Never realized how bad Detroit urban sprawl was...

[The O.C.]

Detoit is a real eye opener for first time visitors. It has improved somewhat from when I was first there in 93 but so much of it is still a ghost town its unbelievable. In Hamtramck the GM plant is surrounded by boarded up buildings and closed factories, it looks like something out of old movies from WW2.

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Even the suburbs aren't that nice....at least when compared to other similarly-sized metro areas.

I lived in Oakland County for a few years....and the whole area, even upscale suburbs, have a kind of "blue collar" feel (no offense to any C&G'ers here that work in the plants.)

Even in like Birmingham or Bloomfield Hills, the strip malls look old and there doesn't seem to be any of the kind of beautiful landscaping you get in southern California suburbs or even like in Minneapolis (where I was for work the first time a few weeks ago) another midwestern city that does NOT resemble a "rust-belt" city.

Downtown Birmingham itself has some nice shops and bars....and Ann Arbor still has a funky, un-Michigan-like feel. Other than that, I never saw any appeal to the entire Detroit metro area.....

[balthazar]

When I went to school in central Detroit, I was amazed to see -right out my 10th floor window- numerous blocks of waving grass. Oh, the sidewalks, paved alleys and telephone lines/poles were still there, but the buildings were gone. There were also a great volume of standing buildings waiting for nothing else but the wrecking ball. Still, for an urban explorer at heart, Detroit can be fascinating on an entirely other level.

[ShadowDog]

I find those old buildings rather depressing. The theatre-made-garage is downright painful to see. While I don't go on with personifying the buildings, I do think about how they might have looked in their better days.

It's like driving through an old mining town that has museums made up of old ironworks and ore-factories. This is one of my favorites:
http://virtualguidebooks.com/Alberta/Alber...lieries_FS.html

To see what were some fantastic houses for blocks just falling in on themselves, while families living in semi-unkept slums are strewn throughout just makes me think of a third-world country. I can appreciate the new quarter-million dollar 1200+ sq/ft. homes with nice lawns and landscaping, one after the other (only if they're not development lots that MUST all look the same); but I absolutely LOVE those old heritage homes that lomb above you at the walkway:



I would love to make a modern interpretation of this house with some practical interior dimensions and call it my home.

[the_yellow_dart]

I understand abandoned buildings but... who abandons a house like that???

[ShadowDog]

I understand abandoned buildings but... who abandons a house like that???

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Any number of reasons will do I guess:

- smoke damage from internal fire
- rotting timber
- broken foundation
- depleted conditions make it non-salable
- it's haunted

Could be anything. Edited August 1, 2006 by ShadowDog

[balthazar]

>>"I would love to make a modern interpretation of this house with some practical interior dimensions and call it my home."<<
Most modern homes have far more wasted space, tho they do have a big one-up on closet space.

[capriceman]

Still, for an urban explorer at heart, Detroit can be fascinating on an entirely other level.

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untill you get in a building and theres some crack addict mental hobo sleeping down there that attacks you. or walk in on some meth lab.