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Photos of Detroit in Decline (Photos)

This week, Detroit became the latest, and with nearly $20 billion in liabilities, the largest municipality to file for bankruptcy in U.S. history. Here's what this previously powerful icon of American industrialism looks like today.

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James Fassinger

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This week, Detroit became the latest, and with nearly $20 billion in liabilities, the largest municipality to file for bankruptcy in U.S. history. Although Chapter 9 seemed almost inevitable, it looks like the last stop in a half-century of steady decline for the city once known as "the Paris of the West." Here's what this previously powerful icon of American industrialism looks like today.

James Fassinger

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Sam Rosado has lived in the industrial area of Southwest Detroit for 16 years. He says he won’t eat the fish he catches and does it just for fun. Casting out his line, he adds, “I pulled some fish out of here and they don’t look right.”

James Fassinger

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Located on the corner of Griswold and Clifford Streets, the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue has served the Detroit Jewish community since 1921. It has been housed in this historic four-story building since the 1960s.

James Fassinger

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As Detroit artist Greg Fadell paints his installation "Paris of the West" on the windows of the Willys Overland Lofts in the city’s Midtown district, the Detroit skyline slowly disappears behind his canvas.

James Fassinger

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There have been efforts to rebuild the city's downtown. The corner of Larned and Griswold Streets are near several of these commerical districts. 

James Fassinger

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This "shoe house" is part of outdoor community-art movement called the Heidelberg Project. The GM Renaissance Center in the background.

James Fassinger

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The Packard Automotive Plant is a 3,500,000-square-foot former automobile manufacturing factory where luxury Packard cars were once made, before the complex closed in 1958. Designed by Albert Kahn, it sprawls across more than 40 acres on the city's depressed East Side. 

James Fassinger

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Hot Wheel City, at Schoenherr and 8 Mile Road in Detroit, boasts itself as the "worlds largest custom rim shop."

James Fassinger

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The Care wall, painted on an abandoned downtown building, served as backdrop for Kid Rock's "Care" video.

James Fassinger

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An incubator for new entrepreneurial startups in the city, Open City Partners and D:Hive hold one of their free monthly networking forums at Cliff Bell's club. 

James Fassinger

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A mural featuring the Guy Fawkes mask is painted on a building in the city's Southwest district of Delray.

James Fassinger

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Homes sit directly around the Marathon refinery, which put $2.2 billion in renovations to accommodate the increased flow of tar-sands crude from the Keystone XL pipeline. The expansion brought the facility directly next to homes in the neighborhood, but Marathon refuses to offer them a buyout to relocate.

James Fassinger

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