Magnum Blog / Detroit: The Troubled City

Detroit: The Troubled City

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Photographs from Bruce Gilden's Magnum In Motion essay "Detroit: The Troubled City". © Bruce Gilden/Magnum Photos My work on foreclosed homes in Detroit has actually been a continuation of a project that started in Fort Myers, Florida in September 2008. For me the major concentration of the work is on the houses or what’s left of the houses. I chose to photograph them mostly straight on like my street work in a very blunt fashion. To let the houses speak for themselves. After going to Florida and continuing in Detroit I realized that foreclosure is one part of a circle. There is homelessness, job loss, economic difficulties, etc, etc, etc. In Detroit the problem is not only a subprime problem it’s a problem of people who lost their jobs. And this has been going on for many years. So it’s a much more serious situation. When I went to Detroit - even though I had known that the city was pretty desolate - I was amazed that a major city in America in 2009 can look like this. Certain areas look like Berlin after World War II or like Beirut. Something is wrong here. Recently I have read books and articles and watched television shows on the foreclosure problem. How can you have a trillion dollar industry that’s not regulated? This was a scam from the beginning - that’s not to say that some homeowners aren’t at fault also, one of the problems is giving mortages to people who have a history of no credit or of bad credit. A big problem in Detroit was people refinancing their morgages and not being able to keep up with their monthly payments. Something is very wrong with a policy like this. But when I arrived in Detroit I saw a city government that does not take care of its people and a lot of those people have stopped caring. I mean I don’t care what the excuse is - how do you leave so many buildings that are almost totally destroyed standing. Kids can get hurt playing in them, it’s a breeding ground for drugs and prostitution. Property values go down, nobody wants to live in these areas, To me it almost seems like they are left standing so that one day they drive everybody out and grand new subdivisions can be made. What was really sad for me in Detroit was that many of the destroyed houses were well made and beautiful houses at one time, they were like Grande Dames. Detroit at one time had the highest standard of living for blue collar workers because of the auto industry. It’s all gone. This makes the destruction even sader, it’s not like a dilapidated trailer in ruins. There was an elegance here - the houses were beautiful - it’s so sad. There were serious memories in these houses, people lived there for 50 - 70 years. When these houses were built there was pride in craftsmanship and you saw it in the houses. It’s sad. Links » Bruce Gilden's Magnum In Motion Essay "Detroit: The Troubled City" » Bruce Gilden's Magnum In Motion Essay "Foreclosure" » Bruce Gilden's Magnum Portfolio » Bruce Gilden's Books (Signed from the Magnum Store) » Bruce Gilden's Magnum In Motion Essay "Coney Island" » Bruce Gilden's Magnum In Motion Essay "The Rat Story" » Bruce Gilden's Magnum In Motion Essay "Fashion Magazine"

Brian C. Frank

Mr. Gilden,

I spent time in New Orleans photographing homes a year after the flood. These Detroit images strike me as very similar. Like in New Orleans, each of these homes represent a destroyed life.

Great work.

-Brian

Davin Ellicson

A very troubling series that adds to what others like Anthony Suau have done:

http://pa.photoshelter.com/c/anthonysuau/gallery/US-Mortgage-Crisis-Cleveland-2008/G0000IwP475yRSng/

Jeff D

The city was dying long before the mortgage crisis hit. It's population is now half what it was in the 1950s. The recent crisis might just be the death knell though.

Jason Hobbs

Hello Bruce,

What a terrible situation for the people of Detroit, well those effected by the decline in industry and now the criminal behavior of the banks. It almost defies belief that entire areas of a major city can be left to wrack and ruin. It seems that, for the most part, Detroit's black community is bearing the brunt of this. Do you think that Obama can/will be able to bring about any meaningful change in the lives of those effected?

Thanks for a really good body of work, I'm looking forward to seeing more.

Jason

Agirlphotographer

Detroit right now may be one of the biggest stories of my generation.

