wizehop
Chasing the Darkness
More shit on how far Detroit has fallen. Cool none the less. I have only posted the first page, so if your interested visit the website and continue on.
http://goobingdetroit.tumblr.com/
Formerly, comparing Detroit property on Google Streetview (c. 2009) and Bing Streetview (c. 2012). Currently, just using Google Street View Time Machine. Get in touch at alex[at]makeloveland.com
The house at the center of these photos sold for $80,000 in 2005. Now, only 1 property on this block is currently assessed at more than $15,000.
35 properties on the north side of Holmes. 13 in tax distress, 20 already foreclosed and owned by public agencies. So, 94% tax distress rate.
This property was tax foreclosed in 2011 and went unsold in the county tax auction. The image from October 2011 looks like evidence of the inhabitants leaving abruptly.
15 of the 20 properties on this block have been, or are subject to, tax foreclosure. Looked like a nice bakery.
Of the 32 properties on this stretch of Healy Street between Fenelon and East Davison, 22 are owned by the City of Detroit or the Michigan Land Bank. Of the five properties that have gone to the foreclosure auction in the last three years, none have been purchased.
Healy Street around McNichols has been an area of high arson activity the last couple years, as well.
With property deterioration and tax foreclosure, it’s always a question of correlation or causation. I can’t tell when the property on the right burned down, but my guess is that property caught fire and emptied the houses to its left. Tax foreclosure followed. Only a guess though.
Got a request for before and afters of the Palmer Lodge Apartments on Woodward. No image available for the completed renovation, but they are looking quite nice these days, and a ton of work just went into them.
"A Hurricane Without Water"
(Credit: Detroit Blight Task Force Removal Plan for the above image)
At LOVELAND Technologies, I deal with Detroit property data everyday through our property mapping platform, Why Don’t We Own This? The data I was working with there led me to start GooBing Detroit.
Since there’s some attention coming this way, I should probably take a moment to explain this blog — which has mostly been a context-less index of stuff found while virtually driving the streets of Detroit. I’ll start with this:
"Detroit’s getting better — sure, there are neighborhoods that have problems, but they’ve been that way for 30 or 40 years."
I’ve heard statements like this a number of times in conversation and online. The idea that problems with Detroit’s property issues are decades old. Some of the root causes are certainly buried that far back, but this idea distorts what I think is still a little understood fact: The 2008-9 financial crisis had a devastating impact on the state of property in Detroit.
One Detroit group describes the last six years of property deterioration as “A Hurricane Without Water.” I think it is an apt metaphor.
The financial crisis probably served as the last push to tip a lot of Detroit properties and property owners over the edge. Detroit has some of the highest property taxes relative to the value of homes in the nation.
The crisis came at a moment when home values had already been declining for years. All of the sudden there was a precipitous drop in value, yet assessments remained incredibly high, city services further declined, and you had tens of thousands of people facing a situation where their house was worth $20,000, they owed $3,000 or so a year in property taxes, and were delivered very poor city services for that exorbitant sum. So they left. They were kicked out via speculators buying their homes at foreclosure auctions, they started renting, left the city, bought a cheaper place. All kinds of things.
The result is the graph you see below. 70,000+ tax foreclosures since the financial crisis. An annual auction that sees 20,000 properties go up for bid for $500 a piece, sold oftentimes to speculators who do nothing to the property. Half the properties don’t sell, and are inherited by the city, where their fate, historically, has been just as bad.
(Credit: Detroit Blight Task Force Removal Plan for the above image)
Anyway the point is that, yes, Detroit has faced decline for decades, but there is an untold story about the impact the financial crisis had on the city. This blog is cataloging just a bit of that evidence.
Swallowed up in green.
This whole neighborhood — east of Woodward to the railroad, and south of State Fair to Seven Mile — is really rough.
http://goobingdetroit.tumblr.com/
Formerly, comparing Detroit property on Google Streetview (c. 2009) and Bing Streetview (c. 2012). Currently, just using Google Street View Time Machine. Get in touch at alex[at]makeloveland.com
The house at the center of these photos sold for $80,000 in 2005. Now, only 1 property on this block is currently assessed at more than $15,000.
35 properties on the north side of Holmes. 13 in tax distress, 20 already foreclosed and owned by public agencies. So, 94% tax distress rate.
This property was tax foreclosed in 2011 and went unsold in the county tax auction. The image from October 2011 looks like evidence of the inhabitants leaving abruptly.
15 of the 20 properties on this block have been, or are subject to, tax foreclosure. Looked like a nice bakery.
Of the 32 properties on this stretch of Healy Street between Fenelon and East Davison, 22 are owned by the City of Detroit or the Michigan Land Bank. Of the five properties that have gone to the foreclosure auction in the last three years, none have been purchased.
Healy Street around McNichols has been an area of high arson activity the last couple years, as well.
With property deterioration and tax foreclosure, it’s always a question of correlation or causation. I can’t tell when the property on the right burned down, but my guess is that property caught fire and emptied the houses to its left. Tax foreclosure followed. Only a guess though.
Got a request for before and afters of the Palmer Lodge Apartments on Woodward. No image available for the completed renovation, but they are looking quite nice these days, and a ton of work just went into them.
"A Hurricane Without Water"
(Credit: Detroit Blight Task Force Removal Plan for the above image)
At LOVELAND Technologies, I deal with Detroit property data everyday through our property mapping platform, Why Don’t We Own This? The data I was working with there led me to start GooBing Detroit.
Since there’s some attention coming this way, I should probably take a moment to explain this blog — which has mostly been a context-less index of stuff found while virtually driving the streets of Detroit. I’ll start with this:
"Detroit’s getting better — sure, there are neighborhoods that have problems, but they’ve been that way for 30 or 40 years."
I’ve heard statements like this a number of times in conversation and online. The idea that problems with Detroit’s property issues are decades old. Some of the root causes are certainly buried that far back, but this idea distorts what I think is still a little understood fact: The 2008-9 financial crisis had a devastating impact on the state of property in Detroit.
One Detroit group describes the last six years of property deterioration as “A Hurricane Without Water.” I think it is an apt metaphor.
The financial crisis probably served as the last push to tip a lot of Detroit properties and property owners over the edge. Detroit has some of the highest property taxes relative to the value of homes in the nation.
The crisis came at a moment when home values had already been declining for years. All of the sudden there was a precipitous drop in value, yet assessments remained incredibly high, city services further declined, and you had tens of thousands of people facing a situation where their house was worth $20,000, they owed $3,000 or so a year in property taxes, and were delivered very poor city services for that exorbitant sum. So they left. They were kicked out via speculators buying their homes at foreclosure auctions, they started renting, left the city, bought a cheaper place. All kinds of things.
The result is the graph you see below. 70,000+ tax foreclosures since the financial crisis. An annual auction that sees 20,000 properties go up for bid for $500 a piece, sold oftentimes to speculators who do nothing to the property. Half the properties don’t sell, and are inherited by the city, where their fate, historically, has been just as bad.
(Credit: Detroit Blight Task Force Removal Plan for the above image)
Anyway the point is that, yes, Detroit has faced decline for decades, but there is an untold story about the impact the financial crisis had on the city. This blog is cataloging just a bit of that evidence.
Swallowed up in green.
This whole neighborhood — east of Woodward to the railroad, and south of State Fair to Seven Mile — is really rough.
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