Detroit why. Not a ghost town: an alternative view of Detroit. Car residents hopes

Do you want to buy a house in the States for just a couple of dollars and see with your own eyes the real scenery for Hollywood horror films? - Come to Detroit! But better not: the once richest industrial city is slowly turning into ruins, where drug trafficking and crime flourish. Detroit today has more than 33,000 abandoned buildings - empty skyscrapers, shopping malls, factories, schools and hospitals - in general, a quarter of the city would be worth bulldozing right now. How did it happen that the hapless "West Paris" came to this?

Birth

Detroit (Detroit, from the French "deathrois" - "strait") is located in the north of the United States, in the state of Michigan. It was founded on July 24, 1701 by the Frenchman Antoine Lome as a Canadian trading post for the fur trade with the Indians. However, in 1796 this region was ceded to the United States. Like the Phoenix Bird, Detroit was reborn from the ashes after the 1805 fire that destroyed most of the city. However, empires do not hold on to logs and bricks: the advantageous location on the waterway of the Great Lakes system has made Detroit a major transportation hub. The restored city remained the capital of Michigan until the middle of the 19th century. The urban economy at this time relied heavily on the successful shipbuilding industry.

Flourishing

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Detroit entered the "golden age": luxurious buildings and mansions with architectural delights were built, and Washington Boulevard was brightly lit by Edison bulbs. For this, the city was nicknamed "the Paris of the West" - and it was here that Henry Ford created his own car model and founded the "Ford Motor Company" in 1904. His example was inspired by Durant (General Motors), the Dodge brothers (Dodge), Packard (Hewlett-Packard) and Chrysler (Chrysler) - their factories turned Detroit into a real automobile capital of the world.

The rapid economic growth in the first half of the 20th century required a large number of workers, so black people from the southern states, as well as Europe, came to Detroit to work. A large number of private cars appeared in the city, as well as a network of high-speed highways and transport interchanges.

At the same time, an advertising campaign was being promoted, the task of which was to make public transport less prestigious as "transport for the poor". When you have your own car, it no longer makes sense to live near work: make money in the city, live in a green suburb! Then no one suspected that the relocation of engineers and skilled workers outside the city limits would lay the foundation for today's desolation ...

And even when there are too many cars, an old "worn out" horse can be used for household needs. So, in the 50s, river bank erosion became a real environmental problem in Detroit - and it was creatively replaced by another environmental problem, reinforcing the coastline with old "wheelbarrows". This "cart" is there even now - rusty and green piles of cars still poison the water with paint and oil. But who in the middle of the last century could have known that after a few decades, many areas of the city would also look like garbage dumps?

Beginning of the End

What was the government's goal in making fun of public transport? Of course, it all came down to economic benefits: people should buy more. But they did not foresee that the move of the most affluent part of the population from the center of Detroit would deprive the entire service sector of work: bank workers, hospitals, shop owners.

Gathering the essentials, they rushed in pursuit of a source of income, leaving only low-paid African American workers in the city, living on the benefits of the unemployed and homeless.

Poverty and lack of prospects pushed the "abandoned" people in the center to criminal gangs, and Detroit quickly gained notoriety as one of the "blackest" and most dangerous cities in the United States.

But the troubles of "West Paris" did not end there: in 1973 the oil crisis broke out, bankrupt American car manufacturers: their cars were not only expensive, but also consumed a lot of gasoline.

At the same time, economical Japanese brands confidently entered the market, and it became impossible to compete with them. The employees of the closing factories lost their jobs and went wherever they looked.

Today

The population of Detroit and its suburbs has decreased by 2.5 times: if in the early 1950s, 1.8 million people lived here, today there are hardly 700 thousand of them. The city itself in places looks like pictures of the ruins of human civilization enslaved by aliens from the fantastic movie "Battlefield - Earth".

Buildings with broken glass and trees sprouting from their walls are strangely intertwined with streets, brightly lit shop windows, and graffiti-covered ghetto quarters.

The sparsely populated center of Detroit, no matter what, remains a collection of cultural and sports centers, as well as architectural monuments of the past century and continues to attract tourists.

In addition, Detroit is still home to the headquarters of the largest automakers and is home to a limited number of workers. Numerous Arab immigrants found refuge here.

All the last authorities do not abandon their attempts to revive the city and approved the construction of several casinos: they did not strengthen the Detroit economy, but at least revived local leisure a little.

But the local ruins are of interest to Hollywood directors - they are willing to pay for such a realistic and unforgettable scenery for anti-utopian films, horror films, scenes of disasters and crimes.

In addition, abandoned houses serve as a real art space for Detroit's most restless artists. One of them - a certain Heidelberg - turned an entire block into eerie installations, decorating walls, fences, lawns and pillars with all sorts of trash: plush toys thrown away by mixers, shoes ... Tourists, by the way, considered Heidelberg's works to be good and, most importantly, a free attraction.

Perspectives

In the second half of the 20th century, the whole of America considered what was happening in Detroit funny - and repeatedly ridiculed the city that had fallen to its knees. But today the joke has lost its sharpness: the same story is happening with dozens of other post-industrial cities and towns throughout the United States. But what does this say? The politics of consumerism and the non-ecological approach to production have already reached an absolute dead end - and only because of this, there is a gradual transition to "green thinking" around the world. Fate gives lemon only for us to make lemonade out of it.

