Forgotten and abandoned ghost towns in the USA (Texas). Ghost towns - Urban legends of America - LJ What is the name of a ghost town in America

Got to Detroit. It was very interesting to look at the dying city.

Detroit was once the fourth most populous city in the United States (after New York, Los Angeles and Chicago) and the capital of a powerful automobile industry. Here were the factories of the giants Ford, Chrysler and General Motors (as well as Packard and Studebaker), which fed half of the city’s residents.

But at some point something went wrong. Several negative factors overlapped each other at once, and the city began to die.

Since the middle of the 20th century, auto giants began to experience difficulties. In 1973, the oil crisis hit the Big Three hard as their cars could not compete with fuel-efficient European and Japanese models. This blow was followed by the energy crisis of 1979, and finally the financial crisis of 2008-2009, which almost finished off the American automobile industry. Factories closed one after another, and workers and their families left the city.

Wealthy residents also left, since Detroit was not adapted to life by car. In the center of Detroit, at some point there was simply not enough space for everyone who wanted to drive a car. One of the reasons for the death of Detroit is the discrepancy between its “pre-automobile” urban planning structure and the set super goal of “Each family - a separate car.” The city of skyscrapers, no matter how hard it wants, cannot live without powerful public transport. As a result, the city center began to die, shops and cultural institutions closed because customers stopped visiting them. Rich people moved to the suburbs and abandoned the center.

In 1950, 1,850,000 people lived here. Whites began to leave Detroit back in the 60s, in particular after the black riot of 1967, when, during a series of riots and robberies, the police temporarily lost control of the city. In the 70s, the outflow intensified, and two peaks of emigration occurred in the 80s and 2000s.

There are now fewer than 700,000 people left in Detroit. In total, 1.4 million white residents left the city after World War II. Most settled in relatively prosperous suburbs, but many left the region altogether. By 2013, nearly a quarter of Detroit's population (23.1%) was unemployed, and more than a third of the city's residents (36.4%) lived below the poverty line.

Such a rapid outflow of residents turned Detroit into a ghost town. Many houses, offices, and industrial workshops were abandoned. Many are trying to sell their homes and other real estate at bargain prices, but there are often simply no buyers for housing and offices in a depressed city.

In the 80s, local African Americans came up with a new folk pastime - burning abandoned houses on Halloween. On another night, up to 800 fires burned in the city. To stop this process, the authorities created volunteer detachments of “Angels of the Night”, which prevented arson.

In recent years, a total of about 85 thousand abandoned properties have been identified in Detroit. In 2014, Detroit adopted a brownfield demolition program that would demolish about half of that number. If we talk about the area of ​​the city, then approximately a quarter of it is planned to be razed to the ground.

In 2013, Detroit declared bankruptcy, unable to repay $18.5 billion in debt to creditors. In December 2014, the bankruptcy procedure was completed. Now the authorities are thinking about how to improve the situation in the city and subsequently bring back investors.

Many believe that the fate of Detroit is unique, but, firstly, in the history of the United States there have already been bankruptcies of cities (albeit not such large ones), and, secondly, Detroit is only part of the famous Rust Belt, which since 70 - years is almost entirely in decline due to a reduction in production in a number of branches of heavy industry.

I will make 3 more posts about Detroit: good Detroit, bad Detroit and a post about street art. There are a lot of photographs. In the meantime, check out the short travel notes.

01. We are approaching Detroit.

02. On the right is Canadian Windsor, on the left is American Detroit. They are separated by the Detroit River. You can get to Canada either by bridge or by road tunnel.

03. Lively suburbs.

04. Canadians have wind power plants.

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky,
Little boxes, little boxes,
Little boxes, all the same.

06.

07. It’s scary to fly over America, there are hundreds of kilometers of identical houses...

08. Progress has reached the point that now you don’t need to get a ticket in the parking lot, then pay for it, and leave. Now you insert your bank card at the entrance, then you insert it at the exit. That's all. Unnecessary procedures with paper tickets are dying out.

