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Detroit in Ruins

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Re: Detroit in Ruins

#71

Post by moheeb »

winestock wrote: post #31

My brothers run a property service company that maintains foreclosed homes in Detroit and parts northwest of it. When they need extra help, I ride along with them. Detroit and Pontiac are not the kinds of places that one would care to go by oneself, even for muscular young men. On more than one occasion, we would be approached by "youths" (one of them wasn't even that young) who were clearly drug dealers. One of my b…

There is a great site called http://www.detroitblog.org that goes through many of these buildings and, more recently, features the people that live in these areas.

If you are more interested in the building porn I'd go back several years. The human interest stories are also mostly great and are more recent.

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#72

Post by riceadam »

ikarous wrote: post #64
winestock wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dibble's First Law of Sociology: Some do; some don't. Accentuating the positive is cold comfort. Tenth-century Rome hosted the development of Gregorian chant and papal charters for the first universities. Focusing on those positive developments doesn't change the fact that Rome was a step or two above a cow town compared to contemporary Constantinople or, better yet, first-century Rome. Of course Detroit has nice pla…

"What makes this ruin porn all the more infuriating -- and disturbing -- is that it started when the cool people with the right ideas from the Ivy League schools stepped in." Post hoc, ergo proper hoc? I don't necessarily disagree with you, but don't you think that there might be more contributing factors? In particular, the decline of the American auto industry comes to mind in regards to Detroit.

Obviously the decline of the auto industry was a major factor in Detroit's fall but the civil unrest of the late 60s is what caused the "white flight" out of Detroit and into the suburbs. The city has remained unstable since for a slew of reasons, the biggest one likely being corrupt government.

There's just very little incentive to live in the city itself anymore between the lack of small businesses, crime, etc. I heard a story of a guy who purchased an entire block of houses, demolished them, built new condos and was waiting on city inspection so people could start moving in. Inspection took a while and in the meantime the newly-built condos were broken into and stripped of any valuable piping/wiring. Does that really a place you want to live in? The only reasons I go into the city are for sporting events, the occasional concert, or urbex.

The segregation of Detroit and its metropolitan area are SHOCKING. Look at this map: http://bit.ly/ptgVNe

The blue is African-Americans. The red is Caucasians. The all-too-clear division begins at 8 mile.

Some sort of link has to be established in order to unify the suburbs and the city. Hopefully the M1 rail project can be that link -- unfortunately, like I said in another comment, the rail has to stretch further into the suburbs for it to have any chance of success, IMO.

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#73

Post by [deleted] »

riceadam wrote: post #72
ikarous wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What makes this ruin porn all the more infuriating -- and disturbing -- is that it started when the cool people with the right ideas from the Ivy League schools stepped in." Post hoc, ergo proper hoc? I don't necessarily disagree with you, but don't you think that there might be more contributing factors? In particular, the decline of the American auto industry comes to mind in regards to Detroit.

Obviously the decline of the auto industry was a major factor in Detroit's fall but the civil unrest of the late 60s is what caused the "white flight" out of Detroit and into the suburbs. The city has remained unstable since for a slew of reasons, the biggest one likely being corrupt government. There's just very little incentive to live in the city itself anymore between the lack of small businesses, crime, etc. I h…

[deleted]

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#74

Post by kalid »

ethank wrote: post #28

What bugs me about the poverty-porn you see from Detroit is that if you really wanted to, you could do the same documentation in the wealthiest segments of Los Angeles, just by going a few blocks over. If I really wanted to, I could take my DSLR over to Canoga Park in Los Angeles and make it seem like I'm in a third world country. It's less than a mile from my home.

This is essentially a "Tu Quoque" -- other cities have bad parts, so how can we point fingers at Detroit?

It's ok for both LA and Detroit to have bad parts. But I think it's disingenuous to pretend that Detroit's downfall is anywhere near that of other cities (unemployment, scale of abandonment, population decline, etc.).

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#75

Post by [deleted] »

winestock wrote: post #31

My brothers run a property service company that maintains foreclosed homes in Detroit and parts northwest of it. When they need extra help, I ride along with them. Detroit and Pontiac are not the kinds of places that one would care to go by oneself, even for muscular young men. On more than one occasion, we would be approached by "youths" (one of them wasn't even that young) who were clearly drug dealers. One of my b…

[deleted]

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#77

Post by [deleted] »

riceadam wrote: post #72
ikarous wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"What makes this ruin porn all the more infuriating -- and disturbing -- is that it started when the cool people with the right ideas from the Ivy League schools stepped in." Post hoc, ergo proper hoc? I don't necessarily disagree with you, but don't you think that there might be more contributing factors? In particular, the decline of the American auto industry comes to mind in regards to Detroit.

Obviously the decline of the auto industry was a major factor in Detroit's fall but the civil unrest of the late 60s is what caused the "white flight" out of Detroit and into the suburbs. The city has remained unstable since for a slew of reasons, the biggest one likely being corrupt government. There's just very little incentive to live in the city itself anymore between the lack of small businesses, crime, etc. I h…

[deleted]

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#78

Post by StavrosK »

irrumator wrote: post #70
mgkimsal wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was Rome celebrating its ruins in 400AD? Surely there's some interesting things to celebrate, but a 50 year old crackhouse that's still occupied by crack addicts probably isn't one of them. What makes Rome's 'ruins' great is - well, probably a bunch of things - but certainly the longetivity is one of them. There's nothing impressive about rotting crack houses.

To be pedantic, Rome wasn't in ruins in 400AD. The Visigoths wouldn't sack it for another decade and the Vandals plunder and raped the city proper more than 50 years later. The last nominal imperator was dethroned by a barbarian in 476AD.

Hey, doesn't your username mean "skull fucker"?

EDIT: This isn't linked to your post at all, just wondering.

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#79

Post by lincolnwebs »

Detroit is not its abandoned buildings. It is Midtown and Woodbridge, it is Boston-Edison and Indian Village, it is Eastern Market and the rekindled downtown blocks. Detroit is the "Live Midtown" campaign, the "Live Downtown" campaign, and the M1 rail alliance. It is grass-roots groups & websites like TweeTea and Detroit Moxie.

I'm not a Detroit native, but I see this city for what it is: a mountain of opportunity for anyone who can see past the popular headlines.

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#80

Post by jjm »

jjm wrote: post #33
jeffepp wrote: post #5

There is a TON of opportunity in Detroit. A lot of smart money has already started pouring into the city.

I know all about that city, and let me tell you I seriously doubt it is anything close to the opportunity that exists elsewhere. Just because 'some' money is coming in doesn't mean it will come out of the slump that _IS_ Detroit. Between scandals (do i really need to cite?), poor getting even poorer (which is insane), the violence[1][2], and people leaving [3], it makes it a hard choice for anyone to want and stay. T…

About the houses, I didn't cite correctly. There is a missing bullet.

[5] http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/08/detroit-mayor-dave-bing-of...

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