Re: Re: The Stone's Love Song to the Moss

I guess, for me, part of my recent fascination with ruins has to do with my everyday environment. Philadelphia is a fairly densely populated city (especially for a city in the Rust Belt), but there are still a ton of empty houses and buildings here. My neighborhood in central South Philadelphia is home to many vibrant and thriving communities, but also, I'd say that 25% of the townhouses are vacant. 25% doesn't sound like a lot until you think about what it looks like for every fourth house to be abandoned.

So this is the abandoned funeral home at the corner of my block, which anyone can just go into if they want...

( Read more... )

...and this is the overgrown backyard of the abandoned townhouse adjoining mine, as seen from my own tiny concrete-covered backyard...

( Read more... )

...which someone should really do something about at some point. But not me, because I like it.

So maybe it's problematic to say that there are a lot of overgrown ruins in Philadelphia, but also, there are a lot of overgrown ruins in Philadelphia. And I'm not saying that I wouldn't prefer home ownership laws to be changed to allow people to buy, sell, and inherit property without incurring debt from legal fees. Of course I think everyone who wants to live in a house or open a business should be able to, especially when there are so many vacant buildings in such densely populated areas. But, given that my ability to affect this situation is limited to voting in local elections, I have to live with it as it currently stands.

And I think it's worth saying that actually, it's kind of nice to share urban space with luxuriant plant growth.