I also remember one shot of a neighbourhood that looked out of place in a Haitian slum. If I hadn’t seen that area for myself, I would have thought that they went out of their way to find the worst possible shot of poverty that they could find. While I can’t say with certainty that the shot I saw in 8 Mile was the same place I’d seen in real, the stuff I remember seeing wasn’t on a side street. Though I do remember looking down side streets and seeing half-collapsed houses.

Detroit is so heartbreaking. But what really shocked me was when my father-in-law mentioned that Flint was a well-to-do city 25 years ago. Having come to Michigan in the mid-90s, I had no sense of history. Detroit’s boom days seemed as distant to me as Bay City’s…my lack of perspective amazes me. But how does something like this happen – how is a building packed full of textbooks simply abandoned? It isn’t like the people fled an advancing army or were evacuated after a nuclear power plant melted down. It’s mind boggling.

Equally sad is the waste of space represented by the dilapidated building. Buildings that could have been used for something else, or at least torn down to allow nature to reclaim the territory. Nature seems to be doing an OK job as it is, but would probably have been able to do a better job of it if the ruins weren’t in the way.

I know a thing or two about wasting space. They’re tearing down a forest, and bulldozing a mountain to make way for the latest wave of box stores just outside my apartment window. Not even half a click down the hill is a perfectly good, mostly empty mall with a sizable parking lot that could either be refactored or rebuilt to address at least some of their needs. In another 10 or 15 years, if somebody doesn’t get a clue and do something with it, it’ll be just another urban wasteland.

Of course there is the waste of materials, and the sadness of potential knowledge left ungiven. It’s wasteful on more levels than I can count on an early Sunday. Heck, if the books were not needed, maybe they could have been shipped somewhere where they were needed.

Yes, those Ailanthus trees are a species that volunteer into the roughest of areas. It’s common name is Tree of Heaven.

And: KKK officer working for Ron Paul Michigan campaign