Note: Click on the slideshow to go to the Picasa album and view it in Fullscreen mode.

At first it’s interesting to witness something you wouldn’t expect to exist in a first world nation. I’m sure other cities experienced a decline with the downfall of manufacturing and the US automotive industry. But, the scale of the decline, I would guess, is unique to Detroit. I began my day by eagerly taking pictures of the dilapidated properties. Somewhere along the way, the realization that I could spend a whole day taking pictures and not run out of houses hit me, and my intrigue turned to despair. I saw the forest instead of the trees. These kinds of neighborhoods go on for miles. The extent of the decay is so widespread, so entrenched, it seems there isn’t a chance of revival without a massive coordinated community effort. In lacking a community, that chance is pretty close to zero. The only way for these areas to come back is for them to be completely torn down and rebuilt.

I started feeling hungry, so I headed out of the severely decayed areas. I had to drive a little ways out to reach operating businesses. I pulled into a dirty pizza shop. The owner was sleeping behind the counter. It was the first pizza place I’ve seen with bullet proof glass. I made enough noise by scuffing my shoes on the dusty floor to wake him up.  Startled, he jumped up to the counter, “Oh! Hey man, how you doin’ today?” He was some kind of middle eastern. Bald except for the horseshoe of dark hair around the sides of his head. He was very obviously far-sighted as his glasses magnified his eyes.

“Good, good.” I looked at my watch. “Got anything ready to go? Anything warm?”

“Yeah man. I’ve got some slices.”

“Of what?” I replied.

“Pepperoni” he said as he grabbed a pizza box from a counter and angled the open box at me so I could see. Only half the pizza was left.

“I’ll take two,” I said.

“I’ll warm ‘em up a bit for ya,” he said. He snapped off a few pieces of aluminum foil from a roll he had laying on the counter, wrapped the slices in them, and then put them in a big toaster oven. “Ya know, I was wonderin’ if I should even come to work today.”

“Well, I made it all worth it with those two slices, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“I’m not from around here,” I admitted,  ”all the houses are burned down or borded up. What happened?”

“Mayor screwed it all up. Believe it or not, it used to be worse. New mayor ain’t so bad. He’s tryin’.”

I nodded my head in a state of uninformed agreement as another customer walked in. In order to avoid discussing anything controversial, I paid for the slices, and noticing there was no place to actually eat in the shop, I proceeded to eat my greasy tinfoil-wrapped pizza in my rental car.

I’m not sure how to feel about what I experienced in Detroit. It’s heartbreaking to see neighborhoods (or the remains of) in the condition they’re in. It’s an expanse of house graveyards and mini-landfills. It felt like watching a wild animal with a broken leg. You know it’s going to die one way or another, and you wish someone would just put it out of it’s suffering.

“I’m waiting.” reads the graffiti tagged on one of the houses.

Who’s with me on this?

Man, oh man I have been busy. I started my own electronics design company!

Check it out: www.volcanoproductdesign.com

Obligatory google street-view link.

*edit*

Here is the “before” video…

Engineers Parking Only

I pulled it up on google maps, just for the hell of it. The sign is that yellow splotch with smaller black splotch in the middle behind the black truck.

Street View Link Here

On second look, I think that alley might lead to something. There seems to be a lot of trucks in there.

Man, it would have been way better if that sign was somewhere like a grocery store, or gas station or something…

Now, since I’ve finished my finals for this semester (at the University of Minnesota), I’ve decided to go ahead and attempt to “take” one of these classes and see how it goes. No, I won’t actually receive any kind of credit for this. This is all just for the sake of knowledge here. The class I’ve decided to take is CS106A – Programming Methodologies. It’s more or less an intro Java course, but it’s focused on promoting “good practices” in coding. The course is going great so far. I’ve watched the first 11 lectures out of 28 or so. The professor is engaging, funny, and explains complex things in a down-to-earth manner than anyone can grasp. I highly recommend this if anyone is interested in programming at all. The course is taught with the assumption that you don’t have any previous programming experience.

I may end up posting a project or two that get inspired from this class. Some of the homework assignments actually seem fun. One of them is an arcade-style breakout game, albiet a simple one.