1
Jun
2009
Abandoned cities
Thanks to padraiq for sending me this: there are some lovely photos on archibase.net of Gukanjima, an island off the west coast of Japan which was home to a thriving coal mine. In the 70s, the mine was closed down and the island deserted, leaving this chaos behind:
This also happens to tie in with Wikipedia’s featured picture of the day: Mane St [sic] of Pioneertown, “an unincorporated and inhabited town built in 1946 as a TV and film set by, among others, Roy Rogers. The town was designed to provide a place for the actors to live while simultaneously having their homes used as part of the set.”
This is a dangerous page to visit, as it’ll inevitably lead to a list of ghost towns, such as Bodie, California:
And Kayaköy, Turkey:
And by the time you’ve read about them all, the day is spent. Good work!
If not, then here are some extra, related wiki rabbit-holes for you to bound down:
Urban Exploration [and some extra photo galleries at undercity]
I can’t find the site again but I once saw a fascinating photo gallery of abandoned buildings in Detroit (which there are a LOT of). Since 1950 its population has roughly halved, and with the American car companies imploding things aren’t looking up. Ghost town? I wonder what a ghost metropolis looks like?
Ah! I’d be interested in seeing that. What you described reminded me of this:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3310/3408925371_daedab3e47_o.jpg
Photos of all houses on a city block in detroit, stitched together (slightly poorly). Crazy.
Here’s a reasonably good source for pictures of the various abandoned structures in Detroit (including a train station):
http://www.forgottendetroit.com/
[...] About a fortnight ago, Aengus made a rather good post about abandoned places. [...]
[...] Sredzkistraße – Abandoned cities [...]
Beautiful photo of Bodie, CA.