PowerSwitch

The Daily Mail explores modern day Detroit and shows us what happens when most of the people leave.



All rights DM.

We won't have the luxury of abandoning our cities here in the UK. There's nowhere to go

stevecook172001 wrote:We won't have the luxury of abandoning our cities here in the UK. There's nowhere to go

Indeed. The UK only has two choices, make the cities work or significantly reduce the population. I think it's plausible to double or even tripple the rural population, however, that would only reduce the urban population by 11-22%. We'd still have 2 million in Birm, Man and a million in Leeds and Glasgow... and London.

See this chart:
http://chrisvernon.co.uk/2012/02/urban-britain/

So which is that, Detroit or Sheffield?

Detroit.

Once the centre of the US car manufacturing industry so possibly more like Birmingham than Sheffield.

The market for their product crashed so the jobs evaporated and the people just left.

Maybe it's the future for Guangdong.

Google street view is amazing for seeing this kind of thing...but the US is littered with places like Detroit.

The number of burnt out buildings, crack houses and such is amazing. You can drive down the street and see churches advising repentance right next door to motels offering 'rooms by the hour'...the shop next door being a 'nail salon'..

Mind, some parts of London are true sh1t holes you may as well be in the middle east.

JavaScriptDonkey wrote:The Daily Mail explores modern day Detroit and shows us what happens when most of the people leave.



All rights DM.

There are serious number of cars on the lawn of that house in the bottom left of the picture.

I believe the Americans call this phenomenon urban prairie.

maudibe wrote:Google street view is amazing for seeing this kind of thing...but the US is littered with places like Detroit.

Anyone been to post-Katrina New Orleans recently?

No, but if they had any sense they'd rebuild elsewhere than "Lower 9th" (iirc), the lowest-lying and most vulnerable bit. Turn it into a park or something.

Actually, I was thinking just this morning, while walking into town along the road, because the river-path is still, erm, river, how many places are there these days that, having been trashed, are simply never going to be rebuilt to the full extent due to lack of funds/energy/etc?

What's happening in Arche(sp?), for instance? Or the venerable Iranian city that was devastated by an earthquake several years back? Or Fukushima?

Are we getting to 2065 already?

Good points.

Does sound like how you would expect Greer's catabolic collapse to start.

All a bit Olduvai.

RenewableCandy wrote: walking into town along the road, because the river-path is still, erm, river,

At least the webcam shows that the path is now marked by the post tops.

http://www.farsondigitalwatercams.com/l ... Ouse/York/

clv101 wrote:

stevecook172001 wrote:We won't have the luxury of abandoning our cities here in the UK. There's nowhere to go

Indeed. The UK only has two choices, make the cities work or significantly reduce the population. I think it's plausible to double or even tripple the rural population, however, that would only reduce the urban population by 11-22%. We'd still have 2 million in Birm, Man and a million in Leeds and Glasgow... and London.

See this chart:
http://chrisvernon.co.uk/2012/02/urban-britain/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X4pDUBZtf8 a logical plan that sadly wont be followed

first bit about the fall of the roman empire
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsHSbBxj ... re=related

If you have widespread death and collapse you reduce the population enough for cities to be abandoned.

Think of Rome after it’s been sacked a few times by barbarians, think Grozny or Stalingrad but without rebuilding or a functioning outside world.

With Rome you had somewhere with over a million population falling to a few thousand by the early medieval period, big buildings in ruins places of learning gone people living in shacks, those that hadn't been taken as slaves .

I think generally the west is now Rome and pretty soon the barbarians will be stripping Swansea of its vaulted riches, future Mongols will be carrying off the fair maids of Swindon.

Detroit I’d say looks mighty nice and fancy to the future I envisage, it also looks very safe and stable, we have the ability to avoid this but I don’t think there’s a hope in hell that will happen .

Nope populations going to fall like a rock but through the axe and war