think demux

Packard Motors Plant by Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre Photography.

“Perhaps no major city in the U.S. today looks more beleaguered than Detroit, where in October the average home price was $18,513, and some 45,000 properties were in some form of foreclosure…

… I’d certainly expect it to shrink faster in the next few years than it has in the past few. But more than likely, many people will stay—those with no means and few obvious prospects elsewhere, those with close family ties nearby, some number of young professionals and creative types looking to take advantage of the city’s low housing prices.”

‘How the Crash Will Reshape America’ by Richard Florida, The Atlantic Magazine

Farwell Building by Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre Photography.

So I see a story pop up in the New York Times about a $100 dollar house and ‘Detroit Unreal Estate Agency’.

Over at PSFK they’re asking if Detroit is “the next Berlin”.

You might be wondering where the racoons come in?

Well, there’s a 69 year-old blues musician called Glemie Dell Beasley living over on the west-side.

He sells raccoons for $15 each, or 2 for $25 – cleaned, skinned and wrapped in plastic grocery bags. Meat for a Southern country dish.

Detroitblogger John – House of Blues by metrotimes on YouTube.

Just one story behind the rusted face of this vast city.

On the surface of it, the soothsayers appear to be right. Artists have entered the home of motors and Motown.

A fleet of doors will open up shop floors long since abandoned by the daily grime of industry. Joyless theatres. Peopleless hotels.

Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre explored those spaces, and many others, in the series featured here (‘The ruins of Detroit’).

Ballroom, Lee Plaza Hotel by Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre Photography.

There is an epic grandeur to this vision. In the photographers’ words, we can witness the “remnants of the passing of a great civilization”. Stunning.

But I can’t look at images of Detroit without a soundtrack in my mind. Styles of soul, rock and techno that were distinctly their own. A cycle of birth and rebirth with pain, heart and expression.

United Artists Theater by Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre Photography.

To an outsiders’ eyes (my two included), Detroit is decaying. Fragile and beautiful.

To Glemie Dell Beasley, it must be that some things don’t change.

Can’t help but hope this city survives. And lives to tell its stories.

More on Detroit:

- Thick slices of Motor City life on detroit blog.

- Art and DIY crafts at Hand Made Detroit.

- Punk attitude and the new indie scene at Detour.

- Bike-and-pedestrian lanes: a less auto-dependent future?

- The sad sight of Detroit’s vandalised schools.

- Sweet Juniper’s Detroit collection on Flickr.