A demolition contract is close to being signed, according to officials with the Ingham County Land Bank, which bought the property for $400,000 in September.
But before it goes, the dilapidated motel - once a haven for prostitutes and drug addicts - will experience a brief rebirth as an urban art hot spot and then as a different kind of hot spot for fire department training.
About 30 graffiti artists from the area and as far away as Chicago and New York have been invited to use a symbol of urban rot as a canvas to showcase urban rebirth.
The artists will be doing their thing at their own expense July 30-31 and on Aug. 1 at the former motel on South Washington Avenue…
A formal public viewing will be set up after Aug. 1, and other local artists will be allowed to set up their own works on the property around the building.
Some time after that, Lansing Fire Department and possibly firefighters from the region get to take over.
Rescue workers will likely practice breaking through doors and walls to get to a fire.

— ‘Creative destruction’ in store for Lansing’s Deluxe Inn site

All the wealth that black and white workers had created was looted from the city by the capitalists and moved out to the suburbs or down to the southern United States. Along with that went the tax base of the city, and forty years later the city is falling apart due to an emaciated infrastructure. This story is shared by other cities where brown and black folks rose up to take their city back. Gary, Indiana and Newark, New Jersey are only two more examples. I’ve heard Detroit described by visitors as resembling a war zone — well that’s what it is; it’s the American Third World.
Growing up in Detroit you learn to appreciate the hidden beauty of a city gutted by white supremacy and capitalism. The resilience of the people there, despite all we’ve endured, is one testament to black civilization and oppressed peoples everywhere. I have friends from the east coast who say that Detroit and much of the Midwest has its own unique form of scathing charm that is normally attributed to the tough personality types of New York. To survive in a war zone you gotta be tough. The working classes of New York live in a city which some of the most brutal capitalists in the world call their home, and everyday they go head-to-head with these capitalists. In Detroit it’s a little different. We were left for dead, and despite that, and all the odds stacked against us, we remind the bosses, the crackers and the cops that we’re still here.

— The Landscape of Detroit [via&via]

One of the problems about living in the rust belt is that it seems like everyone leaves whether they want to or not, opting for either coast, Chicago, Columbus, wherever. Some see themselves as rats abandoning a sinking ship, others love this place but can’t find work.

—

Cleveland Love

For real.