This is Flint, Mich.

Design Observer has an interesting and distressing look at Flint:

Flint is efficient. Scavengers and scrappers watch for opportunity. Aluminum siding is stripped and resold into the formal recycling economy. Aluminum windows, hot water heaters, and furnaces are taken, sometimes in daylight, no problem. Copper pipes too, and new electrical wiring. Well before the agents of the formal economy negotiate foreclosure proceedings, what remains is a carcass that was once a home but soon is less than a house. And it’s not just abandoned buildings that are targeted. On my first trip to Flint, in 2006, I spoke with a community activist on a summer day. She said, “Sorry the building is so hot. Our air conditioner was stolen this week. When I called the cops, they said, ‘If we find yours, we’ll probably find ours.’” The police department’s air conditioner had been lifted that same night.