detroit, michigan

motorcity; detroit.  for so long the world’s foremost automotive capital, it is the city in which henry ford first introduced his assembly lines that heralded the age of consumerism and mass production.

those days are gone and as car factories keep closing, including ford’s original factory, detroit has failed to keep its status as motown.  from a population of 1.9 million in 1950 only 900,000 remain.  the flight from the city has been massive.  with crime and deprivation a familiar story; the whole scale clearance of buildings was a popular technique used to prevent the rapes and other crimes that make use of the dark, derelict, unseen corners of the city.

much of inner city detroit can now be described as an “urban prairie”, where plots and even whole blocks have been left to go fallow awaiting redevelopment in an uncertain future.  a hollowed-out city, turned inside out with the core empty: encircled by prosperous residential neighbourhoods.  this official policy of clearance has had a mixed reception with its promoters suggesting that the prairies provide a more attractive setting for their buildings reminiscent of an earlier, simpler age of initial settlers to the midwest. its detractors express the opinion that the poor neighbourhoods have been abandoned and left to rot, a willed absence of care to allow the neighbourhoods to be re-developed, repackaged and resold to a wealthier clientele.

across the city this vast exodus has left noble memorials to detroit’s glory days.  now empty and unused.  the film, 8 mile, set in detroit, shows some of the city’s contradictions with beautiful theatres now used as car parks, here the car really is king.  its sprawling, decaying city: the result.

the michigan central station, often considered the world’s best abandoned building and under threat of demolition, is a tombstone to an earlier type of optimism that pervaded detroit culture.  built in 1913 it was the world’s tallest railway station until its closure in 1988, standing at 18 storeys, it was designed with the input of the designers of grand central station, ny.  the station never quite worked in the way it was intended and no end user seems to want to stump up the money needed to refurbish such a monumental building.  but what a building; pure american excess, it is a burger made with fillet steak with everything piled on top. why a train station needed to be 18 storeys; no one will ever know (the top storey remained unused throughout much of its life).   it is a pure expression of bigger, better and stronger: now on its knees, its sheer size is working against it, too big to be useful, too grand for our age of modular workstations in open-plan boxes.

the decline of detroit is well documented and these photo’s record the result of the slow abandonment of a city.

most of these images can be found at yves marchand and romain meffre photography site here