Just feast your eyes: Zug Island, an industrial wasteland along the Detroit River. I took this picture a number of years back when I lived in Detroit, and lucked into a helicopter ride around town.
The development of Zug Island is environmental abuse on a massive scale, one that says much about what humans have done, and are still doing, to our delicate planet.
Some guy named Zug bought the land in the mid-nineteenth century with the intention of building an estate there. It was probably quite nice back then. But near the end of the century, according to Wikipedia, Zug sold the land "to industries that wanted it as a dumping ground."
It's been downhill ever since.
The air quality around Zug Island is said to be very poor. In published reports in 2000, people living in the area complained of a "rancid odor that permeates their living spaces and causes nausea, headaches and dry heaves. The grass and trees in surrounding neighborhoods are dying and there is rust-colored dust on the streets, homes and cars."
Zug Island was once a Native American burial ground. Now it feels like a burial ground of a much different order.
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