Atlantis for now, New Orleans may wish to resurrect a la post-quake San Francisco or post-fire Chicago. But as New Orleans stews in liquid poison, thoughts go to other ravaged zones. Take Detroit's gradual yet cataclysmic decline. Motor City exiles even uproot and ship their dead thousands of miles to relocate with the rest of the family. The incredible Detroitblog walks through a post-apocalyptic landscape of forgotten auto factories, where:
the city itself has, ironically, become more rural, with wild animals and lush green plants coexisting with an industrial, modern metropolis. Nature, driven back by progress during the city’s 300 years, has aggressively reasserted itself in recent decades, reclaiming land from which man has turned away.
Forgotten Detroit shares more images of how a city once overrun by old-school technology returns to nature--greening through neglect. And the DE-tro-IT blog points to other faded or disappearing metropolises--Venice, Maccu Picchu, and Chernobyl among them. Ethan Zuckerman's map of the declining media interest in waning urban centers is another reminder that if we don't take care of our communities and balance our needs with those of nature, then nature will take our communities from us.
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