Once home to nearly two million people, Detroit has become an icon of America’s post-industrial decline, claiming fewer than 750,000 residents. Nearly 80,000 homes sit empty. Tens of thousands of office buildings, factories and store fronts are abandoned. PBS reports that:

Even though the city’s boundaries are so vast that Boston, Manhattan and San Francisco could all fit inside, one-third of its space – 40 square miles – lies vacant, costing the city about nine million dollars per square mile in emergency services. On many blocks there are now only one or two families, where once there were dozens.

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