

Detroit in Ruins - cubicle67
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2011/jan/02/photography-detroit#/

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linguaz
Dramatic imagery, but check out this for a counterpoint [1]:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2010/oct/20/dirtbo...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2010/oct/20/dirtbombs-
detroit)

Watch enough of the video to see the mention of the photos of the "abandoned"
high-school ... as the camera pans over towards the brand-new high-school
next-door.

[1] Found via: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2059208>

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cubicle67
Given the lack of comments on this, I thought try and write why I posted
something that's not exactly HN material

I found this collection of pics put me in a very melancholic mood. For me,
they remind me that everything we do, no matter how much work, sweat and love
we pour into it, is ephemeral. Work is required to keep decay at bay and slow
the increase in entropy, and one day, sooner than we expect, people (sometimes
us) will decide (often not a conscious decision) that what was once worth
preserving/keeping is no longer worth the effort

Saddest of all was the picture of the library _with books still on the
shelves_. It's like it wasn't worth the effort moving them to another library
(or even giving them away!) or perhaps they were never willing to admit this
was the end; perhaps they were always telling them selves it was just
temporary, _someday_ they'd reopen the library. someday soon. so sad

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patrickgzill
I don't understand ... what is the systemic problem that is keeping these
buildings from being bought and repurposed into something else? Is it a screwy
tax code or building code situation? What?

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cubicle67
Reminds me so much of this well known verse

    
    
      This thing all things devours: 
      Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; 
      Gnaws iron, bites steel; 
      Grinds hard stones to meal; 
      Slays king, ruins town, 
      And beats high mountain down.

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Mz
I have heard a lot of negative comments about Detroit in my life but had not
seen anything like this before. It is not too different from pictures of
cities abandoned near Chernobyl because the high radiation makes them no
longer habitable -- only people _still_ live in Detroit. The city still
exists.

It also makes it all the more clear that buildings are the way they are only
so long as living humans make active use of them and, thus, routinely maintain
them. I think I and most people tend to think of buildings as being more
static and permanent than they really are. Our cities/structures are imbued
with life only as long as people imbue them with such, not because of the
buildings that were once built there.

