February 2010
1 post
Driving Detroit →
December 2009
1 post
Investors see farms as way to grow Detroit →
“Farming is how Detroit started,” Score said, “and farming is how Detroit can be saved.”
November 2009
24 posts
Remembering the Riots: Detroit 40 Years Later
For...
WatchKiss - Detroit Rock City (via Vimeo)
Pathways of Desire →
In the heart of summer, too, it becomes clear that the grid laid down by the ancient planners is now irrelevant. In vacant lots between neighborhoods and the attractions of thoroughfares, bus stops and liquor stores, well-worn paths stretch across hundreds of vacant lots. Gaston Bachelard called these les chemins du désir: pathways of desire. Paths that weren’t designed but eroded casually...
WatchThe Heidelberg Project
The elements of the canvas contain recycled materials and found objects, most of which were salvaged from the streets of Detroit. Each work of art is carefully devised to tell a story about current issues plaguing society. As a whole, the HP is symbolic of how many communities in Detroit have become discarded. It asks questions and causes the viewer to think. When you...
The People Mover « Borrowed City →
In both situations, the subtext was the hope that complex, deep-seated economic problems could be solved with a single flashy, expensive gimmick with a vaguely futuristic aesthetic. It makes me wonder whether we will soon begin to see People Movers and Renaissance Centers on a national scale, as the problems facing the massively bloated, broke, suffering Neo-Detroit that increasingly is the United...
Everything Is Going To Be Alright →
Once hailed as “The Paris of The West” and a national center for investment and development, Detroit has become a symbol of failed urban policy over the past 40 years of decline. Vacant skyscrapers and factories dotting Detroit’s skyline testify to the city’s high water mark, a stirring juxtaposition of old and new, decayed and opulent.
Bike Among the Ruins →
Biking in the D is the transportation equivalent of the Slow Food movement, offering a perspective that’s completely lost to those zooming in on the Lodge Freeway and I-75, those great superhighways that, once upon a time in the name of progress, were sliced deep into the heart of the city only to bleed it dry.
DETROIT’S GREEN PROJECTS
Daniel Denvir...
Flickr: Vanished Detroit →
More than any other US city, Detroit is being transformed- both by decay and by regeneration.
The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit →
…during that hazy summer, immense economic, social and political forces that had been set in motion years prior were to render large sections of the city and its industrial structures into ruination. Could one be instantly transported from that time forward twenty years it would appear as if large areas of the city had been carpet bombed, leaving behind huge hulking ruins—ruins larger...
Detroit's Beautiful, Horrible Decline →
Nowadays, [Detroit’s] splendid decaying monuments are, no less than the Pyramids of Egypt, the Coliseum of Rome, or the Acropolis in Athens, remnants of the passing of a great civilization.
“Courageous Dream’s Concern”
I have driven slow, three miles an hour or so, through Highland Park, Heidelberg, and the Cass Corridor. I’ve hopped on the Michigan, and transferred to the Woodward, and heard the good word blaring from an a.m. radio. I love the worn-through tracks of trolley trains breaking through their concrete vaults, As I ride the Fort Street or the Baker, just making my way home.
I sneak through an iron...
Will There Be Food Among America’s Ruins? →
Not so long ago, there were five produce-carrying grocery chains — Kroger, A&P, Farmer Jack, Wrigley, and Meijer — competing vigorously for the Detroit food market. Today there are none. Nor is there a single WalMart or Costco in the city.
Apocalypse DETROIT
This blog is a preview of our post apocalyptic future as seen through the lens of Detroit, Michigan.