I would be lying if I said I wouldn't enjoy going on that tour. I've done a bit of Urban Exploring in Montreal (like the boiler plant i visited not too long ago ) but i'd probably be a bit afraid to go visit abandoned buildings in anther city without a local. Of course it's preferable if a friend could show me around, but I would rather pay for a guided tour than not go at all. Decay can be beautiful, and it's not about pitying someone else's home. It's about lots of things for me. The graffiti that usually pops up in those places can be fascinating. I find it interesting to see how nature takes back what used to be very urban environments. It also makes me sad to remember how hose places used to be lived in, but it also gives you a snapshot into the past. Ruins can be charming, which is why I love Havana so much. When you visit, you see the remains of what used to be rich neighborhoods, beautiful architecture. Now it's all falling apart and it's only by looking at these old houses that you realize how much has changed in half a century. The buildings in Detroit will be abandoned anyways and it's sad. Might as well make use of it to help the city get back up.
Ruin porn is something most to Detroiter's take issue with. Having someone develop a tour bus around it is ridiculous in my opinion. I'm about to go meet b_b in Detroit right now. While it's not the safest, or cleanest city by any stretch, there are a lot of special things happening there. I agree with those critical of the ruin porn tourists that Detroit has many positive aspects that people should focus on as well. But, that's life right? People prefer to focus on the negative. It's definitely more lucrative to focus on the negative.
And yet the tourism is presumably encouraging local business operators, and business growth will (eventually) drive development and urban renewal. The urban gardens have received international media coverage and I could see small-scale visits to those becoming an inspiring counterpoint to the "ruin porn" bus tours. I also wonder why the Detroit authorities aren't making more of an attempt to cash in on the trend by charging tourists for access to areas they are otherwise prohibited from entering.
I think moreso than just a microscope placed on the negative aspects of the city, these types of images bother people because they're shameless objectification. There is a rule in the Geneva Convention against photographing POWs, because they see it is inhumane. Like it or not, this city isn't abandoned, so when we photograph it--no matter how hard we try to keep people out of frame (which is done intentionally by all these hack photographers)--we're photographing someone's home, pitying it, ridiculing it, standing in awe that anyone could have such a shitty life. But guess what? That is the reality of the situation. It's a goddam POW camp being stripped of it's humanity by the lens. Just today I saw some suburban looking cunt standing in the middle of my street taking a picture of a building, the neighborhood; whatever it was I'm not sure. My cynical side wanted to veer off into the lane in which she was standing. Fortunately, my optimistic side is quite a bit stronger.
Yeah, there is something to be said for optimism. Could be that she was photographing your street because she sees the beauty in it. As I recall you have some fantastic old architecture there. Maybe she has an affection for such things?