish I could talk to the people who are still living on that street. People who are keeping their yards tidy and making repairs on their home while next door is a burned-out, crumbling structure that's been abandoned to the elements. What keeps them there? Why do they stay? What do they want the city to do?
I did talk to one lady. I said what a shame it was that all the houses were empty but complimented her on her house. She asked me if I wanted to buy it.
Wow - it is very haunting. I went to NOLA on business about 5 months after Katrina and started heading out Magazine Street to go to the shops - no cabs were coming on the bigger roads - I cut back on a sidestreet and everything was boarded up and closed - I became frightened. Are you ever anxious when you are in some of those areas?
the subject is very sad... but as usual your photography gives the subject a beauty.
Love your site!
~ Mia
First, that's a really cool effect.
Second, one of the funny things when we lived in Central America was how shocked they were when we told them we got our TV out of the garbage. At one point, all our furniture and appliances and most everything we owned was trash picked. (We live in a very good trash picking area.) I just can't help thinking how people there and other places in South American where we were would completely freak out to discover that there are all these beautiful empty houses all over the place. You know, in 2 seconds, every single one of them could move here and fix up all those houses in a second. They'd grow corn in the backyard. It'd be lovely and lively. For some of them, walls are a big deal. In one place, some people have a kind of roof and no walls and some people actually just have kind of these elevated boards they sleep on. Cinderblock is a huge deal--like having a McMansion. Only the one rich guy in town has cinderblock.
There's no deep point here. Just that the world is such a weird place.
Have you heard of the work Majora Carter has done in the Bronx? I can't help but see similarities in your passions with Detroit. Had to ask...
I already commented but I really think I have to highlight this point you made:
Sadly, sometimes it's easier to reach the heartstrings using proxies like buildings, houses, books, and dogs. . .when considering one's fellow human beings, there is often a disconnect when it comes to sympathy.
There are just vast, vast things to say about that, if it is true. I do not think it is necessarily true in all cases. But it says something so troubling to me about this country. We've already been taught to discount the suffering of people (certain *kinds* of people?) so we have to think about the abandoned houses instead to see or care about what has happened to this place.
But I shouldn't have said anything because I really am so curious about this statement and what other people think about it. Is it true? Why is it true? I am going to be pondering this claim for awhile because there is so much to it and I'm sure I cannot come up with some pat answer.
Yesterday I met a young family desperately looking for a place where they could afford to live in the San Francisco Bay Area. To see these once sweet little houses falling into rubble seems almost criminal.
Thanks for documenting this.
I was born in Detroit but only lived there until I was eight. Even so, I still have relatives living in the city, so I get back there from time to time. It is always depressing. The city where my mother and father both grew up has become a symbol for our nation's economic crisis, and all of their memories have been buried beneath the decaying buildings. So sad.
I just wonder where everyone goes...
Why do so many commenters here think that outsiders caused Detroit's problems? This is a problem 50 years in the making, caused by one bad decision after another by the people in charge, which led to other people making the quite rational decision to get out. Look at the corruption in city government, the brazen behavior that goes on and is rewarded when the same thugs continue to be re-elected.
that's the typical defensive thinking that needs to change if the region ever has any hope of doing the same.
This is so overwhelmingly sad (and I, too, wonder about the owners' stories...why they left). All of those great little Craftsman homes. In Austin their twins run for a quarter million. We've been so fortunate so far. Keep up the great work raising awareness of this through your blog.
you should try stitching these with photosynth (www.photosynth.com and then post a link to the photosynth that you created. It will be worth it.
I know so many others here feel that this is a "tragedy" and that the visceral imagery and the symbolism of "the American Dream" literally burnt out and falling apart is rather depressing, but here's the harsh truth.
Detroit is nothing less than the first of what will be many lost suburbs as we adapt to the post-peak oil world. You can't have hundreds of detached single family homes miles from where people work without an expensive mass transit system, and you can't expect a city to be based on a single-industry economy.
The fact that these houses were abandoned means that their owners are on the leading edge of the move to other cities and places that have a more diverse economic base, more job opportunities (even if they aren't as well paying as a line worker at an assembly plant). Cities have died in the past, and new cities will emerge, it's always been like this.
Detroit was nothing less than an analog of the entire American Experience of the last 50 years - the good and the bad - from the astonishing power of the Big Three carmakers to crippling racism to the pigheaded and short sighted designers and buyers of gas-guzzling vehicles.
The optimal solution here is to invest 500 million dollars to bulldoze the entire lot of these houses, rip up the roads and let it go back to nature in the form of a vast, dirt covered mound of the remains of an idea that failed.
I just bought all those houses for $700!
Where did all the people go that lived there? Did they just leave the city entirely or are they living in apartments somewhere else in the city?
Shocking pictures! But this is only the beginning. Within a few years this entire country will look like (and live like) Eastern Europe when it was behind the iron curtain in the 50's and 60's.
Some of us are old enough to remember having pity on those poor people living under the brutalizing weight of planned economies.
Centralizing power in Washington DC, will certainly eliminate inequality, but in doing so, it will make everyone destitute.
