Detroit in ruins - sad subject, cool pictures

hoosier21

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2011/jan/02/photography-detroit?intcmp=239#/?picture=370173054&index=0

Russ

Earthy

Great pictures of the once great.

gdb

Detroit and environs were a huge factor in us helping to win WWII, two of my Aunts built planes in a plant in Willow Run. Very sad state of affairs, if a WWII scenario came up tomorrow.......America wouldn't know whether to sh!7 or go blind. Probably both.:frown:

Ricardo

Wow. That's....depressing.

nooshinjohn

Seeing this great city in utter ruin should move all Americans to tears... Deeply tragic.

I remember the American indian commercials with the tear in the eye, used to illustrate littering along our highways... We need a George Washington doing the same thing in Detroit to wake us up in the same way.

Knucklehead

Those pics were pretty powerful!

txcoastal1

Sad Sad Sad...Galveston is actually very poor and has been beaten up by Hurricanes and and bad business relations moving the once great Port into Houston, But the Historical relics, homes and architecture are protected by historical foundations and societies. Even after Ike loosing 30% of it's population receiving really no help from the outside world they rebuilt all the beauty.

hoosier21

Lasareath wrote: »

Does that site still work?

I tried your link on 3 of my PCs and I see nothing, I just see the little thumbnails

still works for me

shack

Urban "ruins" has become a new genre of photography. It can be quite dramatic and revealing. Kinda like the "ghost towns" of the old west...only now it is old factories, office buildings and such.

cstmar01

After going to the city this last summer and seeing things like this such as the Station photo, it's just really sad. Even going through a neighborhood and seeing homes just falling down and in ruin that only just about 5-10 years ago were nice houses and had a family in them is sad.

I remember going down one of the major highways in the city when we went for a baseball game. For a 6 line highway there wasn't hardly any traffic. It was the easiest city to get around because frankly there wasn't anyone there.

gdb

I'm fascinated by abandoned places and always do searches on them,Chernobyl is a really weird one. Just saw a cool special on TV about Ellis Island!
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=abandoned+places&aq=7&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=aband

http://weburbanist.com/category/abandonments/#3256346

txcoastal1

http://weburbanist.com/2011/01/01/detroits-michigan-theater-the-worlds-most-beautiful-parking-lot/

Wow more detroit

cokewithvanilla

that'd be sweet for paintball!

gdb

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2009/09/things-are-tough-all-over-luxury-cars.html

:eek:

[Deleted User]

That is very sad indeed. Detroit pretty much dropped off the map with the industrial collapse. But I would like to point out something. What happened in Detroit is just but an area devastated when compared to what the finance sector did to the entire United States. I am in no way neglecting Detroit, I just wanted to put in perspective, collectively the amount of people affected as a sum.

billbillw

Yeah, too bad they don't show all the NEW construction in and around Detroit. That is a very one sided view for the benefit of the artist. It is actually a disservice to the City.

engtaz

So sad.

Toolfan66

Fantasic Powerful yet Sad Pictures...

Joe08867

Sad, I have seen some of these pics before and it is just such a shame.

Where's Robocop when you need him?

nguyendot

Very nice... too bad the city is going that way.

bklynNupe

Sad
It reminds me of a bbc news piece on Gary, Indiana
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/paulmason/2010/10/gary_indiana_unbroken_spirit_a.html

zingo

This is depressing:

shack

It's not just Detroit...it's most major metropolitan cities. The cost to rehab and/or maintain some of these old buildings far exceeds their value. They were built in an era where labor and materials were relatively cheap. The cost to bring these buidings "up to code" alone makes them too expensive. If and when the economy turns for these areas, it will be cheaper to tear them down and rebuild...or just tear them down. Sad but true.

Big Dawg

The burden is on the remaining population and their priorities to preserve and perpetuate the city's past. Detroit was always a city of great divides between the halves and have-nots. Cleveland, where I grew up, faced many similar issues, but unlike Detroit had a somewhat more diverse economic base. Despite being hit by economic shifts earlier than Detroit, much of Cleveland's past was preserved via 1970's activism, which survived to enjoy the 1990's renaissance in Cleveland. It remains to be seen if Cleveland will survive better than Detroit over the longer term.

nooshinjohn

anonymouse wrote: »

Its not just about the buildings, its about the attitude. Look at the library, look at the police station? What do you see? Vandalism, waste, but perhaps most sadly, APATHY. Apathy from the residents - apathy from just about everyone. Its a defeated city.

I was driving past Gary, Indiana a couple of years ago on the Indiana Toll Road. The air in my tires seemed low, so I pulled off into Gary. I went to 7 gas stations - yes SEVEN - and in each and every one of them - the air compressor machine was broken. That's just a symptom of a city that does not care anymore. These were private enterprises that could keep their facilities working, but have reached that state of indifference.

So we can theorize about how much all this costs to keep up, but even small things like maintaining public places in the same condition as when you found them, not tolerating graffiti, cleaning up messes, fixing potholes - these things keep the city from degenerating into a slum-like wasteland.

Plus one to this. Gary is a sespool... The biggest reason for lack of money to keep a city alive is that the life's blood(jobs&industry) left because the costs (taxes/regulations/labor) just got to burdensome to stay competitive. Some businesses in these cities simply were taxed out of existence. We need to fix how we do business in this country, and fast, or what we have left here will crumble just like Detroit and Gary.

ysss

That is weird. Seeing fully furnished buildings, shelves filled with books, classrooms with all the apparatus, etc that are just left alone for so long.

I guess it's what a town would look like after a Zombie apocalypse... people just takes off and leave things behind.

nooshinjohn

ysss wrote: »

That is weird. Seeing fully furnished buildings, shelves filled with books, classrooms with all the apparatus, etc that are just left alone for so long.

I guess it's what a town would look like after a Zombie apocalypse... people just takes off and leave things behind.

What disurbs me are all those case files just tossed about in the abandoned police station that has been ransacked. That is a class-action lawsuit waiting to happen due to privacy laws being broken.

gdb

shack wrote: »

It's not just Detroit...it's most major metropolitan cities. The cost to rehab and/or maintain some of these old buildings far exceeds their value. They were built in an era where labor and materials were relatively cheap. The cost to bring these buidings "up to code" alone makes them too expensive. If and when the economy turns for these areas, it will be cheaper to tear them down and rebuild...or just tear them down. Sad but true.

I'm really glad that they don't take that stance with the historic buildings in Europe!:eek::biggrin:

gdb

In most cases, the crucial factor is maintaining the roof, once the roof is compromised, the real decay can/will begin. Even if the whole building renovation can't be funded, they could at least scrape up enough pride/interest/concern/monies to keep the frikkin roof intact!:mad:

thesurfer

Very sad,,im from saginaw mich,, left there many years ago,,, when the saginaw steering gear plant i worked at shut down,,, To this day, people who ask me were im from, often reply,, howed you get otta there alive,,, same in Detroit,, when all the good jobs left,,, crime took over,,, all my friends, either moved further up north,, or like me, left the whole state,,,,whoes to blame??? pick your poisen, big buissness, politics, corrupt city officals?? Lot of broken,, and destroyed dreams in that neck of the woods,,,

gdb

I blame high oil prices and....TOYOTA !!!:mad: