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144 Comments
- OnlyGirlOnDigg, on 12/19/2008, -0/+101This type of article is what makes me come back to digg.
- nikki2300dk, on 12/19/2008, -0/+73"The underground fire is still burning and will continue to do so for the indefinite future. There are no current plans to extinguish the fire, which is consuming an eight-mile seam containing enough coal to fuel it for 250 years."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvan ...
Wow, just wow. - SEOtonie, on 12/19/2008, -0/+53This article lacks pictures. One per location? Bad.
- Hobbes24, on 12/19/2008, -1/+51"50,000 people used to live here..."
- inactive, on 12/19/2008, -0/+44That is extremely creepy. Especially seeing Detroit
- chuckDontSurf, on 12/19/2008, -0/+38Wow, #1 (Centralia, Penn) is pretty bizarre. Even stranger, FTA: "A few chose to stay; around 20 residents remain in Centralia as squatters in what were once their legitimately owned homes. The government closed the main egress into town, Route 61, detouring traffic, and effectively cutting off the burning town and its remaining inhabitants from the rest of the world."
Talk about a premise for a horror movie... - seaweedsurfer, on 12/19/2008, -0/+32Centralia is the basis for Silent Hill... kinda creepy if you think about it
- starexplorer, on 12/19/2008, -2/+25I am Legend 2: Electric Boogaloo
- johnomaz, on 12/19/2008, -1/+20"now its a ghost town". Dude, you seriously read my mind. Wasn't expecting to find a comment like yours.
- Bermygoon, on 12/19/2008, -1/+20It doesn't make sense mentioning why Detroit is how it is without mentioning the riots.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th_Street_Riot
'The availability of high-paying and unskilled work in auto plants attracted many from the south, who brought their often conflicting cultures into the community. In 1943, racial tensions between blacks and whites broke out into open riot as each competed for wartime jobs in the 1943 Detroit riot.'
This event forced most whites into the burbs and blacks stayed and controlled the city. Black and white lines continue strongly to this day in this heavily segregated city.
The problem continues to this day with a mayor that recently signed an executive order that states any construction work in Detroit must employ 51%+ blacks.
http://www.ci.detroit.mi.us/Legislative/CityCounci ...
It is a sad thing though, Detroit is a beautiful city that could have developed into a world class place but mismanagement and racism has destroyed it. Industries come and go and cities change (pittsburg) but Detroit still has got over what happen back in 1967. - Chyeld, on 12/19/2008, -0/+19Yes, talk about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Hill_(film)
- pinchduck, on 12/19/2008, -1/+19Ok, this is the 3rd time that the train station from Detroit has made it onto Digg as an example of urban decay. Time for the other side of the story: The site is owned by a private investor who wants to tear it down and turn it into a transportation hub. The site is to be an anchor for a 2nd bridge to Windsor. I'm not sure what the status of his project is, but the train station is not a rotting hulk with no future. It is a rotting hulk with a future to alleviate traffic congestion between Detroit and Windsor. Detroit itself has 900,000 residents. It is a ***** and in need of a major overhaul, but lumping it in with abandoned cities, even with the "part of" qualifier, is very misleading.
- kravex, on 12/19/2008, -1/+16I'm in Prypiat all the time with my sniper rifle...
- remthewanderer, on 12/19/2008, -0/+13Actually the town is not that big a deal. It is not "cut off" from anything. You can drive up to it any time you want. the road that used to run strait through town is only diverted slightly because the main road is full of sink holes. there are a few families that still live on the edge of town. they are not squatters, they chose to stay when the government was offering to buy up all the houses in town.
the cool part is that the snow never sticks to the roads around Centralia. The ground is too warm. - eastwood24, on 12/19/2008, -0/+13There are plenty of old Soviet Gulag cities that could have been included on this list.
http://weburbanist.com/2008/01/27/7-abandoned-wond ... - IphtashuFitz, on 12/19/2008, -0/+13Wow. Go check out Centralia, PA in Google Maps or Google Earth and there's literally almost nothing left. Roads almost vanish into nothing, and you can almost count the number of houses on one hand. (If you head north you do see more homes, but south, east, west is almost all deserted.) Hard to believer there used to be 3000 people living there...
- daimposter, on 12/19/2008, -0/+12Detroit is one of many midwestern cities that saw HUGE declines in population from the 1950's to the present. Detroit went from 1.9M to 900K (loss of 1M), St Louis from 850K to 350K (loss of 500K) and Cleaveland from 900K to 440K (loss of 460K). All are less than 50% of their height. It was a combination of suburbs, growth out west and mfg industry moving elsewhere.
Detroit though is the worst of the midwestern cities. It relied to heavily on just one industry and that was it's downfall. The metro area has had a pretty steady population for 40 years but the city is losing at least 50K and as much as 300K each decade. It's going to continue to decline for years to come. - mattmedwards, on 12/19/2008, -0/+12I live in Detroit and I can tell you there is no place like it on Earth. Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfhsS-KMFL4
What's insane about this video is that this just isn't a small section of the city. The vacant blocks stretch for miles and miles. - dblespresso, on 12/19/2008, -0/+12Centralia photos:
http://www.offroaders.com/album/centralia/photos1. ... - petebot, on 12/19/2008, -0/+12Wow. Hashima island could be an interesting, offbeat tourist destination...
- Reveillark, on 12/19/2008, -1/+13"our leaders prostituted us to the west..."
- feliks2, on 12/19/2008, -0/+12The White Flight (I think that was the name) also played a huge role in Detroit. In fact, I think a bigger role than anything to do with the auto industry.
