Tour Detroit's Destruction

Complete with video and music! Come see why houses are $10.00

The music. Well...you'll see (hear).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6WKMNmFsxM

If you get freaked out by war zones in the U.S. in year 2010 - skip on to the next thread.

:wow:

I got my own first hand view of houses. I turned a ton of HUD keys into locks. I quit the day I had to appraise the home of a laid off autoworker, who had taken his life in the back bedroom, while the sheriff knocked on his door (foreclosure eviction). I refused to do the appraisal and that was the last day on the job.
I posted threads, threads that sank like rocks, back in 2003 about what was happening in Detroit. Of course, it never matters here at DU sometimes until it is too late. :(

I live in Chicago, and the houses and buildings there are pretty much from the same era with similar urban planning; it's really weird to think that it used to be built up like it is over here but now there is sometimes only one house left on a block. They probably tore down some really nice looking old bungalows and flats but I guess that was to prevent them from being set on fire.

don't ask. The wildlife has moved back in next door.

:beer:

I know the areas on the west and south sides you speak of. Many were once elegant neighborhoods over 100 years ago that went through several waves of immigration and fell into major disrepair...and that was before they were abandonded. Once they were vacated, anything and everything of value would be stripped...wiring, oak flooring and anything else of value. Setting them on fire would be an act of mercy.

Some of the lots have been vacant going back to the 1968 riots...property values never recovered. But I do see some areas where the CHA and HUD have built new buildings...low rises replacing Cabrini Green and the Robert Taylor homes...that have helped clean up some of the blighted areas.

I see the same devastation driving through many of the small towns in Indiana; they look like decaying ghost towns. If you want to see even scarier ghettoes (because people actually live there), look at Ford Heights, Illinois, or East St. Louis Illinois. Heck, you can see more devastation in Watts, Kansas City, the Jersey Shore, most of Philadelphia, Jackson Mississippi, Memphis, the list goes on and on. There's no place in America scarier than Memphis Tennessee at night...

and our lives. It is like a post apocalypse movie.
The house we bought was abandoned, tho it had only been empty 3 yrs and been used as a marijuana grow house.
It needs, but is in much better condition, its out of they way so no one else wanted it until we made an offer on it.
We got it for much less than appraised value and have increase its value just by mowing the yard..we have done some work to it above that.

I know the East Side very well

about the decline of the big rust belt cities because they think lazy auto workers union members deserve this.

Much of the same can be seen in Cleveland where it costs the city over $10,000 to tear down the abandoned houses.

It is the result of systematic de-industrialization.

I grew up in Detroit and the decline of Detroit (the city, not the metro area)predated the decline of the domestic auto industry. The suburbs were booming during the SUV/big pickup manufacturing boom. Even if the auto industry comes roaring back, the benefits will go to the suburbs and only a little bit will ever trickle down to the city itself. In the 1950 census, Detroit had 1.8 million folks. It will be lucky to clear 800,000 in the 2010 census. The city had too many houses and apartments for the remaining population. As they fell into disuse, they were stripped of anything of value, vandalized, set on fire, and razed. Part of Detroit look like the bombed out sections of Europe after WWII.

happened in all the big cities. They had a term for it.......... Urban Sprawl? Anyway, in and around Columbus Ohio they are building developments while covering up some of the best farmland on earth.

On DU, many don't care about the "rust belt." Some have even advocated completely abandoning Detroit and other rust belt cities and moving everyone to the south or west (an idea that makes no sense). There are a lot of people on DU who also don't support auto unions.

I also think people believe it won't happen to their city. Population trends change and it may be cities in the south or west that become the next Detroit.

a cottage on this little lake I know of in Michigan. Maybe after they move all the people in Michigan South I can carry it off.

Yeah, even some DUers hate unions. But they hate unions because the Tea Baggers and the Republicans don't have the market cornered on stupid, just almost.

Right now, unemployed auto workers are selling their second homes/summer cottages in places like Houghton Lake for fire sale prices.

Ohio has more anglers per/acre of water than any state in the union, including our portion of Lake Erie. We just don't have many natural lakes. And our reservoirs are relatively small. Fish populations are under extreme pressure from recreational anglers in this state. Michigan and surrounding states are like fishing paradise for Ohioans. I know because I've fished Michigan my entire life.

I grew up when there was no globalism and no concept of globalism. There was no downside that I can remember. That was before the days of Walmart when there were family stores everywhere and more opportunity for everyone. We actually manufactured most everything we bought. Foreign products were a novelty.

I ask you, what was wrong with this? Why was it so necessary to adopt this destructive globalism?

the 'FREE' market system the most"? That old answer - "Just follow the money".

place I lived was on Willis, a short stagger from Cobb's corner. It wasn't as nice as Avery st, but it was OK.

There was a nasty bit of urban removal going on down around Wayne State when I left. Walking between 2nd and Avery St on Forrest st meant walking down the middle of the street because the weeds were so high they hid wild dogs and hurting junkies lurking just off the sidewalks.

just had no idea how bad. :(