The horrible decline in pictures:
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1882089_1850973,00.html
And it could have been a lot worse. Woe to Tiger Stadium.
That’s sad to watch.
Why do they not tear those structures down? Obviously many of the ones shown are beyond repair. Around here we turn structures like that into open field and plant grass.
~Matt
I love photos of abandoned places and have visited several myself.
Check out http://www.opacity.us/ if you’re interested.
It looks a lot like the pictures you see of Chernobyl, but I think there was less looting in Pryapat. How sad. I grew up in Michigan and my father always wanted to take me to Detroit and just “hang out” for a weekend, go to Greek Town (still never been there, still don’t really know what it is), catch a ball game, do some fun stuff. He and I grew apart and I moved away. We’re doing better now, but next time he mentions it as an idea, I’ll think twice.
The city can’t even afford to pick up garbage have the time, do you think they have money to tear down buildings?
The really sad part is when you get the news report from a neighborhood complaining about the vacant lot being full of trash. The whole neighborhood jumps up and down and bitches about the city not doing anything about it, but can’t be bothered to clean it up themselves. Sad.
The city can’t even afford to pick up garbage have the time, do you think they have money to tear down buildings?
The really sad part is when you get the news report from a neighborhood complaining about the vacant lot being full of trash. The whole neighborhood jumps up and down and bitches about the city not doing anything about it, but can’t be bothered to clean it up themselves. Sad.
It seems to me that having a Federal Program to do the above would create jobs. I know it’s the Govt. again but something should be done and it’s obvious there is work outstanding. Unless there is money in the private sector to do this…
If you want to get a locals’ point of view of what’s going on in Detroit:
It’s a “family blog”, but the guy (Dutch) is the guy who showed the TIME reporter around Detroit a few weeks ago.
One of his hobbies is photographing the slow destruction of the city (from the inside, figuratively and literally), though the site is tempered by stories about some of the amazingly ingenious and empowering things that the residents are doing to maintain a community without government or outside help.
His pictures are just as poignant, and more disturbing (i.e. the picture of the body frozen into the elevator shaft) as anything I’ve EVER seen. And to think that this is happening two hours from where I grew up.
It’s tragic, and captivating at the same time. I can’t look away, personally.
Not much soul to the Time pictures. I am a big fan of Detroit, having grown up there, there’s few things I’d like to see more than a dramatic turnaround. Seems less and less likely, but I still hold out hope. In a sense, Detroit is free to re-invent itself really in any way it wants. The citizens and leadership remain the biggest hurdles. While we probably won’t see it flourish in the next 20 years, there is nearly a blank slate to begin to work with. In some ways, that’s a good thing.
There are far better pictures circulating regarding the ruins of Detroit. Pictures that tell a story more than they show a result. The Time pictures really just show a result.
**Why do they not tear those structures down? Obviously many of the ones shown are beyond repair. Around here we turn structures like that into open field and plant grass. **
I swear to you that it is impossible to tear anything down in Detroit. Look at Tiger’s Stadium. That thing has been abandonned for years. No one is using it for anything legal. Some have been trying to tear it down and make the property usable again. Cripes, there is even money to make it happen. But there you have it. Now there is hope that President Obama’s stimulus package may have money in there somewhere to help preserve the Stadium. God, I hope not.
The next thing is that it depends on who suggests it. If it is a white guy from the suburbs, you can forget ANY notion that it will fly. Look at the recent threads on Detroit’s City Council to get a grasp on what productivity and innovation are up against. It is just disgusting.
Apparently, Jay Leno is coming to town and is going to do a totally free comedy show for SE Michiganders. The idea is that if you want to come see a free comedy show you can get 4 tickets at the Palace of Auburn Hills (where the Pistons play). Parking is free too. The only thing you have to do is get yourself there. The Detroit City Council chimed in this morning by complaining that Jay Leno wasn’t using a venue inside of Detroit.
Bernie
Seems to me that at 21% unemployment rate there should be plenty of people we are already paying to pick up trash.
Seriously if I become unemployed I would much rather go out and do something in the community that sit around and do nothing for a check.
~Matt
If you found that interesting check this out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gCkEF26t6A
This is a teaser trialer for a book and building/city renewal project that my wife and her brother are working on. He actually just finished the plans for the DET Tower and it’s related city plannig aspects, and the book is in progress (fiction with the city decay and renewal at its heart). It’s pretty fun stuff, we just wish that we had any hope that the project woudl actually go through. Not likely if you have seen any of the threads about he Detroit city council.
And it’s also why Kwame Kilpatrick got elected mayor. Freeman Hendriks was too associated with the wrong influences for too many people’s taste.
It’s a wonder they ever elected Dennis Archer in between the disasters that were Coleman Young and Kilpatrick.
What other major city can you think of where the suburbs all strive to have their own downtown that competes with the main city’s downtown?
What other major city can you think of where the suburbs all strive to have their own downtown that competes with the main city’s downtown?
