Show us your vintage home!

[Two Types]

Knives? Guns? Shotgun shells? Evidence bags?

I assumed it was a school.

 

[GHT]

I am not so sure with Detroit my friend. It is worse than you may think:

I am truly shocked. On this side of the pond, Britain too, has lost most of it's manufacturing industry, but the slack has been taken up with the service sector. There are deprived towns in various parts of our country, usually where there was once a large employer, like a coal mine, car factory or shipyard, but I have never seen anything like the desolation in those photos.

 

[jamespowers]

Knives? Guns? Shotgun shells? Evidence bags?

I assumed it was a school.

:rofl:
Actually that one was a police station.

 

[jamespowers]

I am truly shocked. On this side of the pond, Britain too, has lost most of it's manufacturing industry, but the slack has been taken up with the service sector. There are deprived towns in various parts of our country, usually where there was once a large employer, like a coal mine, car factory or shipyard, but I have never seen anything like the desolation in those photos.

There are some areas over here run by morons who really manage to screw things up to the nth degree. Detroit is just one such example. When you have colossal ignorance that is willing to leave books on shelves and records behind----for years---then you definitely have a problem......

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I am truly shocked. On this side of the pond, Britain too, has lost most of it's manufacturing industry, but the slack has been taken up with the service sector. There are deprived towns in various parts of our country, usually where there was once a large employer, like a coal mine, car factory or shipyard, but I have never seen anything like the desolation in those photos.

I find this site quite interesting.
http://www.derelictlondon.com/

 

[GHT]

I find this site quite interesting.
http://www.derelictlondon.com/

That website doesn't surprise me, in defence, much of it is the former Docklands, where Canary Wharf now stands. And yet more deriliction was removed to make way for the Olympic Stadium.
What shocked me was the image of that Detroit picture. I've been visiting America for the last thirty years, been coming once, sometimes twice, a year and I have never seen anything like that. Although thinking about it, I have never been to the western side of the US, nor have I ever been north of the Mason-Dixon. Perhaps I am a latter day confederate, in exile.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Wasn't it somewhere back there that just about a whole town was bulldozed for a Cadillac plant? I remember because just a few years after it opened they closed it and left the city holding the bag. Your empty land thing reminded me of it. Vacant land is vacant land and that is it. When you remove buildings you have devalued it by removing the "improvements." Anyone who says different is a nut. We all know you pay more for a house on land than we do for empty land---because the improvements are worth a lot more. Ok, I am done. I have hated Redevelopment out here for years and we finally killed it for the above reasons.

I think I mentioned it before somewhere but not far from Disneyland was an old residential area off of Garden Grove Boulevard. It was all bulldozed back in the '70s when the city of Garden Grove unveiled plans to build a senior center there, a project which for whatever reason never materialized. Meanwhile the vacant lots became city property for some thirty years, and it wasn't until several years ago that they finally found a buyer. Now there's a McDonalds and a community college on the site.

 

[David Conwill]

Wasn't it somewhere back there that just about a whole town was bulldozed for a Cadillac plant? I remember because just a few years after it opened they closed it and left the city holding the bag. Your empty land thing reminded me of it. Vacant land is vacant land and that is it. When you remove buildings you have devalued it by removing the "improvements." Anyone who says different is a nut. We all know you pay more for a house on land than we do for empty land---because the improvements are worth a lot more. Ok, I am done. I have hated Redevelopment out here for years and we finally killed it for the above reasons.

Poletown was a Detroit neighborhood on the Hamtramck city line where the original Dodge Brothers factory stood. The GM plant is still in operation (they build the Chevy Volt there now). Google will reveal the whole sordid tale. Suffice it to say that the jobs provided do nothing to balance the loss of what was a healthy, stable neighborhood.

One of the odd things about Poletown is that they left the Jewish cemetery in place inside the factory.

 

[jamespowers]

Poletown was a Detroit neighborhood on the Hamtramck city line where the original Dodge Brothers factory stood. The GM plant is still in operation (they build the Chevy Volt there now). Google will reveal the whole sordid tale. Suffice it to say that the jobs provided do nothing to balance the loss of what was a healthy, stable neighborhood.

One of the odd things about Poletown is that they left the Jewish cemetery in place inside the factory.

