"Detroit - prairie and pavement" is a forthcoming book and exhibition of photographs on the urban anthropology of Detroit. Photographed by Ian Brown.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
New stuff coming soon!
Happy New Year! We have been remiss in posting as of late. Sometimes life gets in the way, however there will be some new work coming soon. More posts too about the updated state of things in the 313. Photos for the final project and exhibit are coming together and will post news soon of what to expect. Stay tuned!
Detroit was once the fourth largest city in the United States. It has lost over half it's population over the last 50 years. Unemployment is staggering ; there over thousands of abandoned houses and vast areas of the city are a virtual urban wasteland.
Hulking old factories and plants lie in ruins. The natural environment has slowly reclaimed whole city blocks and vacant swaths of former city streets giving rise to the term "urban prairie". Pheasants, coyotes and even deer are seen roaming in parts of the Detroit environs. Services have been cut, 911 wait times are approaching an hour and the city has taken on a sense of desperate and lawless desolation.
However, there are glimmers of hope for some renewal. Detroit offers an opportunity to exercise some ideas on urban thinking that would never be possible in another city. New approachs to impossible circumstances mean Detroit can be the proving grounds for new urbanism, much the way it was for the automotive industry that built the city in the first place. Will Detroit rise up again? or will it slide further into decline? For now it is caught somewhere between prairie and pavement.
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