{"id":1608,"date":"2010-07-01T01:05:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-01T05:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/?p=1608"},"modified":"2020-04-08T06:28:42","modified_gmt":"2020-04-08T10:28:42","slug":"of-urban-decay-and-the-postmodern-wasteland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/2010\/07\/01\/of-urban-decay-and-the-postmodern-wasteland\/","title":{"rendered":"Of urban decay and the postmodern wasteland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I spent last Sunday in Detroit. Now when I say “in Detroit,” I don’t mean “chillin’ with my rich friends in Ann Arbor,” nor do I even mean “hey, I’m from Bloomfield Hills!” I mean my grandfather’s house in Highland Park. Next to Palmer Park. In the blast zone. I went to visit the house, which is still in the family primarily because it would insult me to sell it for less than $10k. I rent it to a small group of nuns doing community service in the city. Best. Tenants. Ever. I want them to be happy and to keep doing their thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The street is in good shape. Most of the cars have license plates. Women walk around during they day with their kids. There’s even a combination vegan cafe \/ chiropractor \/ halfway house on the corner. Let’s just say that they like cash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next street over, not so good. There are three houses on the block that are not condemned. There are something like a dozen houses still standing. The grass – all the way along the street – is chest high. Big pitbulls and dobermans look at you from porches as you drive by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the way to the airport, I went for a drive. Turns out that Lords of Acid are playing downtown this week at a club so skanky that I didn’t even slow down. Who knew that they tour? Anyway, I wanted to see the Michigan Central Railroad Station before they tear it down. This is a grand old building in the tradition of grand central and penn station. It’s ABANDONED. Like, “ownership is unclear” abandoned. Honestly, I can see both sides of the argument about refurbishing it. On the one hand, it’s a shame to let a beautiful old structure go to seed. On the other hand, it’s better to pay what’s left of the fire department than to try to do something with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This brings me to my point: We’re slipping – badly – when we can’t sustain what we’ve already built. Detroit was a mighty city. A capital of enterprise. To where has that innovation moved? Why are we throwing away a century of work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I just don’t know – but I look at that train station and I see the ruins of other fallen capitals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see the outskirts of empire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see the spot where the water reached highest – before the wave broke and trickled back into the ocean.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I spent last Sunday in Detroit. Now when I say “in Detroit,” I don’t mean “chillin’ with my rich friends in Ann Arbor,” nor do I even mean “hey, I’m from Bloomfield Hills!” I mean my grandfather’s house in Highland Park. Next to Palmer Park.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-real-life","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1609,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608\/revisions\/1609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}