Detroit, Collapsing Before Your Eyes

Jack Baruth
by Jack Baruth

Detroit’s free-fall from perhaps the wealthiest city in the United States to a lawless hellhole most reminiscent of post-colonial Africa has been documented to the point that the phrase “ruin porn” now sits comfortably in the driver’s seat of our national discourse. But it isn’t just Michigan Central Station that has rapidly decayed into pathos.



GoobingDetroit uses the Street View Time Machine to show how many neighborhoods in Detroit have simply disappeared into the weeds since 2008. Interviews with residents and supporting materials are included. It’s a project of the same people behind “Why Don’t We Own This?” and it’s worth going through — if you can take it. These are more than just buildings disappearing; they are dreams, hopes, entire lives, lost to factors beyond their individual control, the pawns of their putative betters and the worse off for it.

Jack Baruth
Jack Baruth

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  • AoLetsGo AoLetsGo on May 26, 2014

    The pictures look like my Grandmothers street in Brightmoor in NW Detroit. They moved there in the twenties and it was a solid blue collar area until the early 70's. The housing was inexpensive and cheaply built and as more homeowners died or moved out the low-income renters moved in and rapid decline started. While I am very familiar with Detroit's problems and past I do not feel qualified to pontificate about it since greater minds have already done so - not necessarily on this site. Downtown and Midtown will come back and some of the nicer and stronger neighborhoods will survive but these will be fortified enclaves surrounded by wilderness.

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    • Highdesertcat Highdesertcat on May 29, 2014

      @highdesertcat AoLetsGo, "Nice upgrade for your niece Detroit to Lake Tahoe, not bad." Oh, yeah! She loves it. Fell into that job, face first! It appeared to be Divine Intervention. She was soooooo unhappy in Detroit. The place is depressing! We knew that something was wrong with her because we raised this girl in New Mexico after she was raped in Chicago at age 15. We got her an abortion at a private hospital in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and have been keeping an eye on her ever since she graduated from college in Las Cruces, NM, and moved to various jobs around the nation. You gotta go where the jobs are, right? I believe the new job she has at Zephyr Cove is going to be a keeper because it is on the Nevada side of the Lake and the living is easy. Unlike living on the side of bankrupt California where taxes are high and the cost of living astronomically high. She's currently sharing a 4br house with three other ladies who work there but we're hoping to buy her a house in Gardnerville, along US395, and then move all her household belongings from her parents' place in Wyoming to Zephyr Cove. One step at a time, one day at a time!

  • Zackman Zackman on May 27, 2014

    What has happened in Detroit is truly sad. What will eventually become of it is anyone's guess, but turning portions of it into cleared land is a good thing. That reduces infrastructure by reducing road maintenance and utilities. Until something better comes along, Detroit doesn't seem to have any better options.

  • Johnny Canada Johnny Canada on May 27, 2014

    Crime, welfare, drugs and stupidity. Does anyone honestly think the citizens of Detroit are waiting for an economic recovery? Nope, they like it this way, and their voting record proves it. Save your money and happy thoughts for people who deserve it.

  • Morea Morea on Jun 02, 2014

    "Don't forget the Motor City This was suppose to be the new world It was better before they voted for 'What's his name' This is suppose to be the new world"

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