Correspondents of TUT.BY have already been to Detroit, once the capital of American mechanical engineering, which is now going through hard times. We talked about how they saw this city in the “Big journey of TUT.BY”. Alisa Ksenevich writes about another Detroit - to which one wants to move for a "settled life." Because he's amazing, says Alice. And that's why.

I wanted to get to Detroit for a long time and passionately, fascinated by the dark, mysterious, viscous like syrup, aesthetics of the films Only Lovers Alive, The Lost River, the work of documentary filmmaker Michael Moore and musician Jack White, as well as the groovy song from the latest album Red Hot Chili Peppers. The whole trip seemed to me like a blind date - a bunch of images, expectations in my head, but what is there in reality? With Detroit, though, I had instant chemistry. This had already happened once - with New York, and I believed that no other city could knock this wedge out. But, getting to know Detroit and its inhabitants, peering into the details, I became more and more affirmed in the desire to move here after I say goodbye to the turbulent youth in New York and want a settled, family life. Detroit is amazing! And let me tell you why.

Escaping beauty

There is a genre in the art of photography, which in the USA is called "porno-ruins" - when photographers specially travel to Detroit and other cities with signs of desolation and take poignant pictures of abandoned buildings.

I tend to notice beauty where others see ugliness. One of the main properties of beauty is escape. People are aging, buildings are collapsing, gardens are overgrown with wild grass, and an effort must be made to peer at them and get a feel for their history.

There is no need to make an effort to admire the beauty of San Francisco or the beaches of Los Angeles. But they do not sink into the heart, at least to me.

I would say about Detroit in the words of Rainbow Rovewell (author of Eleanor and Park): “She was never beautiful. She was like art, and art doesn't have to be beautiful. It should make you feel something. "

Detroit's abandoned colonial houses (the city was founded in 1710) are beautiful with the beauty that I love - complex, tragic, but still majestic.

I spent a day on the "porn ruins" of Detroit, although they certainly deserve more. People on my way rarely came across, cars stopped a couple of times - the drivers sympathetically asked if everything was okay with me, if I was lost and if I needed help.

When I explored the inside of the house, I had the feeling that someone was watching me or that I was filming a thriller. Ringing silence, dust, some rubbish crunches underfoot, the midday sun breaks through the curtains (how long have they hung on these windows? 30-40 years?) ... Things are scattered on the floor: colorful rags, mattresses, wall clocks, a sewing machine, liquid mouthwash, a book with children's counters ... The kitchen cabinet froze in the position of the leaning Tower of Pisa, inside there are two whole porcelain plates with flowers.

I go up to the second floor along the stairs springing under my feet. The house smells musty, meat chandeliers have been torn from the ceilings. The bathroom contains a cracked mirror and a partially collapsed mosaic. In the children's room there is a chest of drawers of excellent work, they no longer make such, and on the table next to it there is a Bible. Thick, expensively bound with gold embossing, powdered with dust. What happened to the family who lived here? Where are they based? What would you feel if you returned to your once beautiful and rich home?

Digesting the surging emotions (horror, sadness, admiration), I walked towards the house, where I stopped during my stay in Detroit. I couldn't wait to discuss my impressions with his mistress.

"I am learning to love Detroit as a parent learns to love an adopted child"

We didn’t know Tate Austen. When from the many options on airbnb I chose a room in an old mansion in the historic district of Detroit, I could not even imagine that its owner would be a native Petersburg woman and that we have a mutual friend - sculptor and film festival director Rosa Valado, who rented me a room in New York. Even the interiors of both houses are similar: antique furniture, delicate dishes, attention to detail. Tatiana (Tate) Austen has been living in the United States for 26 years, 18 of them in New York, 8 in Detroit. A ballet critic, a graduate of the Moscow Literary Institute and the Leningrad Theater Institute, she revolved in the field of art all her life. In New York, she and her husband had their own gallery. In 2009, when the American economy bottomed out, the couple moved to Detroit.

“We saw a TV program that told about the economic decline of Detroit, about the terrible state of the most beautiful houses built before the sixties of the last century,” says Tatiana. - We immediately wanted to go there and see everything with our own eyes. Detroit was truly a "ghost town" at the time. There were almost no cars on the roads, people on the streets. City lighting was absent in many areas. The beautiful high-rise buildings in the city center were abandoned and empty. If desired, one could climb onto the roof of such a building and fry kebabs there, which many did. Looking at these buildings, I got the feeling that they are like orphans looking for a loving family that will restore them and bring them back to life.

Seven years ago, real estate prices in Detroit were unbelievably low. You could buy a house for 7-10-15 thousand dollars. Tatiana and her husband began to buy and restore historical, brick houses built in the colonial style, looking for new owners for them. However, the main reason and purpose of their stay in Detroit was to create a museum where we could promote types of contemporary art based on light: photography, video, projection, laser, neon, three-dimensional technology and so on. They bought an abandoned bank building, restored it and began to hold exhibitions, the first of which was called "Time and Place". The Kunsthalle Detroit Museum existed until 2014. Its activity had to be suspended, as it was not possible to obtain financial support from local authorities and foundations.

