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Common Sense Solutions - Starting Now

Detroit: The Once And Future City

A Haunting Photo Essay

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The Transformation Continues

Here is a beautiful and haunting slideshow about Detroit's rise to one of the highest industrialized cities in the Western Hemisphere and the effects of today's de-industrialization.

On July 17th 2013 Detroit filed the biggest bankruptcy in America's history. With over $18 billion in outstanding debts, the economic devastation is unprecedented. Have there ever been 78,000 vacant dwellings anywhere in one town? In the history of the world?

Who knows what the results of this bankruptcy will be, but we know this: over the last 60 years, we have witnessed the rise and fall of the American car. Everything about it: the manufacturing, the cheap oil, the cities and towns, a whole nation built around this vehicle. And it's over.

This video is a piece of art about this amazing city and it's trajectory. Sometimes there are no words. Just sit back and take in this photographic journey from the glittering heyday to now. They symbolism is powerful.

Who knows what comes next? We do know there are plenty of amazing initiatives taking shape from local food production to artist spaces to entrepreneurs setting up shop of all kinds, so stay tuned: the transformation continues!

--Bibi Farber