Placeholder Image

字幕列表 影片播放

  • Ridin' across Detroit - nothing new for decades. In part the hood resembles a war zone... as

  • time passes more and more buildings abandoned and set on fire. Far from the iconic image

  • of an Industrial center, the real Detroit is an illustration of the negative side of

  • the globalization, the consequences of the Communications and Information Age, the roadside

  • of the digital highway.

  • My friend ain't here, She might bring me something to eat. How many people live here, in this

  • apartment? Four. Is this vicinity dangerous? Very Why? Because they've been killing people, a lot of gangs

  • run through here and have their initiations, What did you do on Ford? Just putting on tires, on assembly

  • line. I mean automobile industry is going to China. You know we're losing lot of jobs

  • here, especially in Michigan.

  • Luis worked at Ford and knows much about globalization

  • -- He is typical of the homeless in Detroit.

  • There are more than 15,000 homeless in the city. They are enthusiastic speakers when

  • it comes to reasons for their problems. Businesses are going from United States. Lot

  • of businesses going like...Canada is getting some, Mexico is getting some, because its

  • cheaper labor, and they don't have to pay as much hospitalization and Union dudes and

  • all that staff, And the employment and the rate of pay is a whole lot cheaper, so that's

  • where they going. There's no work in Michigan. Even people with degrees have a hard time

  • getting work. If you ride around some neighborhoods, East side, West side, all

  • you see is vacant houses, All you see is vacant houses man, And you see this white pieces

  • of paper in that window in the vacant house, that means it was evicted.

  • Michigan Central Depot -- a Detroit landmark, it tells a lot about the city's history and

  • its path of the Industrial development. Built in 1913 it used to be the symbol of new modern

  • times and prosperity. Henry Ford made it a business center at the crossing of the railroads

  • and trams lines. The Great Depression put an end to the economical development. The Great

  • Highway system replaced the railroad and put an end to the Depot. It was simply not needed

  • in the time of the car. A symbol of the automobile's complete triumph over public transportation

  • the Station is still there as well as all the surrounding buildings. Good times never

  • came back to the area. Some of the buildings were used as storages till early 90-s but

  • at some point people left completely, they left all their stuff inside, like if it was

  • infected with a deadly virus, but the real reason is simple -- it would cost money.

  • I think they don't fix it its because its too expensive, and there's no use for it.

  • And I think that says a lot about American culture, of things being disposable, even

  • beautiful buildings are disposable. Charles Psenka is a Detroiter with roots but

  • the only reason for him to visit the city is his hobby -- the web-site devoted to abandoned

  • buildings. He takes photos and then posts them online. His business and home are couple

  • of hours from Detroit. Charles says the abandonments are used often to store and sell drugs and

  • are very dangerous -- there can even be booby-traps to protect the illegal trade.

  • This are all measuring spoons, three different sets, four different sets, one two three,

  • four. There were probably used to cook heroin. Would be my guess. Right about the time the automotive

  • industry quit this city I guess would be a good starting point for the decline. A lot

  • of jobs left, A lot of secure jobs left, very good manufacturing jobs, a lot of that may

  • be had to do with the unions, that the Unions fought so hard, and so well for the workers,

  • that may be the companies couldn't afford them anymore? Casinos, make sure you film

  • casinos before you leave town. They are beautiful buildings, brand new gorgeous buildings. And

  • the areas around them are also brand new, beautiful. And occupied, lots of people going

  • in and out. Lots of money being spent. Its all based on gambling you know, and the city

  • make a good enough of money out of that.

  • Another example of the decline -- the legendary Carl's steak-house. It been here for almost

  • a century and once had dozens of waiters and cooking staff.

  • You say a motherfucker in Russia? Forget about it. This is America.

  • Today the chief Ioannis and the waiter Max are among the few members of staff.

  • Max is a Russian immigrant and has worked here for 30 years.

  • 20 years ago you couldn't come in into this restaurant. You had to wait in line for about

  • 45 minutes to get a table. Right now look -- its empty, on the regular, on the Sunday.

  • Monday rush hour. Not a surprise the center is empty.

  • Dozens of buildings here are abandoned, including twelve of the skyscrapers. The main question

  • -- what to do with this massive but useless architectural structures -- has remained unanswered

  • for decades. The only giant in this ghost Downtown is the General Motors headquarters

  • - the Renaissance center. The industry leader has its offices here. But the manufacturing

  • facilities are in areas where labor is cheaper. The nearest GM plants are right across the

  • river, in Canada. The country gives incentives worth hundreds of millions of dollars to GM

  • and other carmakers in order to create more jobs for its citizens.

