Detroit

There is, without doubt, no other American city that embodies urban decay more profoundly than Detroit. Much has been written about it. A single search on the Google machine can keep you busy for days. It's heartbreaking.

Driving down a main thoroughfare and glancing up the side streets into the neighborhoods, you'll see once beautiful multi-family homes with caved roofs, windows bereft of glass, jungle-like yards. Many - too many - have been burned and remain open to the elements. Countless mansions, even, once the homes of auto execs, are crumbling, uninhabitable wrecks. What surprises me, with every single trip we make into and out of Detroit, is the sheer enormity of it all. It's everywhere. Everywhere. Not just in the wild and woolley neighborhoods, or the urban ones, or the industrial ones. It's everywhere.

I took these on a fast trip in and out of Warren, a suburb 18 miles from Detroit. Eighteen miles. All were taken from a single thoroughfare as Hoss drove, no sightseeing or shot seeking involved.




















These last few were taken on I-75, on our way south and therefore closer to actual Detroit than Warren:








I got fewer of these due to the faster speed and crazy traffic and obstructions like billboards, etc., but believe me, it's like this all through the Detroit area.

Honestly, it makes me want to cry.