This post is about two things. The first is the photography above, by Kevin Bauman, two of a set of 100 photos of abandoned houses in Detroit, once the USA’s fourth largest city, which has seen a population decrease of over 50% from its highest of 2 million. The second is a documentary that is currently sitting on iPlayer, ‘Requiem for Detroit?’, covering some of the reasons why (and set to a soundtrack of Eminem, you know cos he was from dere innit). Together they provide a bleak (but interesting) account of the collapse of the American automobile industry and ‘Motown’ and the hope for a better future in a city that was once the embodiment of the American Dream.
