Abandoned Detroit: the decline of America's car mecca

Learn about how General Motors dismantled America's streetcars

This documentary argues that GM systematically bought up and destroyed streetcar networks across the US in the 1930s, replacing them with buses and helping put the automobile at the center of American culture.

An exploration of the life and death of US malls

American malls sought to recreate the cohesion of a downtown shopping center but with the indoor, quiet convenience of a rural or suburban setting. First developed in the 1950s, malls quickly took off and became the spine of American retail shopping. In the last two decades, online retail has forced many to close, leaving behind peculiar, vast abandoned spaces. Pick through the stark nostalgia with this fascinating photo essay.

One of Henry Ford's early failed business ventures later became Cadillac

Before founding the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford started two businesses that ultimately failed because he didn't get a product to market quickly enough. The Henry Ford Company pushed Henry Ford out in 1902, only to later reform and be renamed after the founder of Detroit, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac.

Read how Fordism helped invent the American middle class

Henry Ford's revolution of the assembly line and American manufacturing as a whole gave rise to the American middle class. The introduction of the $5 workday (in exchange for eight-hour days of highly repetitive work) raised factory workers' wages enough to reorient the economy around consumer demand.

1970s New York was viewed by many as a city in decline

By 1975, the city owed $5B to $6B in short-term debt; over a million manufacturing jobs had left the city since the end of World War II. Meanwhile, the murder rate was more than double than 10 years earlier. Graffiti was seen as illegal vandalism perpetrated by unsupervised teenagers and was viewed by some as emblematic of the larger societal decline.

Walt Disney's visit to a Ford factory helped inspire the layout for Disneyland

Walt Disney visited Henry Ford's Greenfield Village and the Ford Motor Company's River Rouge manufacturing plant on a trip to the 1948 Chicago Railroad Fair. The layout of Greenfield Village inspired the different, distinctly themed sections of Disneyland in Anaheim, CA.

Mapping Michigan's shipwrecks

For centuries, the Great Lakes have provided vital access to the Midwest from the Atlantic Ocean, allowing the establishment of key trading outposts and ultimately the growth of major cities in the region. An estimated 6,000 vessels were lost on the Great Lakes with approximately 1,500 of these ships located in Michigan waters. Explore the deadly legacy of the region with resources pulled together by the Michigan History Center.

Abandoned racetracks can be found via Google Earth

With auto racing a favorite American pastime in the 1900s, tracks both small and large were built across the country. Some were local tracks used for small races, while others were super-speedways used by NASCAR.

Detroit-style pizza's recipe nods to the Motor City

Legend has it that the rectangular pies were originally baked in blue steel pans intended to hold nuts and bolts in auto factories. The sauce poured across the top of the pies, meanwhile, is done so in straight lines called "tire tracks."

China has a ‘ghost town of abandoned mansions’

This video shows how China’s property bubble deflated as new-home sales collapsed and more than 50 developers defaulted. In Shenyang, an abandoned “ghost town” reveals the fallout of a boom built on debt and overbuilding that could no longer be sustained.

Explore a gallery of electric vehicles from before 1920

In 1884, Thomas Parker invented the first practical electric car in London. By the turn of the century, early EVs were seen on the streets of Washington, DC. Automaker promotional materials included photographs of cars on mountain roads and other terrains.

The billion-dollar ghost town in Baltimore

As a Rust Belt city looking to revitalize its economic core, Baltimore, Maryland, sought big investments from developers and municipalities. The so-called Baltimore Peninsula is a billion-dollar neighborhood in south Baltimore initially prompted by the investment of Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank. In 2025, the glossy, grand urban neighborhood is still empty, with fully-built condos and retail spaces.

Tesla's production of a high-performance electric vehicle revived the EV industry

The Model 3 shifted public perception by showing that EVs could be fast and desirable, and built at scale. However, at one point, Tesla built an entirely manual production line in a tent outside its main factory to keep up with demand.

How parking infrastructure reveals a region's values

As cars became more popular, the need for city parking increased. In Europe, well-established cities with limited space generally opted for more expensive underground parking beneath public spaces to preserve aesthetics. Available land and decentralized planning in the US saw more parking lots and garages built. These decisions reveal broader policy realities for these regions.

The story of Boeing's unraveling

Long lauded as one of the world's greatest aviation companies, Boeing has taken a nosedive in the last decade after major mass casualty crashes of its planes and high-profile scandals, which have led to numerous investigations, the temporary grounding of some of its planes, and a huge hit in its value. Listen to this first episode of a series telling the story of Boeing's fall.

'Black Wall Street': the affluent neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Black-owned businesses once thrived

A white mob destroyed Black Wall Street in 1921. America also had other "Black Wall Street" neighborhoods in places like Richmond, Virginia.

Sears failed to evolve in a changing economy

At its peak, Sears was the largest retailer in the world, making elite objects accessible to the middle class. But in 2018, the company officially filed for bankruptcy due to massive debt and losses.

The Detroit 59ers moved to Alaska to develop the land

After Alaska became a state in 1959, 21 Detroit families set out for the Last Frontier, intent on cultivating the land through the Homestead Act. The act offered free land in the state for anyone who met the requirements for developing its sparsely populated areas.

Atlantic City was a major vacation destination in the early 20th century

The city’s boardwalk, filled with amusement parks and vendors, became a significant attraction for vacationing families. The town also became a hub for entertainment, with actors often starting there before heading to Broadway.

Hosting the NFL Draft comes with hidden public safety costs

The economic upside of hosting the Draft—Detroit reported $214 million in impact in 2024—depends on months of behind-the-scenes work. Coordinating law enforcement, emergency medical services, and traffic control entails real public costs that rarely make the headlines.

'Migrant Mother' (1936) captured the tragic reality of the Great Depression

Taken by Dorothea Lange, the image shows a mother in tattered clothes looking distressed while her children cling to her. At the time, the family was surviving on frozen vegetables from nearby fields and birds killed by the children.

Read a book making the case for 'smart enough' cities

University of Michigan professor Ben Green argues that cities should be enhanced by technology rather than driven by it, thereby preventing injustice and inequality beneath their surface. By embracing social change in conjunction with smart technologies, residents, Green suggests, can avoid valuing such technologies as ends in themselves.

How LA brought water to its booming population

By the turn of the 20th century, Los Angeles had grown from a dusty, crime-ridden pueblo into a thriving metropolis. The only problem was that it was growing too fast. Here's the story of how the booming town created a massive water infrastructure to redirect area rivers to its residents.

The rise and fall of a petrostate

Venezuela’s descent into economic and political chaos in recent years is a cautionary tale of the dangerous influence that resource wealth can have on developing countries.

Great Zimbabwe: the massive medieval trading hub in southern Africa

Arising during the 13th century, the Kingdom of Zimbabwe’s capital quickly grew into a central trading hub, dealing in items from across the world, before its decline in the 1400s. Great Zimbabwe had three distinct districts, each surrounded by...

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

Louisiana's 'Cancer Alley' is infamous for having some of the highest industrial pollution, toxic air emissions, and cancer risks in the US.

In its famous catalog, Sears sold $600 DIY house kits from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in an estimated 100,000 'Sears and Roebuck homes.'

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

In 1915, workers recovered a submarine-like vessel from the Chicago River, prompting fears of German espionage

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Hear about the 250-year history of the United States Postal Service, complete with some of its strangest deliveries, important innovations, and the figures that made it an American institution.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

In 1945, Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and legendary animator Walt Disney began collaborating on a short film that was not completed until 2003, years after both men had died.

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

Alzheimer's can lead to brain shrinkage, with an average of around 2% of volume reduction per year

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

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