Now, 7 years later, home prices in Detroit have increased 10 times, which still makes them affordable compared to similar housing prices in other states. The abandoned warehouse premises of downtown (the business, most comfortable area of \u200b\u200bthe city) are being converted into trendy, comfortable lofts. Cars are cheap. The food is great. Many young people under the age of 30 are moving to Detroit who want to do business and start families here.

“I have a love-hate relationship with this city,” admits Tatiana. - I hate Detroit because it cut me off from the cultural and social life that I enjoyed living in Manhattan. On the other hand, I have overcome my fear of the unknown. Being a ballet critic and poet by vocation and education, I learned to understand electrical wiring, plumbing systems, roof repairs - no manicure can withstand this. In New York, I was (and still am) an educated consumer, a part of a grateful audience, a social butterfly.

In Detroit, I became part of the force that is changing the face of the city, one of its trustees. I have changed buildings, events, even the lives of some people. I'm learning to love Detroit, like a parent probably learns to love an adopted child. I miss the theater, my hyperactivity in New York, but there is an opportunity to accomplish something that would be impossible in other cities. In eight years, Detroit has changed the way other cities change in several decades! Being a part of this story, observing the process from the inside and actively participating in it is an extraordinary feeling. I have a friend here, a black woman 94 years old. She remembers Detroit from 1926. So she says, "People come and go, but if they stay, they stick to Detroit."

Remnants of luxury

On the second day, I had a long walk planned with Detroit native Damon Gallagher. Many Americans have such an attractive feature as mobility. They move relatively easily from one city (or state) to another in search of better opportunities for study, a career, and a family. Wherever Damon lived and what he did not do! He had a bar in New Orleans called Flying Saucer and his own rock band in Oakland, now a small recording studio in Detroit next to an antique store.

I'm in a great mood, and I start humming one of my favorite songs from the Red Hot Chili Peppers: "Don" t you worry, baby, I'm like ... Detroit, I'm crazy ... "Damon winces in disgust.

- What does Anthony Kiedis (frontman of the Red Hot Chili Peppers - A.K.) know about Detroit to sing about? He never lived here! Let him compose songs about California. Who can really say something about Detroit through his work is Jack White (White Stripes frontman - A.K.). He grew up here, his mother worked as a cleaner in a Masonic temple. He saved this temple when it was about to be closed for debts and put up for sale at auction.

But this is already interesting! I ask Damon to take me to the temple - the largest Masonic temple in the world.

The building, to be sure, is majestic and occupies the entire quarter. 14 floors, about 1000 rooms. Within its walls, the best musicians of the world perform (Nick Cave, The Who, Rolling Stones, etc.), immersive performances are held (a fashionable format nowadays, which involves spectators wandering around the floors and rooms in which theatrical action unfolds).

In 2013, Jack White anonymously donated $ 142,000 to the temple - this is how much the Detroit Masonic Temple Society owed the state in unpaid taxes. In gratitude for this broad gesture, the Society of Freemasons renamed the cathedral theater of the temple to the Jack White Theater. So, in fact, the identity of the mysterious patron was revealed.

This is not the first time Jack White has helped his hometown. In 2009, the musician donated 170 thousand dollars to renovate a baseball field in a park where he played ball as a child.

Ten years ago, Dan Gilbert, head of America's largest home loan company Quicken loans, relocated headquarters to Detroit, and with it 7,000 interns. He purchased and refurbished over a hundred buildings, allowing his employees to live in those buildings, paying subsidized rent for the first year. Another ten thousand specialists came for the first batch, which became a catalyst for the development of small business and the restaurant industry. After almost half a century of disintegration and oblivion, the city began to revive and develop rapidly.

There is another beautiful structure in downtown that looks more like a cathedral than a commercial center - the Fisher House. The building was built in 1928 by the brilliant American architect Alexander Kahn. When we went inside, my jaw literally dropped. Marble, granite, bronze, vaulted painted ceilings, mosaics, stunning Art Deco lamps and chandeliers. Everything is real, since that time, in excellent condition. In my opinion, it was sacrilege to open a coffee shop within these walls with a plastic counter, cheap coffee and donuts. However, it is there. I wanted to close my eyes and imagine myself here in the 1920s, when Detroit was at the peak of its power and two million people were scurrying back and forth, like New Yorkers are scurrying back and forth now.

The building of the former railway station, built in 1914, left a sad impression. In those years, it was the tallest train station in the world and served over 4,000 passengers a day. After the war, many Americans switched to private vehicles, which reduced passenger volume to a critical level, and it was more profitable for the station owners to sell the building than to continue to maintain it. Nevertheless, it was not possible to find buyers - no one wanted to purchase it even for a third of the cost of its construction. In 1967, shops, restaurants and most of the waiting room were closed in the station building. In 1988, the station itself stopped working. Floods, fires, raids of vandals disfigured the pearl of architecture.

In 2009, the city government decided to demolish the building. A week later, a Detroit resident with the speaking surname Christmas challenged the decision in court, citing national legislation, in particular the 1966 Historic Preservation Act. A person with a strong civic position who dares to go against the authorities deserves admiration in himself. The fact that he won this trial can be regarded as a miracle. For me, this is another reason to love America.

How much is the quarter now?

