North America's Ugliest City

Abandoned homes in Detroit

 Before my wife had been to the northern regions of this continent, and we were living in Mexico City, we were once talking with a group of Mexicans, and one American.  In a common display of self-pity combined with the pride of bragging rights, they were going on and on of the poverty, danger and ugliness of the slums of Mexico City.  We Anglo North Americans simply had no idea, coming from places where everyone has money and everything is well-maintained, the poor are fed, etc., etc.

I objected.  "I know a city that is far worse than any part of Mexico I've been to."  When I named the city, the American (who had grown up near to it) agreed fully.

A chorus of "Oh, that's not possible" and "You probably don't even know the bad parts of Mexico City" followed.  With the witness of my wife (who had shown me the dirtier side of the city) I then proved that I had been to dingy neighborhoods that even these Mexicans had not been to nor would dare enter.

Even my wife had her doubts that the city in question could really be uglier and less safe than the slums of Mexico City.

On Saturday, she travelled to Detroit and upon her return wholeheartedly and emphatically agreed with my judgement.

"I've never been anywhere that felt so eerie," she told me. "Besides being ugly, run down, dirty and vandalized," she pointed out, "it is abandoned and quiet, in scary way."

These are precisely the points I had described to the Mexicans five years ago.  My wife remembered my description, and her doubts that such a place could really exist, especially in the city that had once been the second most prosperous in the United States - a fact which I had made her well aware of.

Michigan Central Station, which looms over the Mexican community

Even the poorest and most dangerous slums of Mexico City, there is life.  Some are sprawling residential neighborhoods where there is not a tree to be seen on grey hillsides covered with half-built, unpainted and unfinished concrete-block houses.  Despite the poverty, the streets are full of people and neighbors are talking to each other, children are playing, and there is, despite everything community and happiness.  "It's a Wonderful World" may even come to mind. Others are  thriving and bustling markets, where you can keep safe so long as you know which corners not to turn, and know to give up your valuables readily, should anyone request them of you.

Detroit, on the other hand, is devoid of life.  The city speaks of a great place now abandoned.  Beautiful classic homes, which would be worth over a million in Toronto, only 4 hours away, are crumbling.  Many have been bulldozed to create empty lots.  Classic high-rises are skeletons with broken windows completely ravaged of all vaguely valuable and possibly removable items. Yet, the eerie part is that you don't feel it is "empty" but more that there is something there, hidden - something that you don't want to find.  The petty theft you may encounter in parts of Mexico City can be a frustrating and keep you on your guard, but the worry of it is nothing compared to the intense anxiety you feel in the abandoned streets of Detroit to "get the hell out of there."

Locals reinforce the feeling by staying off the streets.  The stores and restaurants of the Mexican Village, for example, are full and busy.  They are comfortable and safe places.  Yet, none of these people will walk around to enjoy the sunny day outside seeing the city. (I will write more about the Mexican Village during the week.)

Even though my wife saw the newer, nicer, friendlier Mexican Village that now enjoys a solid cash flow to keep up nice stores and even homes (as opposed to run-down neighborhood of disorganized shops and decaying buildings that I got to know in the 1980s) she pointed out that you still feel that eerie abandonment.

The restaurant which has been a favorite of my family for decades

Yet, despite all this, this eerie and abandoned city is very intriguing. "Some day," asked my wife, "could we go back just to walk around and take pictures?" (Photographers forget about discomfort when taking pictures.)

And I have to admit, I've always wanted to just go walk around or at least just drive around, and look at the collapsing homes and abandoned high-rises from a century ago.  The wonder of how people could abandon and destroy something that was once so beautiful baffles me and intrigues me.  Seeing these homes makes me wonder what they would/could look like now under other circumstances.  (Although, exactly who is inside those homes now or what they are doing, I choose not to think about.)

I've heard there are some historic churches that have been beautifully kept up.  Perhaps visiting those would be a safer approach, and would likewise satisfy my wife's photographic needs.

Is Caring for the Poor Optional?

From St. Gregory Nazianzus:

I am terrified by the left hand of the divine Judge, the goats, and his rebukes from his seat on the throne: they are judged and put at his left not because they stole, committed sacrilegious robberies or adulterous acts, or perpetrated some other forbidden act, but because they did not take care of Christ in those in need.

Thank you to Fr. Z for this!

On Liturgical Beauty and the Mass of the Poor

These days, many people are talking about a more austere style of Mass as opposed to the style richer in the highly developed traditions of the Roman Church.  While I have my opinion on this distinction, I am highly unqualified to speak about the topic.  There is a related distinction which I am equally unqualified to discuss, but in which I have personal experience to share.  This distinction is "Mass for the poor" as the not-poor express it vs. how the poor express it.