09. Border with Canada.

10. Canadians have everything clean and tidy. Detroit has already been demolished by 70 percent... a terrible sight. There are only empty parking lots left.

11. There are practically no living buildings in the center. Sometimes only the first floors are used, but more often the buildings are simply boarded up. Now very little remains, everything has been demolished.

12. The once noisy streets of the center.

13.

14. Bar.

15. Residential areas are also desolate. Most of the houses were demolished... This is what some areas look like...

16. And some – so...

17. Detroit continues to die, despite all the measures that are being taken to save it.

18. School.

19. Factory.

20. They made a parking lot at the theater...

21. 10 dollars - and you can park your car in the former theater... Beautiful.

22. Scary.

23. Don’t walk on lawns.

24. Noah's Ark.

25. Now they continue to demolish buildings. To prevent dust from rising during construction work, special fans are used that spray water.

26. Since the 70s, Detroit has experienced a sharp increase in crime.

27. Most of the crimes in the city are related to drugs, but there are also a lot of violent crimes. Detroit is considered one of the most dangerous cities in the United States; the murder rate here is on average 10 times higher than in New York.

28. Many Americans now compare Detroit with the city of Gotham from Batman comics, although in the fictional city it was about the merging of power and crime, and the decline of Detroit occurred for socio-economic reasons.

I’ll tell you more about Detroit soon, but for now it’s time to move on, Chicago is waiting for me!

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The application helps me search for hotels in the USA

It happens when cities die in wars or rot along with the country. However, when a country is developing rapidly, the sight of some dying cities in it stands in stark contrast to the well-being of others. And such contrasts are more noticeable in the richest country in the world - America.

In prosperous America, cities are not spared and can easily be sacrificed to economic expediency. Therefore, in Colorado and California, in Arizona and Montana, in New Mexico and Nevada, in Idaho and Utah, about two hundred ghost towns have already formed. However, there is a feeling that, besides the economy, there were some other reasons that prompted people to leave their homes and leave ghost towns to die. It seems that the aura of these ghost towns in America was greatly undermined by the sins of their inhabitants, and for this reason some kind of atmosphere of hopeless misfortune appeared in them.

Victim of the Gold Rush

The town of Moclamne Hill appeared during the California Gold Rush, after two Irishmen discovered gold dust in the Moclamne River. Adventurers immediately flocked to these places in the thousands, and in a matter of months, a city arose from scratch, which was filled not only by hard-working gold miners, but also by adventurers, bandits and swindlers of all stripes. With such a diverse crowd, it is not surprising that in 50 years, 39 sheriffs and more than a thousand people were killed in the “showdown” of gold hunters at Mocklamne Hill.

Stephen Carr, author of A Historical Guide to Ghost Towns, wrote: “It was probably the most violent city in California history. For a handful of golden sand it was possible to buy absolutely everything, including human life...”

Almost the entire population has long since left Moclamne Hill; only a few remain, living off the tourism business. The city's notoriety helps it continue to exist. They say that at night there are fights between ghostly sheriffs and ghostly bandits, and gold miners killed by their companions search for their killers before sunrise. Tourists like to tickle their nerves, for this they stay overnight at a hotel named after George Leger, who was killed there on March 13, 1879 in room No. 7. This Leger is still looking for his killer, which brings an unforgettable experience to hotel guests.

North Brother Island, New York

Located within the confines of crowded New York City, North Brother Island is a small, abandoned place with a dark history. First an isolated infectious diseases hospital for people with syphilis, then a shelter for the treatment of drug addicts - the most disadvantaged sections of society were sent to isolation on the island. The abandoned hospital closed in 1960 and is now a bird sanctuary closed to the public. The ban does not stop numerous urban explorers wandering around the ghostly hospital building.

