Friday Funny: Detroit's Newest Slum Unveiled

The Onion reports on the "window-shattering ceremony" officially opening Detroit's newest slum, a neighborhood designed with the "latest in high-risk, hopelessly impoverished housing options."

1 minute read

May 15, 2009, 2:00 PM PDT

By Michael Dudley


"As community leaders and members of the press looked on, Detroit mayor David Bing proudly hurled the first brick this week in a window-shattering ceremony for the city's newest dilapidated slum.

Lined with flickering streetlamps, and conveniently located within walking distance of several abandoned Chevrolet plants, the new slum reportedly offers residents the latest in high-risk, hopelessly impoverished housing options.

Designed as an urban community where parents will be too afraid to let children out of their sight, and where residents can come together, get involved in dangerous gangs, and eventually hold up a liquor store, Baneberry Heights is Detroit's largest housing initiative in nearly a decade.

'The whirring of police sirens, the stench of rising smoke, screams from a domestic dispute spilling out into the night-I can imagine it already,' said Detroit city planner Paul Mitchelson. 'This is going to be the slum to try and escape from for years to come.'"

Wednesday, May 13, 2009 in The Onion

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