Considering pornography, it's fair to suggest
that what gets people riled up isn't the obscenity on display, but the
degradation of the subject. It's no less true with buildings
than budding starlets. "Ruin porn" -- the act of finding and
photographing abandoned and desecrated structures -- makes sport of our
failures as urban citizens, while exploiting the broken, beat-up
buildings among us as fodder, cheap thrills for the less adventurous.
A new essay from a
blogger named Rayne takes issue with the porn you've been sending around -- specifically, the ruin porn we're all sick of finding in our emails. Send this rant to your favorite train station urbanophile today!
Excerpt:
Yes, it seems like dry and ancient history to you, but Detroiters are
living it and they are surviving it, and they have a thing or two to
teach the rest of this country about recovery and greatness. Go on,
revel in the "ruin porn" you so enjoy -- but when your city's turn comes,
well, let's hope you can handle it with as much grace. And come it
does, like the failed levees came for New Orleans and the economic
downturn came for Las Vegas and all of California.
Read the essay
here.
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