that's absolutley brilliant. it's almost impossible for me to believe it isn't just a photograph.

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Small Sketches? Random Rants? check out ChibiiDoodle!

2008: YEAR OF THE DOODLE

I'm not done with it yet, bro.

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I'm running away with my imagination...
and you can't come!

insert chiche "whoa" sound effect here.

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Small Sketches? Random Rants? check out ChibiiDoodle!

2008: YEAR OF THE DOODLE

Yes, this one will be incredible. Just you wait.

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I'm running away with my imagination...
and you can't come!

Come on folks, I know your out there.

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I'm running away with my imagination...
and you can't come!

Scene looks great.

Interesting idea.

Some slums start out that way and others turn into slums over time.
In NYC, you can tell the projects from the regular housing because they are usually way taller than the surrounding buildings.
So in one nieghborhood the normal buildings are 10 stories high but the projects are 30 or more stories high. Some Projects start out being affordable housing for low to middle incomes but over time, the city changes the criteria for who lives there. Also the grounds of projects are not well maintained, any grass that grows is on its own.

The buildings in this picture for the most part, do not look like the part but thats based on direct experiance in NYC and may not be true elsewhere. Some places have a commercial/municipal area with stores/malls/government buildings but if you walk a few blocks away, you will be in a slum like neighborhood.

Kudos on the buildings.

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I keep trying to sleep my way to the top but my alarm clock keeps waking me up!

Thank you, I am not finished with this one yet, I will keep adding more and more buildings over time. Making things a little more murky and darker.... Here in the good old city of St Louis, a lot of the slums are abandoned buildins with the windows boarded up, and there is always a since of saddness there.

Thanks for your comment, I will be adding more, and more rhings later.

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I'm running away with my imagination...
and you can't come!

The Greenwich village and the lower east side in Manhattan used to be like that. Lots of warehouses and "Railroad" tenements. Cheap slummy housing but somehow the developers moved in and suddenly all the abandoned buildings are being bought up and renovated. Probably not that suddden. Then the upscale stores move in and suddenly the rents start to rise. Just lost a landmark deli on the east side because the landlord just kicked up the rent. Lost an old bread store, had been on Carmine street for about 100 years because it was hit by the low carb craze and the spiking rents. Used to walk by it when I was working in the neighborhood. Unlike other businesses in which if you overprice an item, you can't sell it and have to reduce prices, NYC landlords can write off non selling apartments on their taxes.

Did read an interesting article about art galleries being pioneers, they go into slum or low income areas and if they do well other places move in and the developers start checking out the area. When the area is being upscaled, the artists are usually kicked out because of rising rent prices.

Its good that those empty areas are being reclaimed but the people that are still living there end up having to move because of rent increases or the cost of living going up. Its hard to almost impossible to find decently priced housing in Manhattan. Have to go to the outer boroughs for that and join the millions who commute in to work.

This is what I know of the situation in NYC, St Louis might be different.

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I keep trying to sleep my way to the top but my alarm clock keeps waking me up!

In St Louis, the downtown portion, you will find some housing, not much, but there are a lot of over priced lofts. The majority of the area is commercial. Now when you start moving away from downtown, about a couple of miles away, there are rows, upon rows, upon rows of brick houses.. Some of these houses are cheap rent, but in terrible condition, others, are expensive, and are in better, but not much better conditions. The thing that you will find here, is abandoned buildings, all boarded up. Condemed... That's the trick there. Once it's been condemed so long, the local state government can claim emminant domain, and sell it as they wish...usually to a company. Like a few months ago, there was this beautiful (abandoned) building that was built in the 20's there was some great brick work done, that building use to be a general store, back when St. Louis had a trolley line.. Well, to make a long story short, that building was sold, and the brick that the building was made up of, was rehabed (basically they take the brick out of the building and use it in another one that is being built.)

Now the problem that St Louis is dealing with is urban sprawl. Everyone is going to the suburbs, to get a piece of land (Usually in a housing developement, much like the ones they just left...)

For instance, my hometown where I lived, was a very small town. It's was almost like one of those "Keeping up with the Jones" town. It sports a courthouse, corner drugstore, county fairgrounds, a mom and pops diner... I use to be able to ride my bike there when I was younger, for miles and miles... Open roads, slow calm... This town was so small it in fact had one stop light.... That's how small it was.

Now then, about 4 years ago, everything would've still been well preserved, until the city officials informed the public that a new route 21 bipass was being built/ When that happened, Strigent laws were passed on the amount of refuse a land could have on it, which meant that farms used for generations that had no trash service, were ordered to clean up or be condemned.. Well as farms they couldn't afford to have someone clean up the land (Aka old tools sheds, and derlict cars) the farms were condemed, after a year and 6 months of being vacant, government claimed emienet domain, and the thus they had space to build the bipass.... Now these farms were massive, hundreds of acreas of land... so what did they do to the rest of the land that wasn't used... they sold it to developers.

Now my town, that had a brand new highschool built in 2000 that was suppose to support 5000 students, has exceeded it's limit... The town now has to many stoplights to count, and now they are going to build strip malls there.

Now, I am all for expansion.... but the problem is... that when gas becomes, a rich mans toy.... There are going to be a lot of vaccant houses and offices sitting around.

Anyway, that's the scoop here in ST Louis.

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I'm running away with my imagination...
and you can't come!