I drove through Michigan and Detroit on my way from Canada to Chicago last winter. It depressed the hell out of me and, more to your point, reminded me a lot of East Berlin when I took a tour of it in the late 1980s before the Wall came down.

These are magnificent, Charles. Thanks.

@1, you don't have to go as far as East Berlin. Just visit Ancoats in Manchester or the Dingle in Liverpool (or a dozen other neighborhoods that were bombed to rubble, not by the Germans but by their local councils, and in many cases still look that way today.

Also on view in such films as "Charlie Bubbles" and the photographs of Shirley Baker: http://www.art.com/products/p4170975133-…