At the beginning of the 20th Century, the city of Detroit developed rapidly thanks to the automobile industry.
Until the 50′s, its population rose to almost 2 million people.
Detroit was the 4th most important city in the United States.It was the dazzling symbol of the American Dream City with its monumental skyscrapers and fancy neighborhoods.
Increasing segregation and deindustrialization caused violent riots in 1967.
The white middle-class exodus from the city accelerated and the suburbs grew.
Firms and factories began to close or move to lower-wage states.
Slowly, but inexorably downtown high-rise buildings emptied.Since the 50′s, “Motor City” lost more than half of its population.
Nowadays, its splendid decaying monuments are, no less than the Pyramids of Egypt, the Coliseum of Rome, or the Acropolis in Athens, remnants of the passing of a great civilization.
The recession has really hit Detroit its $325 million deficit doesn’t help either, these haunting pictures by Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre show a world or urban decay, monuments of civic pride are just left to rot. At a conference in March 2010, the City Mayor Dave Bing announced a detailed plan of destruction rather than an urban regeneration project. 3000 homes are die to be leveled in 2010. 7000 more by the end of his term in 2014.
Detroits’ new vision for the future is that for the first time in American history it will be radically shrunk.