The outskirts of Detroit resemble Minsk Shabans until we run into a fence, artistically sprinkled with paint and pasted over with pieces of mirrors of different sizes. Behind the fence is a house, decorated from top to bottom with the same mirror mosaic. The owner of the house is an artist and owner of the largest collection of beads in the world. We were unable to view the collection because the owner was not at home.

Heat and humidity make themselves felt. In the store we go to to buy water, I am surprised to see the bulletproof glass separating the seller and the buyers. I have seen such counters only in a few points of sale of alcohol in disadvantaged areas of New York.

- Even alcohol is not sold right there! - I wonder.

“It's safer to live in Detroit, but still not to the point where armed robbery is not possible,” Damon replies. - The unemployment rate is high in the city. Here, even pizza after 10 pm is not served - the delivery men fear for their lives.

Until the early 2000s, there was not a single major food chain in Detroit. The glory of the most criminal city was entrenched in the city in 1967, when during the riots on the streets of the city 43 people died, 1200 were injured, 2500 shops, 488 private houses were burned and destroyed.

It all started with a police raid in the "Blind Pig" bar, which illegally sold alcohol and arranged gambling. At the time of the arrival of the law enforcement officers, the bar was crowded with 82 African Americans celebrating the return of friends from the Vietnam War. The police arrested everyone indiscriminately. Passers-by, gathered on the street, began to resent the lawlessness and throw bottles at the cops. The conflict gave rise to riots - about 10 thousand people took to the streets and began to smash and rob shops, churches, private houses. At that time, in Detroit, the unemployment rate for blacks was twice the unemployment rate for whites. Outbreaks of violence, looting, looting shook the city for five days. Fires blazed in the buildings. It was possible to pacify the raging crowd only with the involvement of military divisions.

About thirty thousand families left Detroit, having ceased to pay property taxes. Electricity was no longer supplied to the deserted areas, the roads were overgrown with weeds, and wild animals began to visit. Even now, you can meet pheasants in the city, and something is constantly roaming about in the bushes.

Detroit's beautiful and varied churches were destroyed by vandals. It got to the point that the local punks entertained themselves by burning the church on the eve of Halloween, thus marking the "night of the devil." On this night, many American children are playing pranks: overturning trash cans, hanging toilet paper on trees, but Detroit's children have reached a new level.

Some of the houses have survived in a condition that is attractive enough for buyers, and found new owners through auctions. So, five years ago, Damon's friend bought a whole block - 8 houses standing in a row - for 50 thousand dollars. His dream was to settle his friends and relatives in these houses. To those who decided on an adventure, he sold the houses with a minimal mark-up. The rest were renovated and sold at a good profit.

"We do not need this your gentrification"

In the evening I go to a bar where the unknown White Stripes used to play. The establishment is no different from those that thrive in New York - stylish, ironic interior, a bartender with a pronounced sense of self-esteem, hipsters like to hang out in these. A guy named Stan speaks to me. Young teacher, teaches Spanish and English in high school. Grew up in a "white" suburb of Detroit, in his free time he plays in a rock band with a name, after hearing which I laughed for a long time, but did not dare to tell Stan that this "meaningless set of letters", which the guys called themselves out of principle, so that to be different from everyone, in Russian it has a completely definite (and rather slippery!) meaning.

We talk with Stan for two hours about music and Detroit, and later we are joined by his friend Etienne, a chemical scientist who came to Detroit six years ago from France. Etienne is also in a band with a slippery name - he plays the trombone.

“To tell you the truth, we don't like Detroit getting trendy,” the guys say. - Wealthy hipsters come here, buy real estate, these coffee shops with vegan pastries and coffee for $ 7 a cup appeared ... The territory of Detroit could contain San Francisco, Boston, Manhattan, and there would still be room. And 740 thousand people live here. We know each other by sight. Six years ago there was a feeling that this city was ours, we know all its features, cool places. And now business comes here, competition, all this "renaissance" is taking place, about which the New York Times has been writing super-optimistic articles for five years. But after all, with all this improvement and the rise of the real estate market, the face of Detroit is changing, the composition of its inhabitants, living here is no longer as cheap as it used to be - rental prices have doubled over the past three years!

By the way, about the prices. In a restaurant with excellent service quality and excellent cuisine, the price of any cocktail is $ 2. Second course - $ 3. I peered at the menu for a long time, not believing my eyes. Maybe this is some kind of special promotion? Maybe a typo? It was psychologically difficult to accept the fact that the chicken curry, which I pay $ 14 in New York for, costs five times less here. Some kind of parallel reality, by God.

The young teacher, earning less than three thousand a month, lives alone in a two-room apartment in the city center, paying $ 550 in rent. He has enough money left for food, clothing and entertainment. The group Stan plays in does not even rehearse in the garage, but in the building of a former glasses factory. The guys collectively pay $ 100 a month to rent this space! Not surprisingly, so many creative people - artists, musicians - are moving from New York to Detroit. Thanks to this new blood, Detroit has a great music scene and simply gorgeous murals.

I understand well the desire of Stan and Etienne to leave everything as it is. The same renaissance is now going through Bushwick, the area where I live. Two years ago, it was a dormitory, artistic Brooklyn neighborhood with affordable rental rates and one grocery store per ten blocks. There weren't many places for leisure, but they were cool - with parties for friends, an eccentric and strange crowd, bars where everyone could read poetry and give concerts. As a result of all this musical and artistic movement, Bushwick became fashionable. A Michelin-starred restaurant was opened here. Tourists began to come here. Hotels and apartment complexes with concierges have sprung up like mushrooms after rain. I don't know if I can afford Bushwick in two years. In any case, this will no longer be the unique, charming in its underdevelopment and freedom of expression area that I fell in love with.

