Only a few shots of this more recent, modern hospital are in this gallery. United Community Hospital: An abandoned modernist hospital. Detroit has fared worst in terms of this variable, and the photos here illustrate that. The commonality that exists is the industrial based economy, the variable being the social adaptation to industrial decline. As famous American boomtowns once existed, their counterparts exist today cities such as Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh have all lost around 50% of their population over the past 50 years. The city is a case study for methods of dealing with shrinking cities. There is simply not enough demand to sustain the amount and character of architecture. Today, not only is nearly half of Detroit's 138 square mile area vacant, beautiful architecture is left with no hope of use. The middle and upper classes vanished in search of suburbs and other cities, leaving behind a massive lower class with no means to maintain a city that quickly became twice the built size it needed to be. Factories closed doors, jobs disappeared (to this day, Detroit has over 17% unemployment) and soon after, residents left. Such a dramatic "un-densification" affected every realm of the city. Hundreds of thousands of people fled the city, and today the population is less than half of what it was in 1950 (For a detailed analysis of Detroit's fall, visit this page). The failing industry was met with, social, racial, and political tensions. Detroit, the nation's most industrious city, reflects this in a unique way. No other city in the United States has undergone such a dramatic level of population decline, abandonment, and urban decay over the past few decades.Īs many of the posts under the research section of this site convey, industry in America has toppled and left behind an amazing amount of abandoned and decaying architecture. The study of abandonment must convene upon Detroit at one point or another.
0 kommentar(er)
