Laura Russell • Photographs

All over the United States, once-thriving factory towns are dying. In mid-Michigan, decades of poverty and the decline of the automotive business are creating an urban blight that is heartbreaking. Once-proud homes of working class families are left behind, abandoned, as good factory jobs disappear. These homes become bank property, then gang territory, then targets for arson before finally succumbing to city bulldozers.

The photographs in this series were all shot in my hometown of Saginaw, Michigan, on December 8, 2005 in one small neighborhood. All of these houses and buildings stand in an area of about seven blocks by four blocks. In one spot, two adjacent blocks, we counted eight homes boarded up or burned, surrounded by sad vacant lots that once held nice family homes.

I first encountered similar burned out homes in Detroit three years earlier. On a drive from Ann Arbor to Grosse Pointe my husband and I were shocked to drive through what looked like a war zone. The memories of burned out, boarded up homes haunted me and called me.

Finally in December 2005 I was heading to Detroit to shoot these photographs when my Mother told me that I didn’t need to drive all the way to Detroit, these types of homes are right here in Saginaw. Suddenly, this project was about my own hometown. Suddenly it was personal and even more heart wrenching.

I shot these photographs because these homes are beautiful even in their current state of decay. These images make a statement about our social and economic culture. You can feel the hopes and dreams of the families who lived in these homes when you peer into open doors and windows. They are large homes, small homes and even very ornate homes, plus a few blocks of retail buildings that served as the backbone of the neighborhood.

I hope that viewers of these photographs will be as haunted as I am by the reality of what is happening in our dying factory towns all across the United States. I hope these images become a wake-up call and a powerful reminder to count your blessings because “The American Dream” is not guaranteed.

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