I ask Stan what he likes and dislikes the most about Detroit.

- I like that here you can make a real contribution to the musical, cultural and political life of the city. A simple example is the building of an aquarium on the urban island of El Bel. The oldest aquarium in America, built by the famous architect Albert Kahn, has been empty since the sixties of the last century. The building was closed in 2005. In 2012, with the help of a small group of Detroit volunteers, the aquarium was filled with fish - about 1000 fish of more than 118 species. Now this symbol of the city is open to the public. I like that Detroit residents are confident in themselves, but not arrogant and are optimistic about life. I like that there is so much history in this city that even having lived here all your life, you continue to learn something new and be surprised. I do not like the degree of corruption of the authorities. The city needs leaders who care more about the city than their own egos and welfare. The money, which, in theory, should go to the improvement of schools, improvement of the social sphere, flows into the pockets of millionaires who are building another sports stadium or casino. Why do we need a fourth casino? So that people who are not rich become even poorer? The fact that the former director of Detroit's central library is in prison for embezzling public funds speaks volumes. The quality of school education in Detroit itself is lame, to put it mildly. Good schools are in wealthy, "white" suburbs. The police are also not particularly vigilant. People drive as they want, often drunk. An inspector stopped my acquaintance. They found weed in the car, alcohol in the blood of a friend. Then the inspector said: "The main thing is that it is not cocaine!" and let him go without even fining him.

Detroit shocked me, charmed, puzzled ... I don't even want to convince people about it, especially those who have never been there. This city is not for everyone. But maybe just right for me. In short, it would be necessary to find out if the band with a slippery name does not need a keyboard player.

Alisa Ksenevich

Moved to New York 5 years ago. Prior to that, she worked in Belarus for 5 years as a correspondent for the newspaper "Observer", wrote for the "Women's Journal" and Milavitsa.

During her life in New York, she wrote the book New York for Life, which is sold on Amazon.

TUT.BY book chapters on the portal.

Even in the most developed country in the world (USA) there is a ghost city - Detroit. A few decades ago, it was a successful and dynamically developing metropolis with modern infrastructure - the world capital of the automotive industry. But what happened? Why is Detroit a ghost town? In all this we have to figure it out today.

Acquaintance with the "Hollywood city"

Do you want to buy real estate in America for just a couple of dollars? It's not a joke. Due to the insolvent population, which is already small here, most (if not all) houses are put up for auction at extremely low prices.

There are no buyers here. A rare occurrence is the purchase of their own housing from the municipality of the city. And it's cheaper than paying taxes. The latter is not a replenishment duty of local residents.

The ghost town in the United States Detroit is also a Hollywood set for filming apocalyptic scenes for films. You just need to come here with a film crew - no decorations are needed. Here everything is as if the inhabitants hastily left the city, which turned into a ghost after many years.

What does a ghost town look like?

Over 80 thousand abandoned buildings, turned into ruins, skyscrapers with broken glass, dilapidated and overgrown with grass houses. This is the most dangerous and criminal American city. However, the number of homicides has dropped in recent years. At one of the conferences, the city's mayor answered a question about the fall in crime, saying that there is simply no one else to kill.

Locals jokingly call their city, which turns into a wasteland, prairies, steppes of North America, emphasizing all the decay and tragedy of the city.

Let's turn to history and find out why Detroit is a ghost town. A photo of this mystical city is presented below.

From the history of past centuries

The city was founded in 1701 by the French activist Antoine Lome, it was he who gave the name to this settlement. Translated from French, "Detroit" ("Detroix") means "strait". There was a trade in furs with the Indians. For about a century this city belonged to Canada, but in 1796 it became the property of the United States - Detroit turns into a major American transport hub, thanks to the favorable location of lakes and the junction of transport routes. The city's economy at that time depended on shipbuilding.

Until the middle of the 19th century, Detroit was the capital of the state of Michigan.

Detroit development

Now many are wondering why Detroit is a ghost town? A century ago, this city experienced the heyday of its development. Majestic buildings, skyscrapers, office buildings and luxurious mansions were built here. It was in Detroit that the first Ford opened, followed by Cadillac, Dodge, Chrysler and Pontiac. Detroit became the site of the global automotive industry, it was called the West of Paris. It was here that the fashion for cars was created, new samples were produced, becoming an object of admiration and imitation.

High employment and rapid development of infrastructure contributed to the economic recovery. As a result, other spheres of city life have grown as well. Due to the growth of the economy, the local population is also increasing. Life in Detroit is in full swing.

Reasons for the devastation of the city

But the economic boom also had the other side of the coin - cheap labor is starting to flock here. White mingles with blacks who offer their services for a pittance unlike the native inhabitants of the city.

Here lies the answer to the question of why Detroit is a ghost town. Gradually, local residents, not wanting to live next to the settlers, move to the outskirts of the city. The middle class, accustomed to good cars and a beautiful life, is using the city's shops less and less. Due to the decline in customer traffic, businessmen rushed to the places where their potential customers live.

