Photo of the Day: Motor City Breakdown

Detroit's Michigan Central Station, by Warren and Wetmore, which designed Grand Central in NYC (click image for larger version)

From BagnewsNotes comes an image that aptly symbolizes the systematic, slow bleed rack and ruin of Detroit and other Rust Belt communities during the past 40 years or so. Ironically, this formerly majestic Motor City train station is also emblematic of America's all-or-nothing decision to foresake its once mighty passenger rail system in favor of the car culture that's currently helping to kill the planet.

If there is something called sin, this is it. Sinful, wanton waste of resources and lives -- the kind most Americans refuse to acknowledge or mourn. Hey, it's not happening here (yet). It's not happening to me (yet). A contemplation of Detroit's path to dissolution provides a cautionary tale of neglect, denial, greed and dishonor we should mull on many levels as we wade into a widening depressionland that may well touch every corner of America and, perhaps, the world.

What characteristics define a culture that would allow the kind of deterioration and abandonment communicated in this photo? The American culture of the late 20th and early 21st century on planet Earth. We're number one. We're number one. Toss away the past and worship the golden calf of eternal "growth" to benefit the few -- at any cost to our humanity and historic identity.

Click to see more examples of Detroit's once elegant structures and once bustling manufacturing meccas that are boarded up and rotting, or have already faced the wrecking ball. The piece by piece death of a city that once represented the robust ingenuity and work ethic of America is a tragedy to behold, especially now, with a million or more middle class jobs connected to automaking dependent on the kindness of strangers in Washington.

As more of the comforting myths and deceptive facades of the "free market" and "free trade" fall away, will we embrace a more sustainable and wise set of values? Or stubbornly stick to a strictly materialist, consumerist paradigm where waste is welcome and greed is good?