...so can we scrap the 'economic disaster porn' already?

Noreen Malone in New Republic calls out photographers and writers who slobber over the economic wreckage of America's most-abandoned inner cities, Detroit conspicuous among them.

Pictures are naturally more memorable than a well written, even-handed magazine story about the scope and tragedy of Detroit's economic woes could ever be. But that's precisely the problem. These indelible pictures present an un-nuanced and static vision of Detroit. They might serve to 'raise awareness' of the Rust Belt's blight, but raising awareness is only useful if it provokes a next step, a move toward trying to fix a problem. By presenting Detroit, and other hurting cities like it, as places beyond repair, they in fact quash any such instinct. Looked at as a piece of art, they're arresting, compelling, haunting...but not galvanizing. Our brains mentally file these scenes next to Pompeii rather than a thriving metropolis like Chicago, say, or even Columbus.

The cure for giving up on Detroit is go and look at it. I've blogged and written in the Star on my surprise at Detroit's continued aesthetic virtues, in stark contrast to decades of negative media reports. Certainly there's blight, but the ingenious street grid, the inventory of both historic landmarks and smart new office towers and major-league sports venues, and a robust hinterland in Southeast Michigan and Southwestern Ontario powerfully suggests that a Pittsburgh-like revival is in store for America's former fifth-largest city with the application of some business and political will.

The well-publicized Detroit:

 
And the town don't see so much of:

 
Belle Isle Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmstead.

 
Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers, in the foreground.

 
Greektown.

 
Annual Electronic Music Festival.

 
Detroit Institute of the Arts.

 
Rosa Parks light-rail station.

 
Annual Jazz Fest.

 
Skyline from across the Detroit River in Windsor, Ontario.

 
"Kettle" sculpture at Campus Martius park.

 

 Water Maze at GM's world headquarters on the Detroit River shoreline.

 
Hitsville, U.S.A., birthplace of Motown.

 
Sculpture at Hart Plaza.

 
Annual Arts, Beats and Eats Festival in the Royal Oak shopping and nightclub district. 

 

 

Comments

[RockyRacoon]

WE should post those pictures everyday and remind everyone what corporate free trade and outsourcing has done to our respective economies. Yank their charter up their taxes put tarrifs on their goods and audit their books for off shore banking and then maybe we can take down the pics. I mean all of this would be unecessarry if we didn't have a capitalist press dependent on advertizing revenues instead of circulation fees.