  • The Renaissance center hasn't lived up to its name. GM closed four of its plants at

  • its home in Michigan, in 2006 to 2008 and six in other states. More than 12 000 American

  • jobs will be lost. With new plants opening in other corners of the world, GM now employees

  • almost 3 hundred thousand people in 31 countries. That's the equivalent to third of Detroit's

  • total population. And this building Downtown is ground zero

  • for the Detroit Industrial age -- the first Ford workshop. The automobile boom started

  • here ...and here the assembly line was invented. It would take the car industry away from its

  • home town later. The building hides a place that encapsulates the story of Detroit more

  • than any other.

  • Michigan Theatre built in 1926 used to be the biggest in the city. It now a car park

  • -- a symbiosis of art and cars in the Motorcity. The theater lost the struggle with Television

  • as the people moved out from Detroit. After the Theatre was closed in the mid sixties

  • it became a porn cinema, than a rock club, but neither were financially viable. Only

  • car parking for the workers of the office building nearby proved to be a money earner

  • -- a tough but profitable decision. June and Lester Thompson are architecture

  • and history teachers in the University of Michigan and work on various learning projects

  • on the city development of Detroit. They call the total dependence on automobile manufacturing

  • -- Detroit's crucial mistake in the Industrial age. And the main problems began with the

  • modernization of the industry. They wanted to have long assembly line. And

  • they couldn't make a long assembly line unless they had more land, because they couldn't

  • do it with four storey factories. So they were beginning to look for the land that will

  • allow them to have this assembly lines and they began to leave the city. Whites began

  • moving out to the suburbs. But blacks were not allowed to move to the suburbs. And so

  • you had and increasingly black and poor population that was consentrated in the central city.

  • The developers are now seeking to breathe life back into the city streets and buildings.

  • And some solutions turn upside down our understanding of a city.

  • The class that I worked with this semester ... There was so much vacant land in the neighborhood

  • that we were working with that we actually thought that one of the best options would

  • be farms, to turn some of the vacant land into farms. I think the word city has already

  • changed. Yes, It has already changed for Detroit.

  • Charles Psenka's brewery is far outside Detroit and is a typical model of local businesses.

  • Charles says in a world of global communications and information there is a total freedom to

  • choose where to live, work and where to set up your business. And that is why the city

  • as a civilization phenomenon hasn't survived the changes.

  • The city of Detroit has been facing some attrition lately. Within the past several decades its

  • been declining in population. Last statistics guide of Detroit has 800 thousands people

  • that actually live within the city proper. The greater metropolitan area of South-East

  • Michigan is over 4 million. So there is a lot of people that live around Detroit but

  • don't live actually in Detroit. I think the world is shrinking So I think its inevitable.

  • Globalization has an impact on us in everything from our bottle prices from our hops?? to

  • the malt, And globalizations makes it perhaps easier for us to sell beer in places like

  • Japan or Denmark which have been a little bit more difficult lets say a decade ago.

  • In general the situation in Detroit can't be described as a disaster as it may seem

  • judging by the images. The homeless in Detroit have food delivered by various humanitarian

  • organizations. Shelters are quite a common thing for the area. But that can never be

  • enough for the crisis zone.

  • Some people like to mess with homeless people, you know, they like to mess with handicapped

  • people in wheelchairs, you know, young guys, they call it having fun, you know, they are

  • crazy, you know, they call it party, when six guys jump on one guy, they call it party.

  • When I was at Ford I worked on the line. Assembly line. Putting up tails. And stuff

  • like that.

  • I didn't hold that job very long. The whole plant shut down and moved out of

  • the city. That was about 20 years ago. I'm fifty five years old and that was about 20

  • years ago. They send more money out of the country than they spend here on their own

  • people. That's a shame, you want to raise your homeless and can't get no help. So many people

  • are homeless and the shelters are full, like tonight, shelters are full so I stay here. When

  • the shelters ain't full, I stay in the shelters when I can, you know, or sometimes I stay

  • with my friends, I never know, each night I don't know where I'm staying at night.

  • People have been dying and it become a regular, they froze, they OD, somebody fuck them up, you know,

  • I'm telling you its just a bunch of chaos, man, bunch of chaos, its sad, sad,

  • So who will miss the city when its gone. Workers in the car industry headquarters? The managers

  • of global sales? The people who work in the few remaining skyscrapers down town?

  • And what will they miss, the spirit, the mood of the city? It appears

  • that the era of the urban giants in the Western world is passing. And Detroit is becoming

  • one of the first ghosts of the industrial age.

Ridin' across Detroit - nothing new for decades. In part the hood resembles a war zone... as

字幕與單字

單字即點即查 點擊單字可以查詢單字解釋

B1 中級

底特律如何成為美國的戰區? (How Detroit became America's Warzone)

  • 117 15
    阿多賓 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
影片單字