The consequences of the outflow of the solvent class

As bankers, engineers, shopkeepers and doctors began to leave Detroit, the city began to experience an economic crisis. The number of African Americans continued to grow, so the city became more poor.

Car factories, following the rest of the business, began to close. Arriving immigrants began to lose their jobs. They did not have the money to move from the once wealthy Detroit, but now devastated and gloomy. Poverty and misery enslaved the city, and the municipal treasury was not taxed.

Below is the ghost town of Detroit - before and after the economic collapse.

Life in Detroit has stopped

Poverty and a lack of jobs have made the city the most criminal and criminal place in the United States. The remaining residents clashed with immigrants from Africa. Interracial clashes were constantly conducted, crime was gaining momentum. The culmination of events - which is included in the textbooks of American history - "Riots on 12th Street." In July of that year, serious confrontations took place, which resulted in the most violent riots and lasted for five days. The rebels set fire to cars, shops, houses, devastated and robbed everything that came in their way. All of Detroit was engulfed in fires and chaos.

During these riots, the police took everyone in a row. National federal troops also took part in suppressing the riot. At the end of the uprising, losses were calculated: 2,500 shops were burned and robbed, about 400 families were left homeless, over 7,000 were arrested, about 500 people were injured and 43 killed. The economic damage ranged from $ 40 to $ 80 million (or $ 250-500 million at today's prices). Photo of the ghost town of Detroit (one of the houses) below.

This became a point in the life of the city. Small and medium businesses have completely left the city. The oil crisis in the country, which erupted in 1973 and lasted six years, finally shook the automotive business of the American auto industry. The gluttonous were bought less and less. It was also decided to close the last factories in the city. The workers moved out of the city with their families. And who could not - stayed here.

The Detroit administration announced financial problems that could not be dealt with on its own. All of the above reasons were the answer why Detroit became a ghost town.

Car residents hopes

The reason was not only the influx of African emigrants, but also the mismatch of the hopes of highways that the residents pinned. The declared requirements for comfortable travel on Detroit roads have become difficult to fulfill. The moment has come when everyone simply did not have enough space on the roads for everyone to test their vehicles.

By the way, public transport here was very poorly developed, because the original motto for the townspeople sounded like this: "Each family has its own car." This is another reason why Detroit is a ghost town. The outflow of the population began earlier, and immigrants accelerated its process and deepened the problem.

Detroit today

Today, the city is home to less than 700,000 people. Of these, less than 20% of the population is American, 80% is African American. According to statistics, only 7% of school-age children can read and write fluently.

Many are trying to sell their homes, but there are no buyers here. And there is no money to leave the ghost town either. The population lives in such a vicious circle. If you look at the empty city center with apocalyptic landscapes today, it becomes clear why Detroit is called a "ghost town."

The city administration does not have the funds to rebuild it, the US government has repeatedly taken to reviving Detroit, but all attempts have been in vain. Some building owners do not give up hope that someday life will return to Detroit, and land and real estate here will rise in price.

Thousands of abandoned buildings and offices are being targeted by local vandals. Since the beginning of the 80s of the last century, local residents have developed a tradition of setting fire to houses. On Halloween, massive arson attacks begin in the city. Why the omen from the ghost town of Detroit (photo below) was picked up by other residents of the states, remains unclear. But the fact remains.

An artistic take on Detroit

Not only are Hollywood directors interested in this dark place, but artists are also inspired by it. Needless to say, the place is very unusual, there is an opportunity to build trajectories of development of the modern post-apocalyptic period. For example, the American artist Tyree Gaton began to attract tourists to the city with his work on the Detroit ruins. He created objects that are at the same time a painting, and a subject of sculpture, and an object of design, and an original installation. he laid out rusty cars and household appliances in bizarre compositions and painted them with bright colors. Heidelberg Street, on which the artist worked, attracted not only American, but also foreign tourists, and Gaton himself received several international awards for his creative achievements.

How does the US government plan to revive Detroit?

As mentioned earlier, the American authorities have made repeated attempts to rebuild the city. But for many reasons, this has not yet been done. One of the local government ideas was to open two casinos in the city. But they did not live up to hopes for an economic recovery in Detroit.

The Detroit bankruptcy process lasted from 2013 to 2014. During this period, it was not possible to demolish the dilapidated buildings that were planned by the government of the country to rebuild the city. When the process was documented, the authorities decided to demolish nearly one quarter of the buildings in the city. According to the authorities, this would help attract new investors and in the future close the old debt obligations, which at that time amounted to over $ 20 billion.

There were times when Detroit's population exceeded 1.8 million. Today it is home to three times less - 681,090 people. 1805 was a tragic milestone for the city - Detroit was almost completely burned out.

Detroit is in the top ten the most criminal cities in the world and consistently leads in similar ratings in the United States.

However, not everything is so gloomy! A famous rapper was born and raised here Eminem. Francis Ford Coppola, director of the trilogy "The Godfather", is also from Detroit. From here the musical style spread throughout the world " techno". Detroit is home to all the most important automotive events in the United States! It was here that the first affordable family car was created ( Ford model T), and Henry Ford founded Ford Motor Company and opened his first factory. Thanks to Detroit for the cream soda too.