Curse of the Mormons

A chilling story took place in a town with the peaceful name of Paria (Utah). 1863 - several religious fanatics from the “Wings of Christ” sect burned two residential buildings to the ground along with the residents. 18 people were burned alive in the fire. In the ashes, someone shouted that the houses were burned by Mormons. The residents of Paria, deafened by grief and anger, did not look for evidence of their guilt.

They went to the area of ​​the Great Salt Lake where they carried out lynching. For three days they caught and killed Mormons without trial. And with this they brought another misfortune to their city. Paria acquired the sad fame of a cursed city that no one wanted to go to. as a result, the city began to decline and by 1868 was practically deserted.

Hellfire Curse

The last nine residents of the city of Centralia in Pennsylvania are well aware of the name of the author of the curse that befell them. It was once a large mining town, built in the mid-19th century. It was designed and built by Locust Mountain Coal and Iron Company civil mining engineer Alexander Rea. Two railway lines passed through the city, there were 7 churches, 5 hotels and even 2 theaters. The beginning of the end of the city was the murder of its founder.

Alexander Ria was killed on October 17, 1868. Three people were accused of this murder, and on March 25, 1878, they were hanged by court verdict. However, before his death, Ria cursed not only the killers, but also the entire city that destroyed him. He wished Centralia to burn in hellfire.

Ria’s curse came to mind a hundred years later, in the 60s of the twentieth century. As a result of a poorly extinguished garbage dump located in an abandoned open pit, deeper deposits of garbage began to smolder, and eventually the fire spread to the remaining abandoned coal mines near Centralia. All attempts to extinguish the fire led to nothing.

Since that time, for more than half a century, the entire city has literally stood on the flames of hell. Thick smoke pours out from underground, enveloping all the streets. Several people died in the hot underworld when the asphalt collapsed under them, and most of the residents left the ghostly city.

The underground fire burns to this day, and how long it will continue is unknown. No further attempts are being made to put out the fire, and there are enough underground coal reserves to keep this fire going for at least another 250 years.

Route 61, which ran through the ghost town, is abandoned and deteriorating over time; Smoke and steam ooze through cracks in the coating. There are practically no inhabited houses in Centralia. Most of the buildings have been demolished and the area now looks like a meadow with a few streets running through it. Most of the city is covered with thickets. By 2012, only 7 people remained out of all the residents here, and the US Postal Department canceled the postal code of the former city. The only surviving Church of the Holy Virgin Mary of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the city holds services every week on Saturdays. But hellfire burns as before.

Rhyolite, Nevada

Founded in 1904, Rhyolite grew rapidly during the Gold Rush years, but just as quickly collapsed during the financial crisis of 1907. Visit an abandoned ghost town on your way to Las Vegas and experience the Gold Rush. The best preserved building in the city is the Bottle House, made from thousands of beer and liquor bottles. The remains of once-grand buildings are a fitting reminder of the short-lived prosperity of the gold miners' days. Located in the middle of the desert, the city of Rhyolite is an eerie sight.

Bodie's Sinful Dream

You don't need a time machine to visit the American Wild West. You can just go to the foot of the Sierra Nevada in the town of Bodie. Once upon a time during the gold rush it was full of life. It was a center of crime and lawlessness. But overnight everything changed.

During the gold rush in California in the mid-19th century, William Bodie was one of the first to go to the Wild West in search of riches. Several weeks of hard work and luck smiled on him: he stumbled upon the largest gold-bearing vein in the Sierra Nevada. Throwing a shovel, Bodie rushed to the nearest village to register the plot. Having officially staked his claim, he bought two bottles of whiskey in the saloon and went back to the mountains to extract his wealth.

Having celebrated the gift of fate alone in a leaky tent, Bodie fell asleep in sweet dreams of the sweet life that awaited him in the future. However, these dreams were not destined to come true. In the morning, William Bodie never got up from his bed: his body could not withstand pneumonia, cold and stress.

The stern prospectors were shocked by such an insidious smile of fate. The village, which grew near a gold mine, was named after the deceased gold miner. And in 1876, another gold deposit was discovered nearby, and the town of Bodie began to grow by leaps and bounds. In 4 years its population reached 10,000.

