fascinated with Detroit

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I've always been intrigued by the city of Detroit. I guess it's my fascination with automobiles, but it's probably also a fascination with early industrial-revolution architecture too. At first glance, the city is a crime ridden hell-hole ( sorry if I have offended any Detroiters here!) filled with abandoned buildings in blighted neighborhoods. Even the factories and buildings that are still operating are in very rough shape. Look a little deeper however, and you may be able to notice that it was not always like this!

Most of the abandoned homes are "Craftsman bungalow" or "forsquares" which are common designs of middle class homes built before WW2. Looking closely at the boarded-up, and dis repaired homes, one can see that these homes were once very classy, beautiful homes that well to do families lived in. These were not dumpy "projects" or low class neighborhoods. The people that lived in these nice homes worked in many of the automobile factories that once dotted the landscape. Even the factory buildings were designed by prominent architects like Albert Kahn to look palatial. One of the biggest examples too is the Detroit school buildings. They are architectural gems that the great flow of tax revenue that the manufacturing industries gave the city when it thrived. The automobile manufacturing jobs supported the families nicely that lived in the homes and went to the schools.

The Automobile industry however has moved on, onwards to other cities. American auto companies built new factories in other cities instead of retooling their old facilities. Foreign manufacturers have spread out all over the United States. Some say it was due to poor city management, while others say it was inevitable as American automobile companies shriveled in the world market, and foreign manufacturers became popular. Whatever it was, the city is now left in a sad state of unemployment with once beautiful homes and buildings falling apart or abandoned. Those once great school buildings are now littered with grafitti, with their windows protected by steel bars. The once great auto factories are now abandoned eyesores.

Although I am hardly a fan of Eminem's music, I loved the movie "Eight Mile" that he made because it really showed a great picture of how life in Detroit is today and how it's residents are struggling to make ends meet. Rabbit worked a low-wage job in a run-down auto factory. He lived in a trailer that him and his mother couldn't afford. The most profound statement was made by one of Rabbits friends when they were burning down the abandoned house was "There was a time when I wanted to live in a house like this" Of course, we all know he made it out of his blight, obviously not by working a manufacturing job, but by striking it big in the music industry...a direction that unfortunately won't be the way millions of it's other residents could go.

The ironic thing about this is that other American cities in this country are experiencing a revival of their industrial-revolution neighborhoods as fuel prices climb, and people want to live closer to their jobs in more modest, but stylish homes...the same fuel prices that are wrecking the Auto industry. For some reason, I am fascinated with looking at abandoned and blighted Detroit buildings. I somehow see through their sad condition and see a time that they once contained well to do, happy people, thriving businesses in a previous time. Unfortunately, it's no solace to it's current residents of what it once was, and the future continues to look bleak for the city. I'd love see the city reverse it's prognosis, saving a piece of history, and giving it's residents some relief, and maybe turning some of those old abandoned buildings back into happy homes, schools, and businesses supporting families again.

well, from a Detroiter...that was an interesting post....and very well done. Have you ever been here to the auto shows??