Somehow an entire dynamic, prosperous American industrial center was gradually destroyed. And very few people paid attention as it was happening. It's such a big story that it's hard to even form a frame around it. Is it a potential version of what could happen to the entire country? Is it just a cautionary tale about urban development and industrialism? Is it the end of the American reign of power? All of the above or some of the above or none of the above?

Amazing pictures. I hope Mr Gilden continues his exploration of Detroit. What is happening is something none of us should turn away from.

Barbara

Agirlphotographer asks: "Is it a potential version of what could happen to the entire country?"

I'd say, yes.

As Bruce says, Detroit's ruin stems from the catastrophic loss of jobs and demise of the auto industry in the area. The mortgage crisis accelerated the process of decline but wasn't the sole cause.

The country at large is losing millions of jobs a year, and many workers are unable to return to full-time, good-paying jobs because there aren't enough to go around. If there aren't enough jobs for most adults in America, how can a housing industry stay afloat?

Thanks to Bruce for documenting the decline of these neighborhoods. The photos speak volumes about US industries' and conglomerates' abandonment of working people in America.

hkki

impressive photos

Lindsey

Beautiful, but devastating work. I have been photographing southern Louisiana after the hurricanes, and these images feel very similar. You can feel the emptiness, sense what has been lost. It is hard to believe that this is America sometimes.

Bob Parker

These are very powerful, sad, and in-your-face images of the decline of a once thriving city, and a reminder to me that we cannot take anything for granted. This body of work reminded me of the work of Camilo Jose Vergara in his book "American Ruins" (©1998), in which Vergara documented the decline of great cities (Detroit included). Vergara's book is more anthropological in its approach and lacks the grittness of Burce Gilden's images, but the feeling of sadness and anger is there just the same.

Kristina Feliciano

Absolutely gorgeous work. The choice to shoot in black & white lends the project an epic quality. Very nice essay, too. I especially like Bruce's observation that the houses had been built with solid craftsmanship, which makes their neglect that much more troubling. If this is the end of an era, then what, one wonders, comes next?

Kristina Feliciano

nice

very interesting picture.it stunning my heart.

pierre yves racine

Dear Bruce,

It seems that with this body of work, you really build a relationship with the people you photograph, which was less obvious in your previous work that I've seen.

I think that your style of shooting fits this subject very well, much better than if you were shooting... buddhist monks, for instance.

I was especially impressed by both your multimedia essays on foreclosure, and I think the interviews really add something.

But I am left with one question : you spend time with your subjects, how do they react when they see their pictures, which are not indulgent though relevant ?

Thanks for you answer !

Moto

It's interesting Detroit is the example in this work. I feel the "blame" if you will lies with many. Heads of industry and governments and in many cases the expectation of the masses. It doesn't help that Detroit has fallen foul of the "all your eggs in one basket" approach many cities both in the US and here in England have succumbed to historically. It's enivitable that towns and cities spring up around industrial centers to support and house the workforces that operate them but when an industry goes into decline all in the chain suffer. Particularly when one industry is the main employer. It happened to many of the cities in the north here that were building ships, fabricating steel & manufacturing cars as production shifted to the cheaper eastern continents, I believe the outcome was called the great depression. It's taken huge investment and time to encourage people back into these areas and to drive the standard of living back up. The problem is, there is nothing outside of the tertiary industry employing here anymore and people don't spend money on dinner out, cinema tickets and oversized cups of coffee when times are tough. Is it any wonder our countries are struggling when all the money we have is flowing in one direction. East.

I think Detroit suffers particularly badly currently as not only was it's manufacturing in decline but also that the motor industry has been hit particulary hard by the current economic climate. Crime, drugs etc are a by-product of poverty the world over. Isn't it sad that prejudice can play such a big role in success but anyone can be poor, homeless and ruined.

