Saturday, December 16, 2006

The Death of Detroit

The city of Detroit is dying. Not only is there rampant crime, corruption, and poverty, but the city is physically decaying and being overtaken by nature.

Check out these haunting photographs of Detroit from Detroit Blog.

Liberal policies and culture have so wrecked Detroit that anyone who can leave, has. Over the past few decades, Detroit has lost half of its population.

Now Detroit is being overtaken by wild animals and vegetation. If you didn't see the picture of a tree on top of a building, go look at the pictures. Many old buildings have been torn down, fallen down, or burned down. Whole blocks have been reclaimed by nature.

One thought that comes to mind is that the environmentalist saying that "once land is developed, it is lost forever" is false. Without maintenance, land all too soon returns to the state from which it came.

Another thought is that civilization is fragile. We tend to take for granted the technology, education, and other features of modern life. Yet such things have not always existed and don't exist everywhere today. Certain specific cultural characteristics are necessary for these things to exist. Yet today, the bases of Western Civilization are under attack. The state of Detroit today is perhaps the most advanced example of what happens when liberalism goes unchecked.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting argument. However, you fail to make a legitimate correlation between the presence of racoon somewhere in Detroit and the shortcomings of a liberal ideal.

And anyway - isn't it a good thing that there is vegetation? It means that one would be guaranteed a job in the land development industry.

I like trees and animals in my front yard. In many cases, vegetation can add value to property.

Anonymous said...

Detroit has obviously been condemed by God on high

i think the sign of racoons living there must really symbolize the devil's presance in Detroit those evil trash diggers mustave had the black put by their eyes from God for a reason.

but I guess the vegetables are nice. I like trees. their good for my oxygen

A.J. said...

I'm going to have to disagree with you here Allan. All cities have areas like this. Muskegon, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids- they all have dilapidated sections of the city. I went to Detroit last summer as part of my Tomorrow's Political Leaders program. The point of the trip was to see Detroit's economic rebuilding. I was blown away. I had the same idea that you and most other people have about Detroit: it's run down, falling apart, and turning into slums. Of course this is going on- it goes on in all metropolises. BUt the rebuilding going on there is amazing. The area down by the Ford Field, never known as nice place to live, has several rows of new condos. The downtown 'strip' is bustling with new businesses. Our tour guide once mentioned that you could go to a club every night for six months and not go to the same place twice. I was thoroughly impressed with the comeback that Detroit is making. The schools are getting put back together, neighborhoods are cleaning up, and businesses are moving in. There's a long way to go, but they've come a long way already.

Anonymous said...

I agree with a.j. - without the so-called "death of detroit" you wouldn't have any progress on building. If this is what needs to be done, then it has to be done. I wouldn't be complaining about how Detroit is such a slum if that's only a stepping stone in the whole process of reconstruction.

And I have to agree with the other posts as well - it has been shown that having trees and "green areas" adds value to a city, so maybe having plant growth with also stimulate economic growth in the long term. Granted, there might be some work that needs to be done, but having plant and animal life in the city should not be dismissed so hastily.