Bodie was full of fun, where at any hour, day or night, you could drink whiskey in 65 saloons, have fun in the red light district and forget yourself after an opium pipe in Chinatown. However, due to hard work, widespread drunkenness and the habit of clutching a Colt when resolving any dispute, almost a third of the population soon found places in the cemetery. Murder, robbery, shootout, and street fights have become commonplace here. Bodie began to enjoy a reputation as “sin city.” The local priest, Rev. Father Warrington, described this city quite figuratively: “A sea of ​​sin, lust and lawlessness.” The notoriety of this town quickly spread throughout America. “The Bad Man from Bodie” is a collective image of a creepy criminal that parents used to scare naughty children.

The town's prosperity was quick, but short. Gold and silver became increasingly scarce, and a terrible fire at the beginning of the last century destroyed most of the buildings. People simply started leaving.

It was probably not only the crisis in the gold mining industry that forced the residents of Bodie to leave the ghost town. He was simply permeated with an aura of misfortune. By the 1960s, there were only 5 people left who did not believe in any curses. And they paid dearly for it. All of them did not die a natural death. First, one of them shot his wife, then the other three dealt with the killer. But his ghost did not let them live in peace. And soon the remaining three died from a mysterious unrecognized disease.

But the city retains its aura even without people. Tour guides first of all inform tourists about the “Body curse”, which consists in the fact that every object in this city is mortally dangerous. If someone wants to take even a pebble or a sliver as a souvenir, he will inevitably be overtaken by a series of various misfortunes and troubles. And most of the attractions here have a touch of tragedy. Like, for example, the grave of “Angel Bodie” - a 3-year-old boy who died in a mine, which his father wanted to show him.

Of course, tourists don’t want to leave without a souvenir. And then they return the taken items by mail and complain about damage.

Texola, Oklahoma

Texola is located between the Oklahoma and Texas borders. It was a popular railroad stop in the early 20th century. During the city's rapid expansion in the 1920s, the city's famous Route 66 passed through. Driving through the city today, you'll come across a roadside sign that reads, "There's No Place on Earth Like Texola." Most likely, deserted streets and crumbling buildings are not at all what the proud residents had in mind when they drew the sign.

Tombstone Retrospectives

Like many places in the Old West with a violent history, Tombstone is one of America's most famous ghost towns. In addition, it has a reputation as the most damned place in the state of Arizona. On the streets of Tombstone there are ghosts who replay the circumstances of their tragic death over and over again.

All of America knows the O. cattle farm. K. Corral" near Tombstone, where on October 26, 1881, the Earp brothers and "Doc" Holliday settled scores with the Ike Clanton gang in the famous shootout. Then, as a result of a 30-second shootout, three bandits remained on the ground. This rapid fire in advance has become an indispensable element of cowboy films, and Tombstone, with its classic Wild West interior, is a constant film set. Many stars of the Western genre have filmed here, from Burt Lancaster and Ronald Reagan to Clint Eastwood and Kurt Russell.

Time has made everyone equal. Both the Earp brothers and the bandits they shot are buried in the local Boot Hill Cemetery. On the neighboring graves there are quite remarkable epitaphs: “Margarita Gold Dollar”, “Here lies Lester Moore with four .44 caliber bullets”, “Wrongly hanged Joe Lucky. Forgive us, Joe..."

The cemeteries of the Wild West are quite instructive places. You can read the era from them. After all, pioneers rarely lived here to old age. Every fifth miner died from silicosis, tuberculosis or as a result of an accident. Epidemics raged. Many died violent deaths in saloon fights, from bandit bullets, or on the ropes of lynchings, while whites were hanged with the same zeal as blacks.

It should be noted that Boot Hill is slang for cemeteries in the Far West. In the 19th century, this was the general name for cemeteries for gunfighters and for those “who died with their boots on,” that is, as a result of a violent death. In addition, those who died in a foreign city without funds for a decent burial ended up in such burials. There are more than 20 such cemeteries in America.