I heard on a news report here that part of the problem in the stock markets was that markets had been created to trade in things i won't pretend to understand that equated to a theoretical value of £x trillion. The newscaster said "basically, that's about the value of all the money in the world." How can you think that trading in money you don't have won't cause a problem or more to the point, who spotted it and did nothing? Someone did because someone could and now the rest of us are paying the price in our cities and ultimatley in our homes (or soon the lack of them!) I've never really understood how even "sustainable growth" is sustainable. To my mind, theres x amount of money in the world and it changes hands backwards and forwards. If I've got it someone else hasn't.

I do agree people do need to take responsibility for their own overstreatching but I'm not keen on terms like "sub-prime" and the critera that go with it. There will be plenty of people when we come out the other side of this that will now have shocking credit history through no fault of their own. You can't pay a mortage without a job no matter how big or small it might be. The banks will need to change their attitude to people like them (and me) or they'll have no-one to lend to. Lending money should be based more on affordability of the loan, than their previous finance history. People get into trouble when they borrow more than they can afford to finance, not because they've never had finance before and lets not forget, who lent it to them with £ signs in their eyes? To my mind though, the majority of the problem started at the top.

It's good to see the fallout all being documented though, no doubt those in charge will look at these images and not let this type of thing happen again **cough** Then again...

Gabriele Lopez

impressive work, can harddly believe it as a face of america..this is due to the image that for years we've been taught about America...

Brady

Come on down to New Orleans and you will see the exact same thing. Blight everywhere. It has long been present here even before Katrina. It is heavy on the soul to see it and be in it everyday.

Nike Kobe IV

I do agree people do need to take responsibility for their own overstreatching but I'm not keen on terms like "sub-prime" and the critera that go with it.

MattW.

I have to raise some questions about the whole idea of photojournalism related to this kind of thing - broken homes and dreams.
As someone who lost their home and everything in it in Hurricane Katrina, and as a photographer, I simply cannot bring myself to take photographs of other people's misfortune, when the real goal is ultimately my own advancement. I think the prime example of this would be Robert Polidori's post-Katrina images of New Orleans, which are, in my opinion, unforgivable. He willfully entered homes of people he knew nothing about, carefully rearranged their things, and shot the ruined interiors of homes owned by people he knew nothing about, all with a generous endowment from the New Yorker. A gallery here in New Orleans was selling prints of these images for $20,000 a pop, and none of that money was going to help rebuild New Orleans. If that isn't exploitation, then the word has no meaning. Polidori tried to defend himself by saying he spent $100,000 of his own money on the project, but that doesn't persuade me at all, since I doubt he'd bankrupt himself to finish any project, and he also owns homes in New York, Montreal, and Paris. He probably makes and spends $100,000 every day before breakfast.

I am beginning to become concerned that photography is heading in a place where what is seen most, awarded most, and funded most are collections focused mainly on human suffering. The photographer will gain trust of a certain group of people, photograph their misery, then collect accolades and awards for it by displaying it for the public. There is a collection I saw that was portraits of adults who were sexually abused as children, alongside shots of the locations where they were abused. Is there really any need for this? When I look at who benefitted from this project, it certainly wasn't the abused; it was the photographer, who gained awards, cash, etc.
This is where sometimes this kind of thing seems like exploitation of poor or otherwise downtrodden people.
I don't mean to lay any bum raps, but I think these are legitimate concerns that any photographer has to ask themselves when choosing a project -- who are you really doing it for?

Jim Johnson

So, here is what I think:

http://politicstheoryphotography.blogspot.com/2009/07/picturing-detroit.html

Eugene Choy Singapore Photographer

I work as an aerial photographer here in Singapore. Having done quite a fair bit of photography for construction companies (there's a rapid growth of new commercial buildings, e.g. Sentosa Integrated Resort). Your blog give me a different perspective from a photographers perspective. Great images and though provoking!

Tom White

Though these images are important, I find it surprising that there seems to be an amazement that this can happen in a major city in America - that is precisely the place where I would expect to see this and indeed, I have seen it in all over the place in the three years that I have lived in this country. There are run down, dilapidated and abandoned buildings in so many neighbourhoods that I am never surprised when I see one. Perhaps it is more widespread in Detroit than in other places but it is far from unique, or unexpected.