watched a doco late last night about the decay of Detroit,USA
basically a city the size and popn of Perth that has reduced to 800,000 people. the ruins of the factories was scary , but then they showed the suburbs that have just been abandoned .
I found it all hard to take in .
get onto google earth and have a look at the areas where entire strrets and suburbs have become empty fields.
Im starting to realize just how good we have it here

Detroit is a very weird place, it's like nowhere else I've been. There is great wealth there with the huge American automotive giants all having their main manufacturing and headquarters there and it also containing some of the richest county's in the US but on the other hand half the centre of the city is abandoned as well as whole suburbs. Basically in the 50 and 60's they built a massive freeway system enabling relocation to the outer suburbs. The middle class, predominantly white, subsequently moved to the outer suburbs to work for Ford, GM etc where as the poorer folk were stuck in the centre of the city which year on year decayed as unemployment, poverty and crime took its toll. It's pretty sobering to see first hand.

CJW said..

Detroit is a very weird place, it's like nowhere else I've been.

So true.

I'll never forget driving down a road there with all these suburban mansions, white picket fences, manicured lawns... crossed a road and suddenly you've got windows broken, paint peeling off weatherboard, black guys squatting on their front steps, car bodies up on blocks, graffiti, the works.

I seriously hoped the car wasn't going to stop running in that area! Never had that feeling anywhere in Australia. But the sudden change was what was so freakin weird.