The spirit of the long-deceased Marshal Fred White, who was accidentally shot and killed by cowboy Curly Billy Brosius in 1880, also lives here. White is the first Tombstone marshal to achieve some kind of order from the Clanton gang. He often arrested bandits from other groups. Early on the morning of October 28, Curly Bill and several of his comrades were having fun by shooting around the city. When White arrived to disarm the thugs, a stray bullet hit him in the groin. Two days later, the marshal died. They say that he can be seen at the place where he was wounded. It used to be a vacant lot, but over time the Bird Cage saloon appeared.

There is a legend that one jealous woman killed her rival here and cut out the unfortunate woman’s heart. There were 26 deaths in the building, so it is not surprising that several dozen ghosts are seen in it. The former saloon has now become the Bird Cage Theater museum, and its keepers have repeatedly reported seeing long-dead patrons, and many claim to have heard music and laughter inside the building.

A cowboy in a long black cloak is often seen on the streets of Tombstone: he usually stands leaning against the wall of the post office. And several times at the top of Ajax Hill a guy with half a head was seen smoking a cigar.

But criminal violence was not the only reason for the death of residents in Tombstone. The city experienced two terrible fires: the first in June 1881, the second in May 1882. These fires destroyed large areas of the city's business district. More than 40 people died in crowded saloons and brothels that burned to the ground. These unfortunates who died in smoke and fire, who, apparently, to this day cannot find peace, also sometimes remind of themselves, appearing on the streets of the city with terrible burns on their bodies. At the same time, some eyewitnesses reported that when these ghosts appeared, the smell of smoke and burning was felt. It is likely that the events of past years have somehow been imprinted on the city, and it replays these scenes from time to time.

You can often see the ghost of a woman in Tombstone wearing a long white dress. According to one legend, this is the mother of a child who died from a fever epidemic in the 1880s. Out of grief, she committed. According to another legend, this is one of the merry maidens who was hanged by bandits in a brothel, and her spirit is still searching for her killers to this day to take revenge. And in Landin Park, before dawn, you can sometimes see the ghost of a woman with a knife sticking out of her head, burying someone’s body under a large stone.

In the vicinity of Boot Hill, the ghost of a lady with a sword sticking out of her leg is often seen walking around. They say she loves to scare tourists who come to see the ghosts of Tombstone.

Boot Hill became even more popular after one remarkable photograph. A certain Terry Clanton - the namesake of the legendary local gang leader, or perhaps even his descendant - photographed his friend in front of this cemetery. Clanton sent the film in for development, but was very surprised when he picked up the pictures. In the photo, behind the figure of a friend who portrayed a stern cowboy with a revolver, a man in a dark hat is clearly visible. Judging by the height, the person either has no legs, or he is kneeling, or... rising from the grave. At the same time, the photographer is absolutely sure that, except for the two of them, there was no one in the cemetery during the shooting.

Claremont, a ghost town in Texas, was built in 1892 as a regional center. The new city was located on the ranch of a certain Romberg, who named the new city after his niece, Claire Becker. In 1895, a courthouse (made of sandstone) was built, as well as a prison. In the 1930s the population exceeded 200 people. By the fifties, however, the city began to decline and in 1954 lost the title of regional center, which passed to the neighboring...

The city was founded in 1880 after the discovery of silver and gold deposits in these places. The population of the city reached 2 thousand people. In the 20s, the industry declined, and in 1922, railway routes stopped passing through the city. Initially, the city was named Forest City, but due to the abundance of cities with that name, it was decided to rename it. The new name for the city was chosen by Griffith Evans, one of its founders, who was just reading...

An abandoned town 19 kilometers from Silverton (Colorado). It was founded in 1873 as a mining town. Every autumn, city residents emigrated to warm Silverton, as Enimas Forks was almost completely covered with snow, making movement around the city impossible. The mines were closed between 1904 and 1917, and by 1920 the settlement was a ghost town. In the 90s, attempts were made to restore the city.

