Detroit's decline captured on Google street view

[Cobra Jet]

I found this to be interesting - the decline of some of Detroit's neighborhoods captured on Google street view:

http://weburbanist.com/2014/06/04/decaying-detroit-google-street-view-transformations/

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[CB]

I'm 59 years old. And when I was a child we would visit Detroit once per year. Sometimes my mom would drive out there with only her sister. We had a bunch of aunts and uncles and cousins living there. Most were UAW. I remember how nice and clean people kept their property. We weren't afraid to go around town. Today I wouldn't go there unless I had a tank with plenty of fuel and ammo.

 

[MikeD1]

^^^ This !
I grew up in the Detroit area as well & used to visit my grandparents every summer. We would walk to the butcher shop, bread store, grocery store, Sanders for ice cream & take the bus downtown to shop @ Hudsons.

I drove thru there one day on a lark back in the mid 80's and was afraid for my life - it looked like Beirut with gangs roaming the street! I can only imagine what it's like today, probably totally burned out & abandoned.

 

[Cobra Jet]

Here's another link to look at a lot of the before/after of many places in Detroit. It's ine of the more comprehensive sites I've come across.

http://detroiturbex.com/content/index.html

Being that I've never been there, to look through the sites and looking at the pictures of some of the architecture that has been totally destroyed by people is just really disgusting. I mean some of that architecture was amazing and it's just totally destroyed or gone forever.

Do any of the Big 3 still produce anything directly out of the Detroit region?

Did Detroit just fall into ruins due to a mass exodus of jobs leaving the region?

How's the area where the Henry Ford Museum is, is that bad - or is it bad just trying to get to it?

We have Camden here in NJ which was also very nice and thriving city at one time many many years ago, but is now a ruined, burned out hole... Lots of companies are going back to Camden, because the city is offering major tax breaks if big business will come back... So there is an attempt to revitalize it.

 

[MikeD1]

Well, the HF Museum is in Dearborn, outside Detroit & away from the places where any of those pics are being taken. It's prob. not the best of areas these days (assuming it didn't get better in the many years I've been out of MI) but it's in it's own compound & you are safe there. VERY cool place to visit if you've never been - a must see if you plan to be in the area & like old cars, trains, steam engines + tons more stuff.

When I was in my early 20's there was an area of Detroit called Rosedale Park. Was once a very upscale section with beautiful homes. Some had stair cases, moldings, stone work etc. from Europe - beautiful hand crafted stuff from the turn of the century. It was being abandoned & stripped bare & burned - all unique stuff lost forever to getto creep & the long, slow decline of the city.

I don't think there are any functioning plants in the city anymore. Lots of old abandoned ones that go on for blocks & blocks, all stripped bard and little more then a hazard now. New plants are all in the suburbs or other states.

 

[cosmo]

I live about 15 minutes from Detroit in Dearborn, about 5 minutes from the Henry Ford museum. The area around the museum is actually very nice, with no problems at all.

A lot of the younger generation has started up niche bars and restaurants and stores so downtown Detroit is being revitalized slowly. I would not walk around the majority of Detroit as it is just as bad as you've heard (although Chicago, Flint, and Cleveland are worse), but I've walked around downtown Detroit basically every weekend or so in the past few summers with no problems. It's not the prettiest sometimes, but the environment is changing for the better.

I credit a lot of the turn around of Detroit to the middle Eastern families that have moved just outside of the city since the early 90s. Hard for the criminals in Detroit to intimidate people who have actually lived in war zones their whole life. They stopped the spread, as in the late 80s Detroit was reaching and spreading into the nearby cities.

 

[LETHAL]

I still love my city....

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