PowerSwitch

The Guardian article here I found through it being mentioned on another forum I go to, and thought it might be interesting:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/de ... -shrinking

Some points worth noting:

1. Obviously Detroit is know as the one-time capital of the US motor industry, and is now in decline, possibly due to the recession, outside competition, or whatever. I know some were saying this could be directly linked to PO, but I'm not sure; still, a sign of things to come?

2. There are plans to shrink the city to something more dense, largely for budgetary reasons, but could it be a sign of the times in terms of American cities being so vast and widespread just not working anymore? Could it be a model for the future?

3. The urban farm idea is also interesting- maybe another model for future transition?

This hasn't been posted already has it? (Murphy's law and all that).

We had a couple of WWOOFers from Detroit last summer. They were quite upbeat about prospects for life in the city. As per normal, when neighbourhoods fall into disrepair, artists, students, and musos move in.

There has been a huge number of community gardens appear (which can mean communally-maintained land for shared produce, but also means something akin to English allotments.) They've also seen many of the big chain stores pull out, and small independent stores open up in their wake.

For those who haven't seen it, Requiem for Detroit is excellent. It probably won't be on iplayer for a while but you can torrent it. Well worth it.

1. Obviously Detroit is know as the one-time capital of the US motor industry, and is now in decline, possibly due to the recession, outside competition, or whatever. I know some were saying this could be directly linked to PO, but I'm not sure; still, a sign of things to come?

Certainly is. I used to travel to the US quite a lot on both business and pleasure, and you can see many of the more industrialised cities, especially in the North, going this way. Even before the 2008 blow-out, things were beginning to detriorate.

2. There are plans to shrink the city to something more dense, largely for budgetary reasons, but could it be a sign of the times in terms of American cities being so vast and widespread just not working anymore? Could it be a model for the future?

You'll find a lot of places will just be turned over to nature. Large swathes of Michgan will have a similar experience. I think the place with the least chance is Nevada and surrouding areas; these need large amounts of water to carry on as they are.

3. The urban farm idea is also interesting- maybe another model for future transition?

Yes, and no. Some places will 'get it together and lead a transition', others will basically collapse. Just google Fresno, and Merced, California....

One of my favourite websites is Detroit Urbex. It's got loads of pictures of abandoned schools, hospitals, libraries, housing estates, places of worship, factories and more. Well worth a look!

Great pics, Jim.

Great pics, Jim.

++1. Other places that seem to be leading in the race to collapse are various places in Florida such as Palm Bay etc. There's plenty of stuff on youtube for the asking......

Gary, Indiana is another good candidate that'll probably rival Detroit in the near future, too....

Pepperman wrote:For those who haven't seen it, Requiem for Detroit is excellent. It probably won't be on iplayer for a while but you can torrent it. Well worth it.

+1. An excellent documentary. I saw it when it was broadcast and saw it again on YouTube, although it all seems to have been pulled now. Just torrented it though and I'm happy!

the_lyniezian wrote: 1. Obviously Detroit is know as the one-time capital of the US motor industry, and is now in decline, possibly due to the recession, outside competition, or whatever. I know some were saying this could be directly linked to PO, but I'm not sure; still, a sign of things to come?

It wont be the popular answer, but Detroit is dead for the same reason British Coal is, its unions completely lost the plot. GM just had a lot more assets to mortgage and was much better at snapping up government subsidy.

The low value stuff goes to China, the High Value stiff goes to Texas, the unions throw their toys out of their pram.

http://www.texasahead.org/economy/indic ... employment
Pretty good sight, if your interested in Texas.

The low value stuff goes to China, the High Value stiff goes to Texas, the unions throw their toys out of their pram.

http://www.texasahead.org/economy/indic ... employment

Some good points, but not strictly true. I used to work for a large US telecoms / ISP, and they have moved a lot of the jobs in Texas and Mississippi to New Jersey and New York, as it is now cheaper for some reason. This has also happened in the defense industry; they moved jobs from Texas to Washington state.

As a side note, Texas still gets a large amount of it's income from oil, which continues to fund the large universities UT and Texas A&M: be intersting to see how this pans out in the future......

Amazing pictures of Detroit from the Grauniad
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/ ... =370173054

bigjim wrote:One of my favourite websites is Detroit Urbex. It's got loads of pictures of abandoned schools, hospitals, libraries, housing estates, places of worship, factories and more. Well worth a look!

Everywhere has those, but in Detroit (and Gary) there are lots more of them all within a relatively small area. In other places they'd get reused, or demolished and the land reused, so it's less noticeable.

But Detroit is particularly interesting as it gives some idea of what societal collapse will look like halfway through, thanks to the urban explorers who took those pictures. Detroit, of course, isn't completely abandoned, but three small cities are: Pripyat (Ukraine), Hashima (Japan) and Varosha (Cyprus). These give some idea of what happens to places when there are no longer people around either to maintain them (or damage them further).

In Britain, asylums, cold war installations, mines and heavy industry have kept urban explorers busy in recent years. In the near future perhaps power stations, shopping malls and airports will. In the far future, our cities?

Detroit now defaulting on most debts, unsecured creditors might get back 10%

Not exactly unexpected, but still bad news.
Remember that each electricity bill for example not paid by a city is either a higher bill for everyone else or less money to invest in the power system.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22914431

JohnB wrote:Amazing pictures of Detroit from the Grauniad
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/ ... =370173054

Bloody hell.

On the other hand I was just considering what that dentist equipment would fetch in a vintage sale over here.....

Now if I could just figure out how to get the bugger over here...............