Abandoned city in Nevada. Founded in 1865 on the site of silver mining. In addition to silver, copper, lead and antimony were also mined in the vicinity of the city. At its peak in the 1870s, the population was 15 thousand people. In 1887, most of the mines were closed, and by the first years of the new millennium the city was empty. Many buildings still remain, including the mills. To the south of the city there is now a national park.

The city ceased to exist after the closure of the last mine. Now the city has been turned into an open-air “museum”. So, in 1850, during the Colorado gold boom, a town was formed in South Park near Denver, Colorado, called "Fairplay". It was a small settlement of gold miners consisting of one street and 34 wooden houses. In 1880 the city withered away, and so it would have stood there, rotting and...

We are accustomed to perceiving the United States as the most prosperous and highly developed country in the world in economic, financial, technical and technological terms. In many ways, this is true; it is not for nothing that America is considered the only global superpower at the moment. However, such a status does not guarantee general prosperity: abandoned cities of the United States are not only a monument to the past, they are also a sign of the present. These cities both have a lot in common and each have their own special character and history.

Detroit is an abandoned city with a population of 700 thousand people

The most famous abandoned city in the USA this is, of course, Detroit, the former automobile capital of the planet - and, ironically, it is a city with a very decent number of inhabitants. 700 thousand people (and this does not take into account the suburbs): this figure is enviable for, for example, most regional centers of Russia. However, the history of Detroit and its present have certain specificities that make it possible to still classify it as a ghost town. Founded in the early 18th century, Detroit was long a Canadian settlement before being ceded to the United States about a century and a half ago. The real heyday of Detroit began in the last century, simultaneously with the automobile era. The city housed the headquarters and production facilities of all the major American automobile companies, and skilled workers and engineers flocked here from all over the country.

In the 1950s, the U.S. auto industry dominated the world, and Detroit was one of the most prosperous cities in the country, with a population of nearly 2 million. The city center was a combination of huge skyscrapers and luxurious office buildings, theaters, cinemas and the like. But gradually difficulties began - competition in the global car market began to grow. When the global oil crisis broke out in 1973, sharply increasing the prices of oil and gasoline, it turned out that European and Asian cars were much better adapted to the new conditions. Firstly, they were cheaper in themselves, and secondly, they consumed significantly less fuel. As a result, American auto companies began to reduce production scales and move factories abroad - and Detroit began to decline.

Residents who lost their jobs left the city; many neighborhoods in the city center were abandoned, which were inhabited (captured) by low-income black and Arab populations.

Essentially, Detroit became a city whose life had moved to the suburbs, and the central part was half abandoned, half turned into a ghetto. Crime, drug trafficking, and prostitution flourished here, and Detroit quickly became one of the most dangerous cities in the country. By 2013, the city was officially bankrupt, its debts exceeded $20 billion, and about 30,000 homes and 70,000 buildings were abandoned. Projects are being developed to clear about a quarter of the city's territory so as not to waste money on supplying water, gas and electricity to these slums and ensuring safety here. But so far these projects are far from practical implementation.

Abandoned cities of America: sad monuments of pioneers

The example of Detroit is very picturesque and eloquent, but still, in most cases, an abandoned city in the USA is a phenomenon of more distant historical origin. Here's a look at some of America's ghost towns:

• The Texas city of Claremont, founded in 1892 and immediately received the status of a county seat. Thanks to this, administrative buildings, a district court and a prison were built in the city. However, Claremont, despite its urban and “metropolitan” status, was never distinguished by its large population and even during its period of greatest prosperity had no more than a thousand inhabitants. In 1954, the status of the district center passed to the neighboring city and residents gradually began to leave Claremont. As a result, by the 2000s it turned out to be completely deserted, but at the same time decently preserved;