- inactive, on 12/19/2008, -0/+11Man, why do I love abandoned cities so much? Abandoned amusement parks are great too. I keep having dreams that take place at a post-apocalyptic Disneyland.
- visca, on 12/19/2008, -0/+11The piece about Hashima Island is amazing. Digging a little deeper on the island it has some incredible stats...
Highlights I've collected so far include:
- the island is only 400 by 140 meters, yet had more than 5,000 people living there during its peak, this translated into roughly a square meter and a half PER PERSON!
- had the highest population density ever recorded on earth, even to this day.
- it was complete with schools, shops, cinemas, restaurants, hotel, graveyard.
- the world's first living-house made of concrete.
- was OWNED by Mitsubishi
- was completely vacated in 1974, and prohibited by the government to be visited since.
Check out the map, then take into account the "Scale" and number of buildings it was home to: http://hashima.webs.com/mapofhashima.htm
Anyone else find anything out about this Hashima Island? I had no idea it had existed until now, amazing. - chuckDontSurf, on 12/19/2008, -3/+14Alternate title: 'A Sneak Peek At the Coming Zombie Apocalypse"
- ramiro1975, on 12/19/2008, -0/+10Detroit is ***** beyond repair. Anyone living there is doing time.
- V3NOM, on 12/19/2008, -0/+10"Destroyed our culture... our economies... our honor."
- BossKey, on 12/19/2008, -0/+9http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/
- ymerej, on 12/19/2008, -0/+9+1 for truth. I've been through Centralia a few times (nice motorcycle roads leading up to and around the area), and if you didn't know the backstory, you wouldn't think much of it.
The most interesting part of the city, other than it's history and legacy, is the old town dump, one of the few places where you can see small amounts of steam and smoke coming from the ground, and if you're lucky, pick up a piece of authentic Centralia anthracite. - graccus, on 12/19/2008, -8/+17"In 1979, Detroit’s Big Three carmakers (Chevrolet, Ford and General Motors)"
uhhh...what? - UNL1M1T3D, on 12/19/2008, -0/+8You are correct. I suggest all those who are interested to read up on the Detroit 1967 riots. Very interesting.
- schrutefan, on 12/19/2008, -0/+8Sounds like cheap places to film zombie movies. Or to hold epic paintball tourneys.
- Emmo213, on 12/19/2008, -0/+8Yeah, it should have been Ford, GM, and Chrysler.
- jd72277, on 12/19/2008, -0/+8oh is Belgium part of Germany now?
- jd72277, on 12/19/2008, -4/+11how would you know that unless you already came back? think about it
- IphtashuFitz, on 12/19/2008, -2/+9You can see a lot more photos of Prypiat and other areas around Chernobyl here: http://www.kiddofspeed.com
It's pretty intense seeing a lot of those images of how time literally stopped dead after the power plant blew up. - CylonsOfTheLamb, on 12/19/2008, -0/+7Yeah, that kinda threw me off too. wut?
- Craftybadger, on 12/19/2008, -0/+7They forgot Verosha, Cyprus. Been there myself many times as I have family who live 10 minutes away. Very very creepy thing to see. There is actually a campaign to make Verosha a liveable place again, due to a lot of cypriots still owning property in the area, but not being able to get to it!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varosha_(Famagusta)
Finding pictures is extremely difficult as it is guarded 24/7 by Turkish and UN troops.
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=varosha&s=int
If you ever get the chance, try and see the place. It's a brilliant experiance. However it is on the Turkish side, meaning if you were to go from the Greek side, you would need your passport, a hire car and pay around £30 ($45 ish) for insurance. - coasteraddict, on 12/19/2008, -0/+6Being from Michigan and near Detroit having seen most of the city, it is declining bad and outlooks are not any better. It is funny they included Devil's Night in the article, I remember watching the news casts when I was a kid about all the fires.
- abadjay, on 12/19/2008, -0/+6Centralia is bad ass. I use to live around there. you can go and check it out. very surreal and there is graffiti of internet memes everywhere.
- bshensky, on 12/19/2008, -0/+6Try growing up here. Makes EVERY OTHER ***** CITY in the world look like PARADISE.
Once I went through some of the more slummy areas of Mexico, but it didn't faze me. I've learned that poverty doesn't always equal crime, and that there's plenty of crime to be had in affluence.
***** you, hombre, estoy de Detroit. - CylonsOfTheLamb, on 12/19/2008, -0/+6yeah the abandoned amusement parks are really cool to see. I wish there was one near me, I'd have a lot of fun in there.
- Scrappy1850, on 12/19/2008, -0/+6makes me want to buy a hockey mask and go on a road trip
- renski13, on 12/19/2008, -0/+6Kinda makes me wanna go there and explore.
- doshindude, on 12/19/2008, -0/+6Dugg for centraila. Always love reading about it.
- chuckDontSurf, on 12/19/2008, -0/+6Well, I never said it was an original premise... :-)
- mattmedwards, on 12/19/2008, -0/+5Hey - Did you ever do Angel's Night? I remember we stayed up all night at the school to make sure no one burned it down.
- IphtashuFitz, on 12/19/2008, -0/+5No kidding. I never would have believed there were places like that in a major US city...
- Volatile36, on 12/19/2008, -0/+5There are also the semi-abandoned science towns set up by the Soviet government to promote research out in the middle of nowhere. After the breakup of the USSR, these towns were basically left to fend for themselves.
- DBreeze, on 12/19/2008, -3/+8dubai will be on that list in 20 years
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