I’m truly curious to know the answer as to why this is happening. (contrary to most Lavendar Room posts, this is not a dig, rather a genuine request for more information)
I grew up 2 hours from Detroit, never visited, heard it was a good place a few years ago, then started to hear that it wasn’t. Somehow I missed the memo that said it had gotten this bad.
d
I’m truly curious to know the answer as to why this is happening. (contrary to most Lavendar Room posts, this is not a dig, rather a genuine request for more information)
Detroit has quirks of geography. race relations and prior developement related decisions that created a situation where the city’s population (or at least most of the economically viable part of the poplulation) basically ended up moving itself out of the city and since the suburbs are separate governmental units, they took their tax dollars with them along with the jobs. The people and alot of jobs (despite what you read) are still here but very few of the people or jobs are in the city of Detroit anymore. Almost all the economic activity is in the 'burbs, not in Detroit. So, Detroit has abandoned buildings it can’t afford to tear down while places like Troy (only 9 miles north of Detroit and which no one outside the area has probably ever heard of) has a Tiffany store, Neiman Marcus and a Bugatti dealership and places like Birmingham have per sqare foot housing prices as high as anywhere in the US. There are also plenty of suburbs with nice cheap housing for working folks. At least until the recent auto industry disaster, things were going well here. Its just that “here” is not defined by the city limits of Detroit.
Detroit is right on the Detroit River which is the border bewtween the US and Canada. The only direction to grow was north or west which eventually left Detroit on the edge of the region rather than at its center. Detroit has always had a pretty tense racial divide. Detroit was a world class boom town in the teens and 20’s but by the 1950s it was getting pretty crowded and suburban flight was already picking up. When the 1966 Riot took place it was a full on race to get out of the city. You can’t understand what’s going on in Detroit today without looking at the Riot in particular and race relations in general. The aftermath of the riot fundementally changed the city. The suburbs exploded as everyone who could moved out and, due to another quirk of geography coupled with the local governmental system in Michigan, most people who left the city, even if they only moved a few miles, were in different citys and large numbers were even in a different county so they had their own local governments and had almost no tie to Detroit, they paid no property taxes into Detroit and they most likely did not work in the city anymore either. Jobs, offices, factories, etc evenually ended up in the suburbs and, since Detriot is off to one side of the region, for most of the folks here, no one has to go downtown to work and if you even wanted to live in the City, you’d be moving further away from you job, not closer like in most other big cities.
A lot of other big cities had their downtowns go through some suffering and suburban flight but Detroit is unique in that it is not physically at the center of the region nor is there anything approaching a unified governmental structure for the area. When the population moved out, it may have only moved a few miles but in terms of tax dollars and economic activity, it might as well have moved 100 miles. This has meant there probably are not the circumstances here that can really ever lead to a true revitalization of the whole city. The downtown has seen alot of redevelopment in the past 10 years and it is actually quite nice and a fun place to go. But, in terms of attracting large numbers of tax paying citizens to move back into the city, it just is not going to happen.
Nice job describing the situation. The only thing I would like to add is it’s probably the only big city that had no idea how to maximize the potential of its waterfront. Even Belle Isle became a place where only the foolish ventured after dark.
STP nice history lesson.
But I think you missed one SIGNIFICANT reason for Detroit’s demise it is my understanding it is the only Large metropolis that has a week Mayor / strong council form of government where the council does not represent a region or ward, and are all at large members.
Yes the riots and geography do explain some of it, and were the start. But I think the form of government has kept the downward spiral going. Look at how the Mayor and council have acted toward each other. I can not think of a time when the two got along in my adult lifetime. And to top it off, from what I have seen the council all lives in 2 or 3 areas of the city, and do not represent the majority of Detroiter’s. But they do keep elect them, and this is the part I truly do not understand.
The city’s been run by fools and idiots since Roman Gribbs left office. Don’t get me wrong; there’s plenty of blame to go around, and a lot of things that have occurred would’ve laid most any city low. But, the utter incompentence and seeming inability or desire to adjust to changing conditions have made my native city a textbook example of urban decay and decline, that’s been going on since racial tensions finally spilled over in the riots of 1967. After that, it only became a matter of time.
T.
One thing’s for sure, though: Our former mayor (Kwame Kilpatrick) Was. A. PLAY-AH!!!
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090310/METRO01/903100376
Ex-mayor juggled women: Suggestive texts sent to at least five
…“Can’t get you out of my system. Don’t want too either,” Kilpatrick told Ebony. “Hell yeah, I need some love and affection,” he told Alexis. On his way back from Lansing, Kilpatrick told Kebina: “I’m rushing to see you Baby!”
Natashia told Kilpatrick in an explicit message about yet another woman who wanted to have sex with him. He told Natashia that he missed her on Belle Isle and of his desire for a particular sex act. In another set of messages, Natashia asked for tickets to a sporting event and told of a woman in Los Angeles who was “still ready.”
“I still want to watch,” Kilpatrick told her.
“I want you to do more than just watch,” Natashia wrote back…
T.