In Process

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Detroit is that it is actually still has a relatively high population. Even as it is the poster child for decline and decay, more people live in Detroit than in Portland, OR. As of the 2010 census, Detroit is even more dense than Portland. The total land mass is basically the same between the two cities, but Detroit has about 125,000 more people.

There were signs of life. Creative projects like the one above, beckoned from the highway. There were also people walking and driving on the street. Even though Detroit’s main theme is abandonment, it’s not empty. The problem is that the construction echos cities like New York and San Francisco, but the traffic is more in line with a much smaller city. It’s creates a feeling of emptiness that is perhaps greater than the reality. Similar to how a circle will look small when placed next to a large one, but that same circle will be huge when placed next to a small one, Detroit’s architecture is very big.

The compounding of urban and rural landscapes collapses time.  Urban spaces have a sense of progress and possibility. Even, or maybe especially, older urban buildings remind us that human ingenuity looks ahead and builds great structures and machines as new discoveries give us more complete knowledge about our world.  Cities are the inevitable result of our evolutionary rise away from a primitive past.

It is the old agricultural rural landscapes that are generally decaying as a part of this process.  The forgotten ghost towns far away from the cities, where people have left the hard farming life for urban opportunity are the necessary sacrifices to a better life in the city.

This is all backward in Detroit.  It is a ghost city.  The dream of industrial progress moved to China and all the people with money fled.  The inevitable progress to greater technological complexity in America has slid backward.

December 2011.  I was in love with the wild natural space in the middle of the city.  I thought it was beautiful to see the land reclaim territory that had once been a thriving industrial metropolis.  It actually gave me a sense of hope to see how quickly life takes over an empty lot.

The man walking away didn’t see it that way.  He saw emptiness where a vibrant community used to stand.  He saw signs that his home is decaying and there isn’t anything he can do about it because the winds of industry have changed, and only industry can build a place like Detroit.  He thinks someone should turn that space into a garden.

I agree.