In Laura RussellÕs hometown of Saginaw, Michigan, decades of poverty and the decline of the automotive business are creating an urban blight that is heartbreaking. Lost factory jobs lead to lost homes as families struggle to survive. These homes become bank property then gang territory, then arson targets before finally succumbing to city bulldozers.
In this moving, emotional book, photographs of burned out, boarded-up, homesÑonce proud family homesÑare paired with Laura's original poetry about a once-vibrant neighborhood and the decay of the American dream. Urban Decay presents 30 photographs, all taken on one cold morning, in one small neighborhoodÑan area about seven blocks by three blocks. Two poems, introductory text and a map of the burned out houses accompany the photographs.