12.16.2010

Detroit Lives

Speaking of Detroit



WIthout having actually been there, it's hard to tell if this video is just hype.

3 comments:

Piktor Turic Oolong said...

No, it's not hype. All that shit is really going on here. All the decay is really here too.

But this place is such a car culture. The auto industry basically designed the streets. They have traffic laws that no other city in the country have. The "Michigan Left"... I'm pretty sure it was designed to make people drive more so that they use more gas. Those hundred yard turn arounds add up.

It's not like Athens where you can walk to all the cool shit going on. Or NYC where you can hop on a train and get there. It seems to takes a lot of energy to actually be involved up here. Everything is a fucking trek.

I mean, I'm living AT Cranbrook so I'm on the edge of Detroit. It's about a 30 minute drive to the city center. Detroit is a shit hole. But there are artists moving here from all over. You can buy a house for a dollar. But it'll cost you $300,000 to get it up to code.

Oh, in the video at 7 mins the girl (Kate), sitting behind the dude being interviewed in the pink shirt, is a current Cranbrook student. Her main working project is a thing called SOUP. Here's an article about it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/04/arts/design/04maker.html

Some people are excited about this shit hole. I'm not. I'm more interested in working in my studio. My ideal community is me in a house out in the country surrounded by forest and fields. Not a burned out post apocalyptic shit hole where people can sit in smut and ash and make art.

But I know that appeals to some.

Anonymous said...

Good to know re: transportation, housing.

Piktor Turic Oolong said...

but, i think you can find pretty affordable living. especially with roommates. and if you can figure out how, there are artists buying buildings and starting collectives, as you saw in that video. But I honestly don't know if you could make it without a car. I really don't think you could. you saw those sprawling wide roads that connect everything. you might die biking that.

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