• In 1906, the city of Gary was founded in the vicinity of Chicago, which became one of the centers of metallurgical production in the United States. While the ferrous metallurgy flourished and there was high demand for ferrous metals on the world market, Gary grew and expanded - in 1960 its population reached 180 thousand inhabitants. But then the global situation changed, metallurgical plants began to close. Where there is no work and there is a shortage of money, there soon appears an increase in crime and social instability. Gary's population began to decline rapidly, while the proportion of low-income people of color increased significantly. The crime rate has increased significantly, a situation similar to Detroit has arisen in Gary - entire neighborhoods and neighborhoods are empty, the population has more than halved;
• In popular ideas, the Wild West is associated with the gold rush - and indeed, in the 19th century in America, many villages and cities were founded in places where gold-bearing veins were discovered. One such city is Oatman, Arizona. After the discovery of gold in these places in 1902, a stream of miners poured here, first living in a tent city and then creating a real city. There were two banks, several hotels, a dozen shops and two dozen entertainment establishments (saloons) here. The largest recorded number of inhabitants of Othman is 4 thousand people. But as almost always happened with gold mining cities, after the gold-bearing veins were depleted, the city became empty - with Otman this happened by the early 1940s;

Centralia

• One of the abandoned American cities with the most unusual history is Centralia in Pennsylvania. The city was founded in the middle of the century before last; the “city-forming” factor was the mining of coal and anthracite in the area. The mining industry has developed successfully for more than 80 years, and the city has grown and developed along with it. But in May 1962, a tragedy that stretched over time began. By this time, a sufficient number of abandoned coal mines had already formed near Centralia, in which production was completed and they were mothballed. In May 1962, it was decided to burn down one of the city's garbage dumps to free up space. But this procedure was carried out in such an unfortunate place that the fire penetrated through a thin layer of soil into abandoned coal mines. An underground fire began, which, according to experts, will last at least 250 years. Living in the city has become unsafe - the soil has become hot, large cracks are constantly forming in the ground, from which harmful combustion products are escaping. As a result, by the 1980s, the entire population of Centralia was evacuated, some of the buildings were demolished, and the rest became a ghost town.

Alexander Babitsky

The growing vacancy rate is resulting in entire abandoned neighborhoods appearing in many US cities. You could say that this article is a modern-day Tale of Two Cities by Dickens.

Over the past decades, Las Vegas has been caught up in a glittering carnival of urbanization, immersed in new construction and ongoing economic development. And Detroit, once the mainstay of American industry, was slowly bowing and rusting under the weight of empty real estate. Now, difficult times are coming for both of these cities.

Now Las Vegas can already compete with Detroit, which has rightfully earned the title of “the emptiest city” in America. In light of current events, Forbes magazine prepared a rating that combines data on the level of vacancy in the residential real estate sales and rental markets in 75 of the largest urban areas. This ranking was compiled based on statistical information from the US Census Bureau published on February 3 of this year.

Each city on the list was assessed separately by the level of vacancy of rental and residential premises, then an overall assessment was compiled based on these indicators.

Cities like Detroit and Dayton are victims of the long industrial decline in the United States. Others, such as Las Vegas and Atlanta, have been hit hard by the current real estate crisis. Boston and New York are among the few islands of calm in this storm, and Honolulu has the best vacancy rate in the country - 5.8% in the residential real estate sector and just 0.5% in the rental sector.

However, the problem of empty neighborhoods in the United States is becoming increasingly urgent. The national rental property vacancy rate currently stands at 10.1%, up from 9.6% last year. In the residential real estate segment, it rose from 2.8% last year to 2.9% in 2009. Richmond, Virginia has the worst rental vacancy rate in the entire country (23.7%), and Orlando has the worst residential vacancy rate. Detroit and Las Vegas show dismal results in both categories. The Motor City (as Americans call Detroit) demonstrates a 19.9% ​​vacancy rate in the rental property segment and 4% in the residential segment, and the City of Sin (Las Vegas) shows 16% and 4.% levels respectively.