First of all, I do believe that if the poor really had their way, Roman Catholic Masses would be very beautiful. However, that is a different subject.  What I can say about my experience in Mexico is that, in that country, when middle-class attempt to have a "Mass for the common people" it looks and feels very different from a "Mass for the common people" which is actually attended by the poorest people.

A Middle-Class Mass

While in Mexico, it is impossible to say one parish is solely middle and upper class, since people of most classes will be mixed in most parishes, there are definite tendencies and there are definitely parishes which the poor, by their own account, say are parishes for the "rich" (which to them, includes the middle class) and are not for them.  Therefore, they avoid going to those parishes. (The poor in Mexico are usually quite accepting of the placement of their class and feel little desire to break class boundaries.  In my experience it is more the middle class which has taken up this battle.)

Ironically, it seems to me, that it is mostly these very parishes - the ones which the poor see as "beyond their class" - that make the greatest effort to have Masses for the people, include "indigenous" elements and decorate their churches in a way that is more distinctly "Mexican" (meaning not traditional) and "personal, warm and friendly" often featuring expressive art in current contemporary styles, as well as a distinctive stylized theme of lettering and symbols.  Sacred images tend to be rare.  The music tends to have a contemporary folky style.  While I can not claim to be doing anything but speculating, it seems to be these parishes that are striving for a more "indigenous Mexican expression of the Faith."

What's most striking to me is that you can see that a good deal of money, time and effort are invested into making this happen.

The Poor Mass
Just so you know, I'm not going to be heaping  praise on the virtues of the poor here; their music tends to be very bad, and on the whole, their parish churches visually reflect the poverty of people.  However, what I will be praising is their authenticity.  Let me describe one parish I attended daily for almost a month.

It's name, perhaps somewhat significantly, is San Francisco de Asis.  It is a typical structure of the poorer neighbourhoods of Mexico City, built of concrete blocks, which are finished inside and out with fairly unappealing colours of paint and imitation stones.  The roof is fiberglass.  Inside the church, simple shelves screwed onto the walls hold statues of saints, which would have been unusually nice, had the paint not been flaking off of them. (I remember St. Francis and St. Charbel, whose shelf was piled high with the ribbons which people use to make requests of him.)  The altar, cloths, tabernacle and other items of high importance all looked like mismatched combinations of rejected items from other parishes.

I remember waking up at my in-laws apartment (around the corner,) getting my 2 young sons dressed, and hurrying out the door as the 8 am bells rang from the church.  There are enough parishes in the surrounding communities, all of which ring their bells every time they have Mass, that it would have been a beautiful moment of sound, had the traffic on the main road, which was backed up and almost at stand-still since about an hour earlier, with it's noisy engines, loud buses and blaring horns, not drowned out any church bell that wasn't within two blocks.

The people arrived on foot.  Since it was a weekday morning, most were elderly ladies clearly belonging to the impoverished neighbourhood surrounding the church.  It was about a third full.  The priest offered a very simple but "clean" mass.  There was no choir.  No organ, no piano, no guitar.  All singing - including the prayers such as the gloria and hymns - was lead by the elderly ladies, especially by a group about five pews back from the front.

I remember their singing.  It was neither traditional nor was it "folky" or "indigenous." In artistic aesthetic terms, it would be hard to call it "beautiful" or "creative" or "expressive."  Their old voices crackled in off key notes.  Were they the same songs that are sung in the nicer parishes?  Perhaps.  They sounded so different I couldn't tell. Yet their voices had something in them that I don't remember hearing in the more carefully crafted "popular" Masses - a sort of passion and adoration.

One day of the week, after Mass, the priest would present a relic of St. Francis.  Almost all present lined up in front of his shrine to kiss the relic.

Something about Mass at this parish touched me.  While there is no doubt that the Mass was greatly lacking in beauty and talent, the people were not striving to "express themselves" or their culture.  They were, quite on the contrary, striving for something more beautiful than what they could attain.

That in itself was very beautiful.

Beauty like this cannot be planned through a liturgy team, finances, art, creativity, self-expression or any sort of intellectual idea of "appeal to the masses."  It is also something that could not be imitated.

I would love it if every day of my life, I were near a Mass in a traditionally decorated church with gold and beautiful paintings, with bells, incense, and awe-inspiring chant rising to its high ceilings.  However, that option lacking, a Mass like the one I just described is probably where I have found the greatest beauty.


I could (and I intend to) write more about this parish, but for today's point, this will be enough.

Prosperity and Abundance

In a previous post, I wrote that I don’t believe that poverty in its truest sense exists in most places I’ve been to; even the poorest place I’ve been, where $500 dollars is a massive fortune, the people have never gone a day of their life without more than enough food, the clothing they need and a house to live in.  They have very little, but they are lacking nothing.

