Tuesday, April 07, 2009

The Opposite of Curb Appeal

John at Sweet Juniper has another fantastic photographic piece on Detroit. He grabbed his camera and stitched together a panorama of "a street here where 60 out of 66 homes were vacant or abandoned on a single block."

Check it out.
[NOTE: click the picture to view the whole thing—
takes a minute or two to load]

What a waste. Half of those houses were once homes I'd've dreamed of—tons of 20s bungalows... I heard/read that people are going back into some areas in Detroit and "re-settling"—groups of friends and families getting together to buy up a whole block for pennies on the dollar and creating their own neighborhoods. If I lose my job in Asheville, that might be our best option! Who else wants in?

UPDATE: Found a link at BoingBoing: Artists buying cheap houses in Detroit

UPDATE 2: I remember now—Mrs F heard this NPR/Michigan Radio story. Sounds like it's a bit more in the gestational stage than I might have implied...

1 comment:

Noah said...

A few of my parents' friends are on the forefront of it. Their mindset is that since the city can't get its shit together, they will get its shit together for it.

They have not had many gang problems because even the gangs dont give a rats-ass about the neighborhoods in question. No money to be made there, and it's not like rival gangs are taking it.