“It’s a nightmare, there’s no construction going on at the moment,” says Las Vegas developer Lawrence Hallier, who knows about it firsthand. His $600 million Panorama Towers complex achieved international fame three years ago. All apartments in the first of four residential skyscrapers he planned were sold out in six months, in the second, completed in 2007, in 12 weeks. Last fall, as construction of the complex's third tower neared completion, Mr. Hallier had already sold 92% of his units. Then came the recession, which made drastic adjustments to his plans. Only half of the deals have been completed, and he says it will now take him several years to “get out of the red,” and plans to build a fourth skyscraper will have to be put on hold indefinitely.

There are other developers in Vegas who have also been hit hard by the crisis. In 2007, Israeli billionaire Yitzhak Tshuva and his partner Nochi Dankner paid $1.25 billion to purchase 140 thousand square meters. m of land in the Las Vegas entertainment district. It was planned to build a mega-casino on this site, designed in the likeness of the New York Plaza Hotel, worth $8 billion. In November, the price of the acquired land was halved and amounted to $650 million. As a result, the groundbreaking ceremony for the grandiose project was postponed until 2010.

The troubles of the developers of the Plaza project are very symbolic and characteristic of millions of property owners in Las Vegas and the United States as a whole. This illustrative example largely explains the roots of the American crisis in the residential real estate segment.

During the housing boom, as property prices climbed steadily higher, consumers took out large loans in the expectation that the value of the properties they purchased would rise. But, contrary to hopes, home prices fell sharply, especially in Las Vegas, Florida and Phoenix, where a construction boom led to an oversupply and the number of subprime loans issued exceeded all permissible norms. As a result, many homeowners suddenly found that the amount of mortgage they had taken out was many times greater than the value of their home. In some of the worst cases, the banks that issued the mortgage foreclosed on the borrowers' property, leaving them homeless and with debt greater than the amount they originally took out.

Of course, the situation in Las Vegas is quite difficult, but it cannot be compared with the problems in Detroit. Although the vacancy rate in Detroit is currently lower than in Sin City, the former has been suffering from an abundance of unoccupied premises for a long time. The city's population, a result of economic boom, grew rapidly throughout the first half of the 20th century. In 1900 it was 285 thousand people, in 1920 – 990 thousand, and in 1950 it reached its peak and amounted to 1.8 million.

But since the sixties, Detroit's demographics have experienced a sharp decline. At the moment, the city's population is 900 thousand people, and many of its areas are gradually falling into disrepair. Most experts blame the current situation on the rapid development of the suburbs, the outsourcing of manufacturing work and federal social programs, which, in their opinion, have aggravated the situation, contributing to the creation of a culture of parasitism and dependency.

And for half a century now, countless scientists, politicians, developers and non-profit organizations have been unsuccessfully struggling to solve the city's problems. Will Las Vegas share his sad fate?

"I don't think Las Vegas is suffering from overdevelopment, but you have to remember that there are two million people living there," says Lawrence Hallier.

Time will tell whether such optimism will be justified. For those who saw the fall of Detroit, hearing Mr. Hallier's comments brings to mind another of Charles Dickens's works, Great Expectations.

America: abandoned city of Detroit (photos and videos)

At its best, it was the industrial capital of the 20th century, playing a fundamental role in shaping the modern world. Over the past decades, a lot has changed there. Ruin have become a natural part of the urban landscape. filled with mummified buildings, which in luxury can be compared with the ruins of ancient civilizations (Egyptian pyramids, the Roman Colosseum or the Athenian Acropolis).

How well it all started... back in 1913, car manufacturer Henry Ford launched the first large-scale assembly line. Detroit became the capital of mechanical engineering, rich people appeared here, luxurious large-scale skyscrapers were built, the city became an example of the desired “American Dream.”

People came here in thousands in search of work. And by the 50s, the city's population reached almost 2 million people. Detroit was the fourth largest city in the United States.

In the selection you will see abandoned schools, libraries, theaters, hotels, dental offices, automobile factories, residential buildings, and luxury hotels.