Detroit City

[funkykarma]

Thinking of a weekend break while on visit in Toronto and heard Detroit isn't too far away, I know it's not the most conventional choice but always found it fascinating, any suggestions on what to do/where to stay/where to party/eat etc? I know Movement is a while away but hope there's still some appetite for partying in the city

[floridaorange]

Re: Detroit City

Appendix 1: THE MULTI-RACIAL DECLINE OF CITIES IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - A PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY
THE RUINS OF DETROIT
Please note: This photographic essay is not meant to imply that all areas of the cities in question resemble the photographs. These pictures merely reflect regions, or suburbs, where White Flight has been the most extreme.

According to the 2000 US census, 88% of Detroit's population is non-White. This percentage is even higher in the city center. Detroit qualifies as the most ruined city in the USA. In addition to massive White Flight, the non-White residents started the tradition - which has spread to other cities - of "Devil's Night". This is the habit or burning down parts of the city on the night before Halloween.
A huge non-White population, combined with annual arson attacks, bankruptcy, crime and decay, have combined to make Detroit - once the USA's leading automotive industrial center - into a ruin comparable with those of the ancient civilizations - with the cause being identical: the replacement of the White population who built the city, with a new non-White population.

Above left: The elevated "People Mover" train rounds the abandoned Statler Hotel in Detroit city center.
Above right: when the "People Mover" was launched in the early 1980s, the smashed windows and buildings of the many abandoned buildings along its route presented an image problem for the non-White city fathers. In a move almost comical in nature, windows eye level to the train were covered and painted. In the case of the Statler Hotel awnings were added to shield the view of the lower windows. Since then, many of the awnings have fallen off.

Above: Two views of the former Grand Army of the Republic building - once the gathering spot for Michigan's American Civil War veterans' organization. The building, like so much else in Detroit, is in ruins, its former White users having long since left.
Detroit used to be America's automotive manufacturing center: this was the city where Henry Ford built his greatest factories and where he revolutionized the production process. When Detroit became a non-White city, virtually all of these White-driven engineering works closed down, as the pictures below sadly show:

Above: The Ford Motor Company Model T building on Piquette Avenue, which oversaw the production of the Model T factory is now a deserted crumbling ruin. The original Model T Ford factory, (three pictures below), is equally deserted and also a ruin.


It was not only Ford that had automotive plants in White Detroit: other companies such as Packard and Studebaker also had factories there when the city was majority White. Today, with the changed demographics and non-White city population, only the ruins of these once-great American industries remain. Below, three views of the shattered shell of the Studebaker Plant on Piquette Ave.


THE RUINS OF THE PACKARD PLANT, DETROIT

The Packard Motor Car manufacturing complex was established on this Detroit east-side location in 1907. Packard manufactured luxury vehicles here until it went out of business in 1956. This colossal 40 plus acre complex was sold for a paltry $750,000 the following year.

What is most striking about this large expanse of manufacturing buildings is the neglect, dilapidation and vandalism that have been wrought on the complex. In more civilized environs, these facilities might have easily been transformed into a manufacturing and assembly center for any number of industrial enterprises. Instead, it lies barely utilized, in shameful disarray and surrounded by blight.

This decay followed the rapid demographic transformation of Detroit from a prosperous majority-European American city into a crime-ridden and poverty-stricken majority African-American city propped up by government handouts, band-aids and feel good charitable donations from corporations.

Neglect and abuse continue to reduce much of Detroit’s infrastructure to a more advanced state of decay with each passing year. Like a patient with a chronic life-threatening illness, but dressed up in a nice suit, having well-polished shoes and clean fingernails, the development in Detroit’s city center is held up as evidence of progress while the day of the wrecking ball and bulldozer approaches for the blighted neighborhoods and moribund manufacturing complexes which cover large tracts of the city.

[floridaorange]

Re: Detroit City

Above and below: Car wrecks, lying abandoned in Detroit. Below right, an abandoned boat dumped in the street.




Above left: Another debris littered street on Detroit's east side. Above right: An old camper, and assorted debris litter a Detroit street.


Above: Abandoned vehicles litter Detroit's east side.

Above: A liquor store on Detroit's east side proudly indicates black ownership to its would be customers. One can only imagine the reaction if a white owned shop had to put up such a sign.

[floridaorange]

Re: Detroit City

:duplicate:

[bobjuice]

Re: Detroit City

looks alright

[DIDI]

Re: Detroit City

That is heartbreaking!! No wonder Michael Moore is pissed

[floridaorange]

Re: Detroit City

I guess it's not all blighted ^and good point didi!

[88Mariner]

Re: Detroit City

when I saw Florida's post itt, I:

[DIDI]

Re: Detroit City

I wanna renovate detroit

I just read the written bits instead of just looking at the pics. Who wrote it. ???It is incredibly simplistic and racist to suggest the reasons for this were caused by "non whites" How about the whites who ripped that heart out of the manufacturing industry there ??

Hmm maybe this should be in politics as well. ??

[floridaorange]

Re: Detroit City

I wanna renovate detroit

I just read the written bits instead of just looking at the pics. Who wrote it. ???It is incredibly simplistic and racist to suggest the reasons for this were caused by "non whites" How about the whites who ripped that heart out of the manufacturing industry there ??

Hmm maybe this should be in politics as well. ??

I tried to erase that right after I posted it, but because my post was so long, it wouldn't let me edit the copy without deleting the pictures. so the copy stayed.

[88Mariner]

Re: Detroit City

I wanna renovate detroit

I just read the written bits instead of just looking at the pics. Who wrote it. ???It is incredibly simplistic and racist to suggest the reasons for this were caused by "non whites" How about the whites who ripped that heart out of the manufacturing industry there ??

Hmm maybe this should be in politics as well. ??

what do you mean 'ripped that heart out of the manufacturing industry'?

[DIDI]

Re: Detroit City

^^Sorry not getting sucked into that one.

[funkykarma]

Re: Detroit City

I guess I'll rephrase my question then: best American city for a day or two getaway from Toronto?

[DIDI]

Re: Detroit City

[diegoff]

Re: Detroit City

I wouldnīt go, he scares me...