When you think of ghost towns you think of the old west – but this slideshow from huffingtonpost.com offers a look at abandoned urban areas – some commercial, some residential but all are in a extreme state of decline. The photographs give you a sense of more than just time lost – it shows beauty in the derelict and the loss of history – only time will tell if any of these areas can be resurrected.
Photographs Of Abandoned America Show Civic Problems, Engagement
The following is a post from David Schalliol, the Visiting Assistant Professor of Social Sciences at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
The photographs featured in this gallery are an outgrowth of my interest in the dynamics of urban communities, particularly as they change in response to broad social forces.
From demographic shifts to federal government policies to alternating trends in retail sales, each photograph offers an example of one of the many conditions or causes of dereliction in the United States. Corresponding details about each location and its circumstance are paired with each photograph to provide a better understanding of the multitude of forces working in each site.
Many of the images displayed here are from one portion of my collaborative project with historian Michael Carriere, documenting how people throughout the United States are engaging problems in their communities. Given the financial crisis and housing market collapse, these problems are increasingly related to foreclosures, abandonment and dereliction. In short, the subjects of these photographs.
Still, it would be a mistake to only read the scenes in these images as victims of decline. Aspects of community life, artistic engagement with place and even with civic attempts to address the problems — if not always their causes — are present in many of these photographs.
Those interested in a more direct engagement with the solutions may be interested in visiting our exhibition at the Grohmann Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, entitled “The Death and (After) Life of Post-Industrial Milwaukee.”
Read more and view the slide show HERE
