In the past four days, two very different sides of Detroit have been put on public display, as the Detroit Blight Removal Task Force released its gloomy findings and participants in the Detroit Regional Chamber's Mackinac Policy Conference reacted enthusiastically to descriptions of the city's ongoing revival.
The task force revealed that Detroit has about 40,000 dilapidated buildings that need to be demolished quickly. The conference heard discussions about the progress being made to fix the bankrupt city by Mayor Mike Duggan and Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr.
Two collections of images, unrelated to either event, emerged online simultaneously that vividly illustrate the city's position in 2014.
One, posted by HellYeahDetroit!, shows the progress in transforming the once-industrialized riverfront into a people-friendly gathering place.
The other, posted by Dangerous Minds, offers a summary of a Tumblr blog titled GooBing Detroit, which shows the rapid death cycle of a variety of Detroit homes through streetview photos by Google and Bing over the past several years.
Through text, photos and graphs, GooBing Detroit emphasizes the role the Great Recession played is furthering the devastation of Detroit's neighborhoods, which remain the most complicated and demanding challenge for Duggan and other city leaders.
Click here Aaron Foley's take on these two takes on Detroit.
