Monday Links from the Subsidised Canteen Vol. LIX

[amcdonald]

I'm a bit confused by the Detroit one... ignorant as I am of US culture I don't 'get' it... according to Wikipedia Detroit is a major city. Opening myself for abuse, but I don't care!

It 'used' to be the center of car manufacturing in America, now it's tulipsville

[RichardCranium]

I'm a bit confused by the Detroit one... ignorant as I am of US culture I don't 'get' it... according to Wikipedia Detroit is a major city.

It is hiding within that entry:

Consolidation during the 1950s, especially in the automobile sector, increased competition for jobs. The Twelfth Street riot in 1967, as well as court-ordered busing accelerated white flight from the city. Commensurate with the shift of population and jobs to its suburbs, the city's tax base eroded. In the years following, Detroit's population fell from a peak of roughly 1.8 million in 1950 to about half that number today.

The gasoline crises of 1973 and 1979 impacted the U.S. auto industry as small cars from foreign makers made inroads. Heroin and crack cocaine use afflicted the city with the influence of Butch Jones, Maserati Rick, and the Chambers Brothers. Renaissance has been a perennial buzzword among city leaders, reinforced by the construction of the Renaissance Center in the late 1970s. This complex of skyscrapers, designed as a city within a city, together with other developments, slowed and eventually began to reverse the trend of businesses leaving Downtown Detroit by the late 1990s.

By 1980, nearly three decades inadequate policies and crime had caused areas like the Elmhurst block to decay. During the 1980s, vacant structures were demolished to make way for redevelopment.

In the 1990s, the city began to receive a revival with much of it centered in the Downtown, Midtown, and New Center areas.

Some city limit signs, particularly on the Dearborn border say "Welcome to Detroit, The Renaissance City Founded 1701."

See also: The decline of Detroit

[TimberWolf]

It 'used' to be the center of car manufacturing in America, now it's tulipsville

Which bodes well for silicon valley. Or should I say Bobes valley.

[amcdonald]

Which bodes well for silicon valley. Or should I say Bobes valley.

They could always do boob jobs their instead, then when the IT goes to the far east they'd still have their silicon valley

[OwlHoot]

Although not mentioned, that article reminded me of Triangle, surely the most depressing, miserable bits of telly ever produced? What were they thinking? I used to be a regular viewer: trying to determine what on earth it was people saw in it. I never did find out; presumably all its other viewers were doing the same as me.

In the late 70s, or maybe early 80s, there was an espionage drama series that made Macbeth seem like a light hearted comedy.

Everyone, from the DG to the cleaner, suspected everyone else of being a mole, and all were bumped off one after the other, until I think the last two (one being the DG) shot each other, thus bringing the series to a neat end.

It's a wonder anyone applied to join MI5 (or was it MI6) for years afterwards.

[NickFitz]

Although not mentioned, that article reminded me of Triangle, surely the most depressing, miserable bits of telly ever produced? What were they thinking?

The same site has an article about Triangle - their server appears to be having problems at the moment, but you can also find it on the Wayback Machine or in Google's cache

EDIT: a quote from the article:

At the end of the first series on April Fool’s Day W G Mather from Nottinghamshire felt moved to write to the Radio Times to comment that “one might have expected to see the captain handling docking or overseeing the pilot … Other possible episodes could have involved the engines, the problems of passengers, the loading/unloading of cars and cargo, union troubles, of general day-to-day problems such as fog, maydays and close misses.” ... W G Mather was perhaps a little misguided in his hopes that a new family serial would dwell on the actual minutiae of running a ferry service.

[Spacecadet]

Captured: The Ruins of Detroit - "Up and down Detroit’s streets, buildings stand abandoned and in ruin. French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre set out to document the decline of an American city." Fascinating gallery of abandoned buildings, including a library still containing many books, and a police station whose floor is littered with discarded mugshots.

I like how the library looks like everything has been stolen, apart from the books

The entire place looks like it could be the setting for the next Fallout game