Detropia, the Modern City in Ruins

A friend sent me this article, which is a review a documentary about the decline of Detroit, MI, titled Detropia. The article was compelling enough that I want to see the film. The author of the article frequently uses the word "ruins" or variations of the same to describe neighborhoods, buildings, and factories that once were full of people, people that produced, but now lie empty, abandoned, decaying, in short, in ruins.

When a person visits a site of ruins, a common reaction is to ask the question ubi sunt? Where are they, those who were once here? Another common reaction is to look upon the ruin as an artifact of remembrance, a memento mori, "I too will die and decay, like the people that once were here, like those who have gone before." Of course, this notion of transience and cyclical time was ever present in the ancient mind. However, with the rise of modernity, as early as the 17th century, a more linear model of time began to be preferred (see the first chapter of Five Faces of Modernity by Matai Calinescu). Our modern/contemporary notion of progress is based on this idea of modernity. We, as a human race, are "moving forward," gaining "more knowledge" than those who came before us. However, one of the ugly secrets of modernity is that it will chew you up and spit you out. Especially in the age of consumerist capitalism, it should be no surprise that our cities don't continue to grow outward and upward, but begin to shrink once their usefulness is surpassed. One of the dirty secrets of the economic boom of the 90's is that we are only starting to feel the effects of outsourcing and the artificial growth that occurred when manufacturing costs decreased and wages/profits increased. The worst part is that those who benefited from shipping American manufacturing jobs elsewhere, are not the ones who will pay for their decision. The promises of corporations, that they will invest in a community and be committed to a community, are as hollow as buildings where their business once thrived. Those buildings, like the promises made to occupy them, are now vacant, decaying, in ruins. We should learn from the ancients, all things are cyclical. The promise of modernity, constant progress, is not necessarily cemented to a place. All modern places will eventually fall victim to cyclical time, they will fall into ruins and be buried by nature. Perhaps, in  a distant future, they will begin a new cycle, and grow once more.