When the city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy on July 18, 2013 (the largest municipal bankruptcy ever to occur in the U.S.), the city had endured an economic and demographic meltdown that lasted half a century. As the city’s population decreased from 1,8 million in 1958 to a mere 710.000 in 2010, an urban wasteland had become a daily reality for those left behind. Entire street blocks were first abandoned and then taken over by weeds, decay and stray dogs. Extremely high crime rates, wide-spread poverty and urban farming became new realities to the once blossoming Motor city. Detroit had fallen victim to its dependency on a single economic activity, the automotive industry.
The shortlived hay days
After Henry Ford started manufacturing affordable cars on the assembly line, the greater Detroit region quickly became the automotive centre of the world. Motor City was one of America’s five richest cities in the 1950’s. GM produced the most cars in the world from 1931 until 2007, consecutively.
In the second half of the twentieth century, however, foreign competition took over control of the global auto industry. American companies were not very good at innovation and kept selling the same cars each year with only modifying the shape and size of its tail fins. This strategy worked in the short term by encouraging class-conscious American consumers to buy a new model regularly.
But in the longer term, German and Japanese competitors won by innovating in safety and technology such as fuel efficient engines. Motown sales went downward and the once great GM Company eventually filed for bankruptcy in 2009.
Detroit furthermore suffered from an untenable influx of underpriviliged migrants, mostly African Americans from the South. To top it off, the white tax base fled the city towards the suburbs in the 1950’s. When employment in the automotive industry slowly evaporated, the largely black inner city population with few labor skills was left behind. The vulnerability of this group became reflected in the highest crime rates per capita of any American city. One in three citizens of Detroit now lives in poverty with an income of less than $ 23.000 per year
A contradiction in terms: urban farming.
Ruin porn
As a consequence of these developments, thousands of acres of city blocks were being reclaimed by nature. Urban farming is prospering in once thriving (ethnic) neighborhoods. Tens of thousands of houses, auto plants, churches and public buildings are dilapidating within the city limits.
One of the symbols of Detroit’s decline is Michigan Central Station, the giant 1913 Communist-style train station that has become an urban ruin of Roman allure. Perhaps it was never a great idea to build an enormous train station in Motor City, but the American passenger train in general lost the commuter's favor in its competition with the car. Thanks to relatively cheap cars and gas and due to a strong, policy influencing lobby in Washington D.C., the last train arrived here in 1989.
Michigan Central Station
The decline of Detroit has almost no equal in terms of pace and scale. History is being overhauled by time as the city’s population decreases faster than it ever grew. What remains of much of Detroit’s once grandeur, is graffiti filled debris as an echo of greater days past. A tourist attraction like a modern day Venice.
“How the American dream went wrong in Detroit” :http://youtu.be/lEXLPpr2Rwg
Photo gallery of Detroit's many abandoned buildings: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10152192370017293&id=6250307292
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