Detroit boasts an estimated 71,000 abandoned buildings, roughly 31,000 of which are clapboard houses that streak across the city—which, by the way, is large enough to fit four Manhattans—in entirely-empty tracts. Considering this is an area riddled with large-scale (though oft beautiful) forsaken structures and real estate asking less than $1,000 total, it's no real surprise that thousands of houses are left to decay, vulnerable to vandalism, arson, and "blight," a term that roughly translates to "ugliness that puts off investors." The city's deployed millions to sic the wrecking ball on these buildings, but considering it costs roughly $8,500 to raze a single house, massive tear-downs attract critics like flies on a carcass. Still, in Detroit, the positive byproduct of deindustrialization is hard to miss: in the last few decades, indeed in the last few months, artists and entrepreneurs have taken advantage of the crazy-cheap real estate to build design labs and house-sized artworks, refurbishing abodes into experiments. As Jenenne Whitfield, an executive director of one such project, once said: "We refuse to sit back and let Detroit fade away."
· All Adaptive Reuse posts [Curbed National]
· All Detroit coverage [Curbed National]
· All Abandonment Issues posts [Curbed National]
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