Decaying Detroit

Most of the images you tend to see of Detroit are of the central business district - grand buildings decaying, but this series entitled 'GooBing Detroit' a tumblr blog, uses Google Street View Time Machine to follow the fast transformation of family houses from cute and cheerful suburban residences to overgrown vacant lots.

Exeter, northern Detroit, 2009, 2011 & 2013

Much has been said about the decline of a once great city, and the seemingly diminishing chances of a revival. The metropolis has lost 25% of its population in the last decade. The city’s 78,000+ 'feral houses' - abandoned, looted, burned-out - are the stuff of legend, seeming to revert back to a wild state the way domesticated animals tend to do when left to their own devices.
These Google Street View images of Detroit from 2009 through to 2013 paint a poignant portrait of decay in the city. 

Rampant growth - Healy St, north of Hamtramck, 2009 & 2013

The Street View images are often astonishing in the rapid transition in a span of just a few short years. A stretch of houses may have cars parked in the driveways, toys on the lawn and other signs of life all around in the first image, while by the third or fourth they’re barely discernible among the overgrowth.

While these images really drive home how much Detroit has lost over the last three decades, many residents aren’t ready to give up hope, despite the fact that the city’s population has declined from a peak of 1.8 million to just 700,000. There are areas of the city that still thrive, but the question of an overall plan (either to break the city into manageable pieces or reinvigorate it as a whole) remains an open one. In the meantime, it seems to almost be an industry with urban explorers and photographers recording what is left before nature claims it back.

Remove the residents and homes rapidly deteriorate, Arndt, East Side, Detroit, 2009, 2011 & 2013

Next post more of those grand decay photos you associate with Detroit.