Excerpt:
Detroit is two weeks away from filing for bankruptcy when Tom Nardone calls me from his car. He’s tooling around his hometown visiting abandoned parks—of more than 300 public parks in Detroit, about two-thirds have been disavowed by the city. Hundreds of overgrown lots mottle this onetime manufacturing hub, too tangled with weeds for children to play in. Today, Nardone visits one with a jungle gym that’s been recently doused with kerosene and set on fire. Instead of playing in parks, Detroit kids stay inside, or play on the streets. When they’re old enough, many leave.
“In Detroit, you see abandoned things all the time,” Nardone says. “It’s very common to see things in decay. That’s just what the city looks like.”
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