Like so many others in Detroit, Marc Siwak is troubled by the state his hometown is in. Residential occupancy has slumped below 40% in vast swaths of the city, and many abandoned houses have decayed beyond repair. Not one to take such indignation lying down, Siwak has launched a plan to make the highest and best use of these blighted spaces: convert them into a sprawling, post-apocalyptic zombie theme park.
Z World Detroit, as Siwak calls it, will offer tourists and locals alike the experience of being "chased down by Zombies, chased through the streets; you'll be running for your life hiding out in buildings, looking for supplies and trying to establish a base."
Cox quips, "Now even visitors from the 'burbs can 'wonder if they will make it through the night.' And new Detroiters that missed 'rock bottom' can pay to have a more terrifying version of the city re-created. (No word on those admission fees yet but someone had better make sure they know to include a Coney Dog stand)."
There's just one catch: Siwak needs $145,000 to move his plans forward. Judging by the strength of the proposal's conceptual mock-ups, though, we might be better off just waiting for an actual zombie apocalypse instead.
Comments
Z World Detroit
When you read the actual material and watch our short film, it is obvious that this project isn't just about having people run around an abandoned neighborhood.
This is a city where the mayor and The Detroit Works project is literally recommending closing off sections of the city and re-concentrating residents into more viable areas. Now you can certainly debate the social and economic merits of such a policy, but fencing off part of a major city and explicitly letting it crumble is not a productive use of land.
While these neighborhoods have the underlying infrastructure (roads, water, electrical grid), there clearly have not been many proposals to take advantage of that.
At its heart this proposal is really about revitalizing a Detroit neighborhood. It is about proposing something unique, ambitious and fun to bring back life and a few jobs for Detroiters into a neighborhood that has been virtually ignored for decades. In fact it may become a official policy to actively ignore these neighborhoods.
This project is about taking a big Detroit negative and flipping it into something positive and productive. Clearly zombies are the hook in this and is what gets people really thinking about alternative uses for this land. In fact, we have already been approached by developers and construction firms that see some merit to this idea.
So while on the surface, this project seems 'out there' and funny, there are some underlying merits and logic to this idea.
Thanks - Marc Siwak
Marc – I'm so sorry! With
Marc –
I'm so sorry! With the volume of news we process at Planetizen, it's easy to get detached from the reality of situations on the ground. It's obvious your project is by no means a trivial endeavor, so from the bottom of my heart, I wish you the best of luck with ZWD.
Regards,
Ryan