Our poor children. Land of the free? The US has the highest incarceration rate of ANY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD.
This sucks! The one glimmer of hope I see is the recent spate of tea parties.
Your photos have driven me to despair.
I heard you on public radio talk about the abandoned buildings in Detroit. I had to check out your website and see for myself. The big, old, empty commercial buildings and houses were expected, what I didn't expect to see was so much open space.I'm from MN, outside the Twin Cities metro, in a mostly rural area. The open land with the 1 house standing could be an old farmsite here. Near my town, people buy them so they can live in the country. Go farther out, some do sit empty. What you really see abandoned here is barns. The big, red, wood ones most people picture. The small dairy farmers have gone out of business and they are too outdated for the larger ones. It's sad to see that way of life disappear, just as it is to see Detroit disappear.
Amazing and very well done. This is a testament to how much work has yet to be done. We don't need despair. We don't need prayers. We need action. And I think that begins at the grassroots level (and also at the economic stimulus level for the states).
Eva G. I have 2 questions:
1.) What kind of action do you propose at the grassroots level?
2.) Economic stimulus for the states? What does that mean?
Those in power would like nothing more than to make us ALL wards of the state.
I look forward to reading your reply.
Thanks,
Mark
Great series of pics, it's incredible to see. I'm from a Canadian city where we don't have this level of issue with abandonded housing.
You're photos are an amazing glimpse into the truth of both Detroit, and the rest of our country. Unfortunately, it's going to get worse, before it gets better.
I did not realize that these photos were of detroit when I first clicked on them. I said to myself, "these look like Detroit".. Though I don't travel to Detroit often, I'm only about 20 minutes away and some of our suburban streets share similar signs of a broken economy. Though many of the houses near my home are still in tact and in great shape, foreclosure signs sit waiting patiently where happy families once saw their children grow, and move on. Many of these once beautiful homes are worth not even half of what the family paid for them. Most of them lack normal ammenities such as toilets, light fixtures, cupboards, walls and windows (many who lost their homes to foreclosure took whatever they could with them).It's terribly depressing, but it's truth..
If we were to take back all the foreign vehicles sold in the past year and replace them with American made vehicles, I fear it still wouldn't be enough.. Our problems go much deeper than our automobiles.
I saw your photos tonight at a live show of NPR's Planet Money--breathtaking and depressing at the same time. And as others have mentioned, I can see the past lives of residents on these sagging porches.
Many of the abandoned and burned houses in the city have been that way since the 68 riots. It's not something that just happened and is a direct result of this recession. I often worked in Det in the late 70's and early 80's and there were tons of neighborhoods like this. People leave due to the crime just as much as the economy. Saw a recent news story of people buying up houses like these and rebuilding new neighborhoods that will be green. 5 yr project. $500-$2000 per house.
This is some great work. I wonder though- look how nice those houses are, look how nice the area is- what made all of those people just leave? What happened to their jobs? Their kids in school? Their family and friends and neighbors? What is the most sad about this is that this picture shows the destruction of dreams, hopes, and wealth. What happened to do that???
I was greatly moved... not by the devestation but by the people who have stayed. Neat little house, carefully planted; bars on the windows and security alarms. One with a Caddy in the drive, another aSaturn...
Who are they? What is the story they have to tell?
Dave
Nice pano. Sadly there is no way to "heal" Detroit. You just have to kill about 90% of the scum who live there and then bulldoze it. Robocop was right.
Like others, the devastation is something that will stick with me quite a while, but it's the people who have decided to stay that intrigue me.
Yes, we are all tribal in our own ways, dedicated to where we live, who we hang out with, etc. But those who have decided to stay in these neighborhoods must have some amazing stories to tell as to why. What makes it so special that they're willing to stay put.
I've never been to Detroit, don't know anyone from there, and don't like their sports teams that much ...
but I really, truly, honestly hope the city gets back on its feet. The people, the homes, the businesses, even the Lions.
They've earned it.
Detroit is an interesting creature.
I agree with so much of this article and the comments I'm seeing, since many of my visits to the area leave me wanting to sit down and cry, the neglect and wanton destruction can be that bad.
However, there's another side of Detroit that's easy to lose in the details. Sure, I can make dozens of panoramas almost exactly like this one on other streets. However, I can also make similar panoramas of Detroit that show decent neighborhoods with similar bungalows, with well-kept lawns and maintained houses. Sure, maybe a bit rough around the edges, but good, decent houses in decent neighborhoods. Not everyone has given up. Not by a long shot.
Don't just take my word for it. Go look at Google:
http://maps.google.com/maps?
hl=e...6204581195,,0,5
My girlfriend is a Detroit native, and this was her neighborhood growing up. Some people still care, and I'd never want to see those people and their neighborhoods written off. It's easy to say comments about "bulldoze it", as long as it's not your house, your neighborhood, and your city that's being talked about.
you made a simple mistake with knitting these together... try tilting the camera slightly and then let the just overlay the photos be what they are... this kind of overlay adds to the effect... to smooth it out take more photos, say 3 per house and one in-between... but I actually like the overlaying photos look... never try to hide the seams 
how I feel about your work? LOVE IT... the above is just because what you said about "ignore the stitching"... as if it's poor work and your embarrassed... LOL
TO Bulldoze is to waste. In nature there is no waste.
