A Third World Country Experience Right in the Good Old USA

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Originally uploaded by robert.matelski

Well, I always thought I would need to renew my passport to visit a third world country... turns out all I needed was a flight from SFO to Cleveland!

On my recent trip to Cleveland, I found that so much of the city has become what appears quite similar to a third world country --- so much abandonment and despair around. It's pretty depressing. Entire neighborhoods have become ghost towns, with only a third of the houses remaining occupied in many parts of town. The other two thirds are either vacant and trashed/vandalized, or have simply been torn down, most likely by the city's own public demolition team.

In the St. Clair Superior neighborhood, garbage, refuse and forgotten pieces of furniture are strewn about everywhere. Anything that could be stolen already is gone, and anything that could be vandalized is pretty much trashed. This image shows that there are at least a few property owners who are trying to protect what little they still have -- the sign on this house on East 69th Street reads "THIS HOUSE HAS BEEN STRIPPED OF COPPER & REPLACED WITH DOGS!! THEY CAN MAKE IT TO THE FENCE IN 3 SEC. CAN YOU?" and appears to indicate that thieves and vandals have gone through this house to steal the copper pipes to sell for scrap. In this kind of place, the only way to keep people from coming in to steal or vandalize some more is by brute force. Neither life nor property are safe here, and unfortunately, it does not look like there is improvement in store anytime soon.

The ongoing decay of the rust belt is a huge sign that the country is heading down a path that is not optimal. While it might not be evident in the Bay Area, there are many parts of the USA that are rapidly returning to "developing nation" status, in terms of the surroundings and in terms of the demographics. The dense, 100+ year-old urban fabric of cities like Cleveland, Buffalo, and Detroit is quickly becoming shredded and set ablaze, tossed aside and forgotten. Does anyone care, or are we going to just sit back and let it continue?

RM^3