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Thursday, October 1, 2009

Architecture Bodies and Buildings

Posted by Charles Mudede on Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 4:52 PM

The city of Detroit can't afford to demolish its dead duildings....

Some four dozen big buildings in the heart of Detroit are languishing, vacant, because demand for commercial and office space has dropped and money to demolish or renovate them has dried up.

These are among the most visible ghosts in a city of ghostly buildings — the harsh, physical evidence of a community that has lost 1 million people from its peak population of 1.8 million in the 1950s.

Some are in shocking condition: sidewalks cordoned off to protect pedestrians from falling chunks of facade; trees growing from roofs.

The city of Detroit can't afford to bury its dead people....

DETROIT (CNNMoney.com) — At 1300 E. Warren St., you can smell the plight of Detroit.

Inside the Wayne County morgue in midtown Detroit, 67 bodies are piled up, unclaimed, in the freezing temperatures. Neither the families nor the county can afford to bury the corpses. So they stack up inside the freezer.

Albert Samuels, chief investigator for the morgue, said he has never seen anything like it during his 13 years on the job. "Some people don't come forward even though they know the people are here," said the former Detroit cop. "They don't have the money."

Comments (13) RSS

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My hometown!

Can't wait to visit in November. Got my ticket already!

Posted by JoeG on October 1, 2009 at 4:51 PM

Send out letters telling next-of-kin they have 90 days to come get their dead family member's. If they don't come pick them up, cremate the bodies and mail them to their families. It's cheaper than storing them for months, years on end.

Posted by Y.F. Redux on October 1, 2009 at 4:53 PM

Surely the Free Market can handle this. The Free Market is the answer to all problems.

Posted by The Soylent Corporation on October 1, 2009 at 4:54 PM

The City of Detroit is going to be sorry once the Zombiecaust starts...

Posted by NapoleonXIV on October 1, 2009 at 5:04 PM

Man, and here I was thinking that Zombieland was just a movie.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on October 1, 2009 at 5:17 PM

Can we just have OCP start building Delta City already?

Posted by laterite on October 1, 2009 at 5:23 PM

Surely there is a private, free market solution here. Unclaimed bodies, empty buildings, a broke government and consumers with no money to spend: if that is not a recipe for entrepreneurship on a grand scale, what is?

Posted by elenchos on October 1, 2009 at 5:25 PM

Detroit is off the tit - might never get a fix on another future - shame.

If the winter was better, would be good for retirement, cheap housing.

Hippies? Artists? Health retired, cold acclimated?

Total negative solves nothing.

Posted by Aarondia on October 1, 2009 at 5:38 PM

See what a Monorail will do to a city?...!

Posted by You_Gotta_Be_Kidding_Me on October 1, 2009 at 5:51 PM

The Puget Sound has 1.8 million people now....Wait a minute...oh no, no, you don't mean....our future is Detroit!!

Posted by Zombie Holocaust on October 1, 2009 at 6:09 PM

Our future is Detroit but with less interesting architecture.

Posted by Former Detrioter on October 1, 2009 at 9:45 PM

detroit, tacoma, the future is clear: start hoarding.

Posted by Max Solomon on October 2, 2009 at 9:45 AM

Nothing some tax cuts and more guns wouldn't ... uh... nothing more government programs... er... nothing a gruff Polish-American man on his porch eating beef jerky and wielding an M-1 Garand wouldn't... oh, fergit it. RUN AWAY!!! RUN AWAY!!

If John McCain had won the election, he could have at least kept his promise to the people of MI: those jobs aren't coming back. Hey, folks, your state was populated by immigrants and internal economic refugees from the poverty of the South. The jobs are now somewhere else, so... you might have to move again. Just a thought.

Posted by CP on October 3, 2009 at 9:30 AM