Rentals in Detroit

Housing and rental prices are obscenely low! However, rumors that a two-story country house can be purchased for $ 100-200 is not worth believing. A couple of years ago, it was possible to find a house for $ 500 at special auctions - but to equip such a house, it would take another ten thousand. Now the most budgetary option will cost about $ 1.5 thousand (but still without renovation).

Work in Detroit

And here is the answer to the astonished looks caused by real estate prices. In Detroit, more than half of the buildings are abandoned. The unemployment rate reaches 20%. The streets are ruled by crime and poverty.

Many houses lack water and electricity. In factories, salaries are scanty. Young people are increasingly choosing crime.

What happened to Detroit

The beginning of the 20th century is Detroit's finest hour. Then there was an economic boom in mechanical engineering. Not only Henry Ford, but also corporations decided to settle in the City of Motors General motors and Chryslercollectively referred to as the "Big Three".

Almost every family had a car. Public transport was considered inconvenient and not prestigious. Infrastructure developed rapidly, every millimeter of the city flourished - everyone, except for the sphere of public transport. Which later played a cruel joke with Detroit.

The machine was equal to freedom of movement. Why not move out of town then? Most Detroiters did just that.

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With the budget cuts, the city began to fade. In the early 60s, the changes were still imperceptible, but later - more. Only those who did not have the means to move at all remained within the city limits, and the middle class and elite to leave Detroit.

The city was finally abandoned after the 1973 oil crisis. There is less gasoline - there is nothing to refuel the car, but with public transport, as we remember, there is no situation. The authorities were shocked by such a rapid extinction, because this is the first such case in American history.

Fewer people - the economic turnover of the city falls - jobs are reduced - hello, unemployment. Salaries are scanty, crime is high.

Today Detroit looks like a backdrop for filming a post-apocalyptic action movie. The planet's population is growing rapidly, but not here.

The business center of the city is in the best condition (as far as possible in the current situation). Skyscrapers, where thousands of clerks rush to work every day, shops and shopping centers are functioning.

The headquarters of Ford, General Motors, Chrysler corporations are still in place, which helps the city to stay on its feet.

Important

At night in Detroit you need to be at home, behind a locked door. The streets are empty early, and civilization goes to sleep. With dusk, crime awakens in Detroit.

The city can still be saved. But this requires wise decisions of the authorities, the responsibility of each citizen and many years and patience.

Updated: March 30, 2019 by the author: Lera Koptseva

Detroit (eng. Detroit , from fr. détroit - "strait") - a city in the north of the United States, in the state of Michigan. Located in the southeastern corner of the state, on the Detroit River, on the border with Canada.

Founded on July 24, 1701 by the French manager Antoine Lome as a trading post for the fur trade with the Indians. Until the 19th century, it was part of Canada (part of the British Empire), then transferred to the United States. In the XX century, the city became a major auto-industrial center. In the second half of the century, due to the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis, Detroit fell into disrepair, many of its factories closed, the population dispersed, leaving entire areas of the city abandoned. However, the Detroit metropolitan area is still home to the boards of the Big Three car companies: General Motors, Ford and Chrysler - in Detroit, Dearborn and Auburn Hills, respectively.

History

Base

The city got its name from the Detroit River (fr. le détroit du Lac Érie), which means lake Erie Straitconnecting Lake Huron with Lake Erie. In the XVII-XVIII centuries. the strait was understood not only as the present Detroit River, but also Lake Saint-Clair and the river of the same name. Traveling up the Detroit River on the La Salle ship, Catholic priest Louis Hennepin noted that the north bank was ideal for settlement. Here in 1701 Antoine Lome de La Mot-Cadillac (fr. Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac) with a group of 51 French-Canadians founded Fort Detroit (fr. Ponchartrain du detroit). By 1765, Detroit's white population was 800, which placed it on a par with the largest French settlements in America at the time, Montreal and St. Louis. However, in 1760, both Montreal and Detroit were surrendered to the British and became part of the British colonial empire. Having become masters, the British reduced the name of the fort to Detroit.

Monument to soldiers and sailors of the Civil War

In 1763 the fort was besieged by the rebellious Indians of the leader Pontiac. Forced to soften its policy in the occupied territories, the British government in the same year forbade the English colonists to establish new settlements west of the Appalachian mountains, which, in turn, caused the discontent of the large population of the British colonies proper and became one of the reasons for the American Revolution.

19th century

After the revolution, Detroit remained a Canadian town for a long time and passed to the United States only in 1796. In 1805, most of Detroit burned down in a fire. From 1805 to 1847 Detroit was the capital of the territory and then the new state of Michigan. During this time, its population increased greatly. In 1812 it was again occupied by the British during the Anglo-American War (1812-1815), a year later it was recaptured by the Americans and received the status of a city in 1815.

On the eve of the Civil War, Detroit was one of the key points of the "Underground Railroad" along which escaped black slaves made their way from the United States to Canada. For some time, the future president lived here, and then lieutenant Ulysses Grant, and during the war, many townspeople volunteered for the army of the northerners. George Armstrong Caster formed the famous Michigan Brigade from them.