This doesn’t mean that true poverty doesn’t exist; it simply means that it in our comfortable world of prosperity and abundance, we have a skewed definition of poverty. Many of us have more than enough food every day of our lives, and money to spend on all sorts of extra items that are in now way necessary to live on, yet we consider ourselves poor or low income.

The village where we live in Canada has a large number of Mennonites arriving from Mexico; many live on incomes much lower than Canadians consider “necessary” with families much larger than Canadians consider sane.  Some church charities have noticed the situation and taken steps to help out.  For example, one day of the week, there is a sewing circle in a church basement here; one of the charities goes to a local grocery store and picks up all the fruit and vegetables that the store can no longer sell.  About 90% of these are still good, and only very few have gone bad.  The people who take these pick out some of the fruit, but leave pretty much all the vegetables and even some of the less popular fruit.  If there were anyone truly living in poverty, I’d suspect after everyone had picked out their favourites, they would pick it up the whole box and take it home to feed their needy family.  But no one does.

I am not complaining about or criticizing abundance, I’m only saying that we are so surrounded by abundance, that we don’t even realize it.  We begin to think that abundance is poverty.

Personally, I’m thankful for some of the benefits that overabundance brings.  Besides regular thrift shops which sell excellent used stuff for cheap prices, there’s a shop nearby called the “Twooney Barn.” It’s basically a thrift shop where you pay whatever you want for things.  You can also exchange furniture, clothing and a bunch of other items.  When you’re done with things, you simply take them back if they’re still good.  My wife went there for the first time today and completed the few things we still need for our new apartment here in Canada.  It helps keep the budget in check.  Places like that wouldn’t be possible without a culture of overabundance.  I’m thankful for and to the people who have too many things and are willing to give away some of those things, despite the fact that they are in perfectly good condition, so people like us can buy them at whatever price we see fit.

So, yes, I’m thankful that we live in a place of abundance and prosperity.  It only surprises me when people don’t realize how abundant and prosperous life really is.  Realizing this would help us do more for those who truly are poor.

A Beautiful Ghetto

The narrow street where I lived, typical of La Barona

Last week I stayed in Cuernavaca, with my wife's cousins in a community called La Barona.  La Barona is typically considered the worst neighborhood in Cuernavaca - a city about an hour south of Mexico City.  Back in the 70's there was a time that there was a murder every day, taxi's refused to take people there, and the buses stopped at the first traffic circle - pretty much the only way in and only way back out to the rest of the city.

Since then, this neighbourhood has a complete turn-around, and it's now a pleasant & vibrant family community where you can live comfortably with all the basics within walking distance. I've written about this community before - see A Community Turn-Around Story in Cuernavaca.

An important point is that the bad reputation has long outlived the reality.  Sure, basic common sense and care must still be used.  Yes, the community is generally a poor one; but it's not the ghetto it used to be - it's safe, and, in it's own way, picturesque and beautiful.

The community is a labyrinth of tree-lined streets, alleys lined with colorful flowers and roundabouts with playgrounds in the middle, but where you really can't tell which is the "main street" going in and out. It's also very hilly, with nice views of the nearby hills that separate Cuernavaca from Mexico City, and hide the magical village of Tepoztlan.  There are lots of local small shops that sell everything from fruit and freshly baked bread to appliances, computers and cell phones.  Because of the flowers, the trees, the views and, perhaps most of all, the relaxed lifestyle of the people, the many half-built homes, shops covered with graffiti, the unplanned tangled overhead wiring become a lot less unpleasant.

I've been accused before of liking ugly and off-colour places just to be different; but I can guarantee you that this is not the case with La Barona.  My wife and I lived there for 3 months, and every time we go back, we feel more convinced that one day, in the distant future, it could be a good home for our family.  We feel comfortable and at home there.

One of the nicer houses - this was probably built up, little by little

The bad reputation, though, has some advantages:

• It gives the community a very distinct atmosphere of its own; places that are "quaint" because they were planned to be that way often all end up being the same and somewhat boring.  This place is very down to earth, real and practical.
• It keeps the prices low. Rent is low; $100 USD/month gets you a large house that will need a bit of paint but is fine to live in.  Food is cheap (not quite as cheap as the main downtown market, but much better than other places I've seen - in Cuernavaca or anywhere else.  I've written about a similar theme in The Low Cost of Living in Cuernavaca.)

A typical main street, lined with trees

As I said, it's picturesque in its own unique way.  I'll admit quite readily it's not the place for everyone's taste, but that's true of anywhere.  Here are a few pictures with some comments.

