There’s a lot of things Detroit is famous for. Cars. Motown. Eminem. Robocop. Techno. Ruins.

Whether we like it or not, a small number of visitors to a city that has suffered a series of unfortunate events come to witness, photograph, and write about the most physical manifestations of those events: our ancient buildings.

These buildings, which both dot our skyline and our neighborhoods, obviously don’t tell the whole story of what’s happening now in Detroit. But they are so amazing that people just can’t look away, much like when given the opportunity to secretly see people with physical deformities. So for years, city leaders have hoped to remove these “eyesores” from the landscape.

Whether this is really for the better of Detroit is still up for debate. A number of high profile ruins have been saved after years, decades, in a state of “ruin” or the perception of abandonment. See: the Stott, the Book-Cadillac, the Argonaut, the Fort Shelby Hotel (Doubletree), the Kales Building, the Detroit Building, the Whittier Apartments, and others including a great number of smaller ones. And the David Broderick Tower in progress and whatever happens after Dan Gilbert finishes purchase of the First National Building. Yes, there is still the United Artists (an Illitch property) and the infamous Michigan Central Station (Manuel Moroun). So there will still be ruin porn for photographers for the near future.

All of those words I wrote are an introduction to an article that appeared in Guernica, a magazine of art and politics. The article is “Detroitism“. It’s a long read, yes, but it talks about the ruin porn aspect of Detroit. The people who come looking for it, publish luxuriously priced books on it, the people who sell or refuse to sell it. And what it all means to the rest of the country, and in the minds of interested artists throughout the world. Detroit ruin photography is so interesting to non-Americans because to them Detroit and the state its currently in represents America to them. And they’re baffled at how the world’s richest nation allows it to continue. Similarly, Detroit represents southeast Michigan and the entire state of Michigan to the rest of the country. Nobody outside of Michigan knows what a “southeast Michigan” is. But the shame of Detroit’s ruins keeps them, in their own weakness and lack of self-confidence, from admitting that they’re from Metro Detroit.

There’s the saying that any publicity is good publicity. I’m not sure I believe that. Detroit gets mostly bad publicity. The worst comes from self-hating Detroiters themselves as you’d see most places online. There’s the saying “shitting in your own back yard”. But national media is guilty of this. Partly because they find it easier to republish what others have already said. Even Guernica is guilty of this. The recommended article that came up is about Detroit as a food desert. While there’s some truth in lack of Walmarts, the city does have chain supermarkets and large full-service independent supermarkets.

And Whole Foods is opening soon, so can we stop with the ruin-porn-food-desert-ification of Detroit?