The Lost City

Via Tyler Cowen, a remarkable look at the abandoned Detroit School Book Depository, and a meditation on the same.

More from the same blogger here. And still more here, from a different photographer but on a similar theme.

Comments

I am glad Ross posted these artists work.

I am from just outside Detroit & work in the city itself. As much as we need urban revitalization & economic growth; there is at present a striking beuty to me city that out-of-towners appreciate.

Much like the early renaissance painters who captured the decaying ruins of the Roman Empire; overgrown by nature & worn by time. Detroit has entire city blocks with but a few houses are standing. The pheasant population has returned with few natural predators to stem its growth.

Buildings like the book depository & the old train station invite the brave toward a certain urban spelunking. The desolation & isolation create an ambiance far more striking to the soul than today’s urban homogenized sprawl.

Posted by Fitz | February 22, 2008 10:51 AM

Continued dwelling on this decay aesthetic will do a lot, I worry, to undermine the success of school bureaucracy reforms in other industrial American cities (Indianapolis in particular comes to mind). But eduwonk snapshots aren't as romantic as the post-post-industrial "Ozymandius" thing going on here. A more hopeful version of this Detroit narrative ran in Harper's last summer, though:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/0081594

That said, remember Michelle Rhee's tour of the DC textbook warehouse? A better ending there (I think):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/03/AR2007080302134_pf.html

Posted by Maureen | February 22, 2008 3:14 PM

Continued dwelling on this decay aesthetic will do a lot, I worry, to undermine the success of school bureaucracy reforms in other Rust Belt cities (Indianapolis in particular comes to mind). But eduwonk snapshots aren't as romantic as the post-post-industrial "Ozymandius" thing going on here. A more hopeful version of this Detroit narrative ran in Harper's last summer, though:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/07/0081594

That said, remember Michelle Rhee's tour of the DC textbook warehouse? A better ending there (I think):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/03/AR2007080302134_pf.html

Posted by Maureen | February 22, 2008 3:14 PM

Actually, via Alex T, not via Tyler C.

Posted by ostap | February 25, 2008 1:07 PM