A typical sidewalk - not always practical

Small sports complexes and regular transportation do a lot for the community (not to mention the "boutiques!")

A view of the hills in the distance

Another nicer home

An ally way heading downhill, with hills in the distance

A very narrow ally - there are many of these, and many homes have their only access off of a street like this

Poverty Is NOT a Problem ...

This says: "I have time and money to waste ..."

... in  a place where people so much money, food, possessions, etc. that they take a complete papaya, nice, ripe and perfect for eating, and smash it against a wall, letting it rot on the sidewalk, just because they feel like it.  Or in a place where kids have enough money and time at their disposal to buy spray paint and graffiti walls all night.  Or where people can buy their kids a coca cola and large bag of chips every day for their snack.  Or where people can buy take out food and throw half of it away.  Or ... I could make this list much longer, but I won't.

I live in a community which by many people would be considered "poor" or at least (even in Mexico) significantly below average.  I've estimated that the average household income in our neighborhood would probably be a bit over $7000 CDN, annually.  (Based on the cut off for mortgage requirements for buying a home.)  From my experience, the cost of living is about 1/2 of that in Canada, so by Canadian standards we could say it's equivalent to about an annual income of around $14,500.  By all the standards, it's well below the Canadian poverty line , which is about $30,000, I believe.  (The Canadian "poverty line" is a joke anyway, since it has no relation to poverty; it's measured as the bottom quarter of household income, not by basic needs or standards of living, but that's a different story.)

Too much money? Too much to eat? (A papaya)

The average household income in Mexico is about $10,000 USD per year, according the CIA Word Factbook.  So it's even noticeably below this country's average.

So, my community is officially poor. Yet, at the same time, I walked out of my house this morning to take my son to school and saw a papaya splattered all over the neighbour's house and sidewalk, left there to rot.
I go for walks every day, and every day I see new graffiti on the walls.  I see garbage bags ripped open by dogs with half-eaten take-out meals strewn all over the sidewalk.  I've been to countless parties where people pick a few things off their plate and throw the rest away.

On one level it's annoying that the first three habits make my community dirty, but that's a different issue.  The issue here is that people are absolutely wasteful.

I think our definition of poverty has been very, very skewed.  If we define poverty in terms of material needs - food, clothing and shelter in their most basic and necessary sense - then I've never seen poverty.  I know it exists somewhere, but I've never seen it.  I'd guess that people who REALLY were poor would absolutely never consider destroying any kind of food, just for fun, even to prove a point.  I'd guess that knowing what hunger really is like, from experience (which I don't, and, as far as I know, no one I know does) would simply eliminate that possibility that you could throw away food.  I'd guess that you'd never consider wasting what little money you had on a can of spray paint to graffiti your neighbour's wall.

Yet, all of these these problems are usually associated with poverty.  It's strange, isn't it?  I'd say the problem is abundance and idleness, not poverty.

The person I know who is closest to poverty does not consider himself poor.  While his living conditions are substandard (by our standards), he does not feel he is lacking anything in life, and would never ask anyone for anything.  He works hard, every day of his life.

Yet the "poor" people in my neighborhood can throw away food, give their kids money to buy spray paint, etc., etc.  Then they complain about the government and big companies.



While it's less visually obvious, I'd say the problem is just as big in Canada.  And we like to talk about the 99% and all of that.  People like to talk about poverty, yet I see so much complete wastefulness, that I can't take it seriously.

My wife and I believe in helping the poor.  And we do.  We help the poorest people we know every time we have a chance.  But as long as people have enough money and idle time to waste food and vandalize their neighbourhood, I don't feel sorry for them.

Local History Expert – A Homeless Man in Halifax

Although in some sense they may be less reliable in accuracy sometimes, local, home-grown, self-made history experts are far more interesting than than the official ones.

I had a chance to experience such an expert in Halifax.  While my brother and I, along with our families, were walking down the street in Halifax past the historic church building known as the “Little Dutch Church” (pictured) and chatting about why this Anglican Church had been built for Lutheran German immigrants, a homeless man walking by overheard us, and took it upon himself to jump in the conversation and share what he knew.

Yes, the church was Anglican, he confirmed, even though the parish members were German immigrants.  The round church building just a block or two away (St. George’s) was also Anglican.  He knew about their history; he had slept in both churches in the past.  The one we were looking at – the “Little Dutch Church” – had been the scene of some archaeological controversy as well; some excavation under the building had unearthed some bones, which were recorded by archaeologists and then re-buried (see picture.)

These stories were told with the enthusiasm and eagerness of someone who simply wanted to share what he knew, and had no agenda, purpose, format or guideline in doing so.

We never learned the significance of the bones since at that point we reached the soup kitchen where the man was headed.