Dying Detroit: Haunting photos of crumbling city highlight the terrible decline of US economy

Mangaloretoday News Network

Detroit, March 29: A Mangalorean’s mail. Dying Detroit: Haunting photos of crumbling neighbourhoods highlight the terrible decline of America’s once-great Motor City.

    * Population drops 25 per cent to 713,777 - the city’s lowest since 1910
    * Largely African-American population moves away to escape the terrible effects of the recession
    * Buildings rot on deserted streets that were once bustling thoroughfares

It was the centre of America’s industrial muscle, but now it lies in ruins - a stark portrait of urban decay ravaged by the global recession

The population of devastated Detroit has dropped by 25 per cent in the past ten years and is now at its lowest since 1910.

Empty factories, burnt-out homes, silent banks and even derelict police stations litter the place once known as the ’Motor City’ - where Henry Ford built his first car.

Must the show go on? The United Artists Theater in Detroit, derelict and open to the elements. Detroit has suffered economically more than any other major U.S. city

Lack of vanity: Once billed as ’Detroit’s most beautiful dance rendezvous’, the Vanity Ballroom can hardly make that claim today

In the most ’shocking’ of portraits, a police station lies abandoned - mugshots from countless criminals strewn across its floors.

The figures, released in the 2010 Census Data, suggest the economy, weather and the draw of the suburbs are all blamed on the drain from cities.

It also points to an evacuation of cities that have large black communities. Chicago, Oakland, Atlanta, Cleveland and St Louis all saw a considerable change in population - but it was in Detroit, with an African-American majority, where it was most prevalent.

From the vaults: A haunting image shows the once-secure and proud Bagley-Clifford Office of the National Bank of Detroit - its vault decrepit and strong boxes strewn

The city’s population fell to 713,777 from 951,270 in 2000, when the last census was taken.

This is being blamed on the struggling automotive industry, plant closures and job losses.

Unbelievable: The Highland Park police station is the most shocking of the portraits by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre. Mugshots litter the floor

A forlorn note: Looking more like a war zone - or an underwater shot of the Titanic - the ballroom of the Lee Plaza Hotel and its upturned grand piano is a sorry sight

Nearly a century ago, the expansion of the auto industry fuelled a growth spurt that made the Motor City the fourth-largest in the country by 1920, a place it held until 1950 when it was at 1.85million,

By 2000, Detroit had fallen to tenth place.

According to Chinwe Onyeagoro, CEO of O-H Community Partners, a Chicago-based economic development consulting firm, sunny skies and warm temperatures are luring not only retirees but also young professionals who may have friends or relatives in the Sun Belt — Atlanta and Houston in particular.

In ruins: A third of the city’s 140 square miles - including the Packard Motors plant, left, and William Livingston House, right - lies abandoned and derelict

Suburbs are also a huge draw.

She told USA Today: ’Typically, middle-class African-American families make the same kind of choices that white families have made for some time.

’As soon as kids are school-age, they move to the suburbs which are also luring lower-income blacks who are leaving neighbourhoods that don’t have supermarkets and other retail.’

This was also thought to be a trend in Detroit.

Demographer at Brookings Institution William Frey, who analysed the data, said: ’In the northern cities, a lot of young blacks who might have grown up in cities are leaving maybe the entire region.

School’s out forever: A year later, in spring 2009, the school is destroyed and sprayed with graffiti. Evidently civic pride has also declined with the population

’And you shall say God did it’: Even the East Methodist Church is slowly returning to dust as the congregation has left and the building has been forsaken

Trashed and burned: Gutted and vacant houses line the streets of Detroit, as census figures show the population has plummeted by 25 per cent in ten years

 

Departures: Michigan Central Station is a stark reminder of the economic devastation suffered by the state, and the urban decay in Detroit is particularly apparent

 

’They’re going to the Sun Belt and particularly the South. The ones who stay in the area want to move to the suburbs,

’Detroit has suffered the biggest loss of blacks the city has shown, and that’s tied to the foreclosures in the city’s housing. It has been the most segregated city in the country and it is still pretty segregated, but not as much.’

The staggering loss over the past decade surprised even demographers who track Detroit’s out-migration patterns.

Kurt Metzger, an urban affairs expert and demographer who analysis data about the city, said: ’I never thought it would go this low. This is the biggest percentage loss that Detroit has ever seen.’