Many buildings and mansions in the city were built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Detroit entered the “golden age”. At the time, it was called the "Paris of the West" for its luxurious architecture and Washington Boulevard, brightly lit by Edison lamps. The favorable location on the waterway of the Great Lakes system made the city a major transport hub. The basis of the urban economy in the middle of the XIX century. was shipbuilding. At the end of the same century, the advent of automobiles inspired Henry Ford to create his own model and the Ford Motor Company (1904). The factories of Ford, Duran, the Dodge brothers (see Dodge), Packard and Chrysler turned Detroit into the automotive capital of the world.

XX century

During the Prohibition years, smugglers used the river to transport alcoholic beverages from Canada. In the 1930s, with the emergence of unions, Detroit became the arena for the auto workers union with the employers. In it, in particular, such leaders as Jimmy Hoffa have come forward. In the 1940s, one of the first American expressways, the M-8, passed through the city, and thanks to the economic boom during World War II, Detroit received the nickname "Arsenal of democracy"... The rapid economic growth of the first half of the 20th century was accompanied by an influx of populations from the southern states (mostly blacks) and Europe. Although discrimination in employment (and it was quite strong) weakened, there were still problems, and this resulted in a racial riot in 1943, as a result of which 34 people were killed, 25 of them blacks.

In the 1950s, Detroit was one of the main centers of mechanical engineering in the United States and at that time promoted a program of cheap and affordable cars at the state level. Detroit was home to the country's largest automobile factories (Ford, General Motors, Chrysler), and the city experienced a boom in its development - it literally flourished, becoming one of the richest cities in North America. Since the mid-1920s, with the development of the auto industry, a large number of private cars have appeared in the city. Detroit was one of the first cities to build a network of expressways and transport interchanges. On the other hand, the public transport system did not develop. On the contrary, automobile corporations lobbied for the elimination of tram and trolleybus lines. At the same time, there was a campaign, advertising the purchase of a personal car, and public transport was considered not prestigious, as “transport for the poor”. Such a transfer of residents to personal vehicles contributed to the movement of the population from the center of Detroit to its suburbs.

The beginning of decline

The outflow of the population to the suburbs began in the 1950s due to mass motorization. More and more skilled workers, engineers, and middle class people were selling their homes in the city and moving to the suburbs. Property values \u200b\u200bbegan to plummet. As the most solvent population dispersed, financial problems began in the city. Jobs were cut, shopkeepers, bankers, doctors began to move to places where there is effective demand.

In the city, there were those who could not afford this - the unemployed, living on welfare, or low-paid workers, mostly blacks. The outskirts of Detroit were also rapidly filled with blacks. Crime flourished among blacks because of poverty and unemployment, so Detroit quickly fell into disrepute as one of the "blackest" and most dangerous cities in the United States. At this time, racial segregation was abolished in the United States, as a result, blacks began to clash with whites more often, and this led to interracial conflict. It culminated in 1967, when in July a confrontation between whites and blacks erupted into one of the most violent riots in US history, lasting five days known as the 12th Street Riot.

In 1973, the oil crisis broke out. It led to the crisis of the Big Three American automakers, whose cars, voracious and expensive, could no longer compete with the fuel-efficient European and Japanese cars. Factories one after another began to close, people lost their jobs and left Detroit. The population of the city within its administrative boundaries decreased 2.5 times: from 1.8 million in the early 1950s to 700 thousand by 2012. It should be noted, however, that these numbers include people who have moved to workers' suburbs, where housing is cheaper and the environment is safer.

As a result of the outflow of the population, entire areas of the city were abandoned by residents. Skyscrapers, factories, residential areas are abandoned and destroyed by time and vandalism. In Detroit, you can see streets, on one side of which the windows of expensive shops are brightly lit, and on the other there are buildings with broken glass, from the walls of which trees sprout.

XXI Century

Despite the general decline of Detroit, the headquarters of General Motors is still located here, in the suburbs of Detroit - Dearborn is the headquarters of the Ford Motor Company, and in Auburn Hills - Chrysler. The city center, although sparsely populated, but also relatively safe, remains a collection of cultural and sports centers, as well as architectural monuments of the past century and continues to attract tourists.

A number of districts surrounding the center of Detroit are decadent ghettos, inhabited mainly by blacks. These outskirts are considered the most dangerous parts of the city, where crime reigns, gangs of robbers, gangs of rappers and drug trafficking flourish. By comparison, Detroit's one-story suburbs are relatively prosperous, home to families of white workers who left the main city in the 1950s. In addition, Detroit and its environs are one of the main centers of settlement for Arab immigrants. The University of Michigan branch in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn operates a center for Arab-American studies. Among lovers of oriental sweets, Dearborn is famous for its baklava.

Over the past decades, the state and federal authorities have been trying to revitalize the city, especially its central part. One of the most recent initiatives of the 2000s was the creation and construction of several casinos, which still failed to strengthen Detroit's economy. In December 2012, the city budget deficit amounted to $ 30 million, while the total debt at the beginning of the same year exceeded $ 12 billion.

On July 18, 2013, Detroit authorities officially filed for bankruptcy for the city due to inability to pay off $ 20 billion in debt.

On January 8, 2014, the city's new mayor, Mike Duggan, was elected in November 2013, promised to solve the main problems of Detroit in six months and asked residents not to move to other cities.

Detroit began to get out of a difficult situation, beginning to create gardens in the city center, where everyone can grow vegetables and fruits, as well as create museums and hostels in the place of empty houses [ source not specified 213 days].