A confronting documentary about Detroit, one of the biggest promises of last century.
Between 2000 and 2010, the city’s population fell by 25%, from the nation’s 10th largest city to 18th.[16] In 2010, the city had a population of 713,777, more than a 60% drop down from a peak population of over 1.8 million at the 1950 census, indicating a serious and long-running decline of Detroit’s economic strength.
In the middle of the documentary a commercial from the sixties or seventies is shown about the future of the city and its car industry: Very futuristic cars almost floating on a crowded highway, it ends in a scene where the car drifts of. The next shot is a car ride (from the ‘future’ in point of view of the commercial) wandering through abandoned streets full of collapsed buildings and street animals, the real future of detroit.
Stories about things that are no more always intrigued me a lot. It is the proof that we aren’t very good at building things (cities or societies) that last forever, or even for a long time.