The gutting of a once great arsenial….

In a recent episode on the HBO show VICE, they covered what almost every Detroiter already knows, the systematic ripping out of the guts of the city. Now it’s not the whole city, but it crosses the lines of homes, old school buildings, old factories, perhaps even your screen door. Metal is a new commodity that the scrappers go after, but VICE took it a little further, they discovered who was created the market for this used metal.

 

And the winner is, the Chinese. Yes, our Asian supplier of useless goods we don’t need is building their “empire” from the stolen guts of Detroit. Yes, that’s right, stolen, harvested, taken, or whatever you want to call it.  They figure it’s easier to comb the rust belt, purchase it at reduced prices and ship it back into a container to be processed for steel girders. Yea, they are purchasing it from facilities who are supplying them but the scrappers are the ones who get the stuff for nothing, combing the vast wasteland of closed buildings, and homes, even taking fences sometimes. If it’s not guarded, it will be taken.

So what are the Chinese doing with it? Building empty cities. Yes that’s right, building renditions of Paris, large apartment building with no one in them, fueling a false economy at the expense of ripping down a once great auto empire.

What goes around will come around. In decades to come, the empty Chinese buildings will be harvested as well, turning it into something else, perhaps lead painted toys to unsuspecting Americans….