Well, the cemetery occupants got a benefit there. Instead of being out in the weather they now have an indoor mausoleum.

 

[jamespowers]

I think I mentioned it before somewhere but not far from Disneyland was an old residential area off of Garden Grove Boulevard. It was all bulldozed back in the '70s when the city of Garden Grove unveiled plans to build a senior center there, a project which for whatever reason never materialized. Meanwhile the vacant lots became city property for some thirty years, and it wasn't until several years ago that they finally found a buyer. Now there's a McDonalds and a community college on the site.

We have a similar situation here downtown a local Lucky's store left and the city bought the property for 6 million and is now going to sell an empty parking lot that it has become for half that....

 

[jamespowers]

I find this site quite interesting.
http://www.derelictlondon.com/

Man that graffiti of the guy with big teeth looks like something out of a horror movie.:eeek:

 

[Stearmen]

Spitfire Heights

Some of you will get a kick out of this. I am trying to divided my property and sell off the peace that is basically down a cliff. As it turns out, the new peace of land would be it's own sub division. Now we are only talking enough land to build a single family house on, or a two story duplex. The city wanted to know what I wanted to name it? I'm not vain enough to name it after my self, so I though quick and came up with "Spitfire Heights". It's not a done deal, but would be nice to have a little immortality through the name. Wonder how many people a hundred years from now, will put one and one together? I picked Spitfire over Mustang, because, the latter is over used out here in the west!

 

[GHT]

Man that graffiti of the guy with big teeth looks like something out of a horror movie.:eeek:

Yep! We have an upper class of graffiti artist over here, check this one out: Surveyor gets three & half years for graffiti

 

[jamespowers]

Yep! We have an upper class of graffiti artist over here, check this one out: Surveyor gets three & half years for graffiti

Cane him!

 

[sheeplady]

That website doesn't surprise me, in defence, much of it is the former Docklands, where Canary Wharf now stands. And yet more deriliction was removed to make way for the Olympic Stadium.
What shocked me was the image of that Detroit picture. I've been visiting America for the last thirty years, been coming once, sometimes twice, a year and I have never seen anything like that. Although thinking about it, I have never been to the western side of the US, nor have I ever been north of the Mason-Dixon. Perhaps I am a latter day confederate, in exile.

The rust belt, and cities that have suffered similar fates to Detroit, are in the northeastern U.S. Typically they are small to medium sized urban areas that relied on manufacturing that has since left- either overseas or down south. We're not talking places like Boston or NYC (although those areas have seen a decline in manufacturing), but smaller cities that didn't have other industries to fall back on, and can't seem to attract businesses on their own. Most of these cities are dead in the center- my city, Syracuse, certainly is. And they are shrinking. Detroit is the most extreme example (particularly because it has fallen so far), but there are mini-Detroits all over the northeast.

The southeastern part of the United States has had a sort of renaissance. I'm not sure how the economy is now after the crash of 2008, but when I was growing up the south was the land of opportunity. Doesn't hurt that they don't get buried in snow either. I think air conditioning was the game changer, personally, but there are all sorts of reasons. But even in the south we don't have the manufacturing base we once did in the north, by a long long shot.

I've had individuals who have visited my city from other countries (mainly European) and they are absolutely left speechless that there is trashed vacant land and buildings in the middle (city center) of an urban area and that there is so much poverty. We're not talking about one area, we're talking entire cities.

 

[Warden]

Here is a 1920's / 30's house going very cheap in Great Britian

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-23273660

 

[jamespowers]

Here is a 1920's / 30's house going very cheap in Great Britian

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-23273660

That looks kind of close to the cliff there. It could well fall off and all you have is land.

 

[Shangas]

Give it a few months and it'll probably plunge in price.

...Most likely by several dozen yards.

 

[jamespowers]

Give it a few months and it'll probably plunge in price.

...Most likely by several dozen yards.

:rofl: That does not sound good and it also sounds like it would cost you more than 400,000 to fix the house to inhabitable condition. Geological surveys and stabilizing the hill and the property above it can cost a fortune. Someone blew a whole lot of money on a gamble that could well leave them nothing......

 

[Stearmen]

That looks kind of close to the cliff there. It could well fall off and all you have is land.

Hey James, in your neck of the woods, wouldn't that be a $10,000,000 fixer upper home with a spectacular view?