All of this is recyclable.
The arson sucks although I can't say it wouldn't be fun to throw some gas and a light!
Bulldozing a house creates two jobs for a day. Deconstructing those same house takes a team of 7 a week. That is job creation. That feeds social capital. Do you see what I am saying. Detroit is far from market places for used building material but keep in mind a cleaned recycled brick goes for $0.50. Economies and grants would exist to train workers to deconstruct these houses. Then on the cleaned lots a hardwood forest or gardens could grow. Detroit could be a model of urban forestr and agronomy.
What do you say to a broken populace? O yea become a hippie and everything will be groovy? Do people care when they can get foodstamps?
I ramble. No easy solutions here but I feel like deconstruction solves some issues.
Thanks for posting pics. What is happening to the Detroit Grand Central Train station. IF they demolish that it will be a huge waste of a resource.
Truly a sad state of affairs for what was once a great industrial city. The auto industry in general has become so utterly corrupt right along with the government in Detroit and Michigan in general that, sadly the result that you have shown was inevitable. I will never condemn the city of Detroit; however, I will condemn the foolish people who kept electing the same "tax them into the ground" politicians that made this tragedy possible.
From an overseas perspective, this has to be one of the saddest sights - a once proud and mighty nation losing its heritage and status. Surely you've got to question your politicians as to why on earth you are wasting 100 of billions of dollars in Iraq and elsewhere when this is occuring in your own country.
These shots are post apocalyptic - a real life version of Fallout 3.
Detroit needs to downsize. It is such a huge city in a geographical sense, that public services are stretched to areas even like these. Every neighborhood with 40% plus abandonment needs to be forced out and concentrated in new neighborhoods. With the shrinking tax base, theres no need to waste them on a block where one person lives.
Everyone feels bad but nobody knows the real Detroit. This is a glimpse. You can't help. Only we as Detroiters can help. By electing competent politicians and keeping our heads up. We have a long way to go, but we'll get there.
I went down W.Robinwood St. for the first time last week.I was in shock.I grew up in Detroit in the 70's-90's but I've NEVER seen a block like this one.The story goes that drug dealers took it over about 4or5 yrs ago and ran everyone out.The last dope dealer was murdered in broad daylight just last fall.Very sad to see that Detroit Government only cares about Downtown and not the communities.
I'm amazed and saddened. Once these homes were filled with happy families, riding bikes and opening christmas presents.
Some of the fires are from families that knew there was no way in hell they could sell their house to anyone. They burned their house, collected an insurance check and got the heck out...
Once the first amily with 5 adults and 20 kids moved in, people saw the writing on the wall and left in a hurry... Once the houses started emptying out, the drug dealers moved in. Once the drug dealers move in the neighborhood is toast...
There IS one way to "re-vitalize" the neighborhood. The City should put the houses on the market for $500. Let people buy them incredibly cheap.
The new owners could re-model the homes for $30,000... Maybe a little more.
Then they could sell the re-modeled home to a family for $60,000...
The investor makes a profit, the new family gets a cheap house that is re-modeled and a neighborhood is re-invented...
Everyone wins...
what street is your picture? Is it Robinwood? Great site!
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So many have asked where all the people went. The people followed the jobs, so these posters should really ask where the jobs went.
These homes used to be full of auto workers. Millions of them. They were unionized, but with modest contracts (actually, by looking at the age of some of the homes, they may not have been unionized at all). The union contracts decade by decade became richer and that drove up the cost (price) of labor, and whenever you want demand for something to go down all you have to do is increase the price. And wait.
Many of the jobs went to foreign manufacturers setting up US factories in other parts of the country - parts of the country not known for auto manufacturing but who had right to work laws. Or they went overseas to escape the high costs. Blame the employers if you want, but it won't do any good. Employers respond to incentives that we created (to forbid them from going overseas is just a reverse Smoot Hawley that would be just as destructive economically over many decades - it would eventually destroy the American employer AND the manufacturing jobs rather than just the manufacturing jobs).
With unions, we created over the decades a much much smaller pool of middle class Americans who live in the Detroit suburbs or other suburbs – workers who retire at fifty and vacation at their cottages up north and ski behind their boats with pensions and health care. Before unions, we had millions of workers in Detroit who were living in these neighborhoods and playing with their kids in the yard. They didn't make as much and they worked much longer and harder, but there were so many of them, Detroit worked.
That’s the choice we face. We didn’t mean to, but over the decades we created winners AND losers with union contracts. The winners are the small numbers – less than 100,000 - of UAW members who remain. The losers are members of the million-person army of ghost auto workers in Detroit who would have had jobs but for the increased cost of labor. Ghost workers who would have owned these houses. Ghost workers who now rent these houses, if at all, while living on assistance and with no incentive to mow the grass or pick up the trash or put out a burning cigarette.
You can try to blame stupid management, but auto company management is no brighter or dumber than management in any other US industry. The jobs seem to disappear only where the unions live.
We here in Michigan have killed ourselves.
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