WEBVTT - How Abandoned Cities Work

0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.840
<v Speaker 1>Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.320
<v Speaker 1>It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know

0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:10.680
<v Speaker 1>from how Stuff Works dot Com? Brought to you by

0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:14.920
<v Speaker 1>consumer Guy at Automotive we make carbine easier. Hi, and

0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:17.759
<v Speaker 1>welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, is staff writer

0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:20.480
<v Speaker 1>here at how Stuff Works dot Com. With me again

0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:24.439
<v Speaker 1>after a long absence is my former editor Chris Pallette.

0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:27.400
<v Speaker 1>How are you doing? Chris? Doing great on the effects

0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:30.480
<v Speaker 1>of the cryogenic freeze are starting to wear off? Fantastic? Yeah,

0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:33.280
<v Speaker 1>and your hair looks magnificent to still and Chris, I

0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:35.920
<v Speaker 1>want to say congratulations on the birth of your second child.

0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:40.360
<v Speaker 1>Way to do absolutely nothing. Thanks. Yeah, Well, let's get

0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:43.920
<v Speaker 1>to it, shall we. Speaking of, uh of absolutely nothing,

0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:47.879
<v Speaker 1>we're talking about abandoned city today, yes, and specifically modern

0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:51.360
<v Speaker 1>abandoned cities. So, I mean, there's such thing as ghost towns,

0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:54.040
<v Speaker 1>and there's one, uh, a legitimate ghost town out in

0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:57.880
<v Speaker 1>California called Body, California. Um. It was a old gold

0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:01.160
<v Speaker 1>mining boom town and they've got the old saloon and

0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:03.800
<v Speaker 1>you know that kind of thing. Um. But the thing is,

0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:06.880
<v Speaker 1>when you go there, you can imagine um, guns slingers

0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:09.360
<v Speaker 1>drinking sasaparilla at the bar, but you can't really relate

0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:12.920
<v Speaker 1>to them. I find modern abandoned cities much more fascinating.

0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:15.280
<v Speaker 1>Note to you. Yeah, and in a way, it's it's

0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:17.880
<v Speaker 1>even creepier because you can relate to the people when

0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:21.560
<v Speaker 1>you see the things that are left behind by these people. Uh,

0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:23.440
<v Speaker 1>you can relate to it a lot better than you

0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:25.520
<v Speaker 1>could with the Old West, because we've never lived that

0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:28.559
<v Speaker 1>that lifestyle, right exactly. I mean I've been a gun slinger,

0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:30.759
<v Speaker 1>but it wasn't in the Old West, you know, I mean,

0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:34.080
<v Speaker 1>give me a break. So one of the things when

0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:36.920
<v Speaker 1>I was researching this article was that there's all sorts

0:01:36.920 --> 0:01:40.840
<v Speaker 1>of different reasons why cities become abandoned. Um it can

0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:45.399
<v Speaker 1>be a disaster, Um, it can be because they're they've

0:01:45.440 --> 0:01:50.360
<v Speaker 1>outlived their usefulness. Um, there's all sorts of reasons why. Uh.

0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:53.440
<v Speaker 1>Like take Prepia, Ukraine, for instance, that this was this

0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.200
<v Speaker 1>was an abandoned city because well, it was right next

0:01:56.240 --> 0:02:00.480
<v Speaker 1>to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant when Chernobyl helted down

0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:03.240
<v Speaker 1>the number four reactor in nineteen six, and this is

0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:05.800
<v Speaker 1>actually the company town for the nuclear power plants, So

0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:08.919
<v Speaker 1>they were right there, a lot of people died, and

0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:11.120
<v Speaker 1>they had to evacuate the city and I think within

0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:15.720
<v Speaker 1>sixty hours after the meltdown, so um, everything was just

0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:19.519
<v Speaker 1>left behind. Yeah, I've seen I've seen pictures, uh, that

0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:22.680
<v Speaker 1>were taken by people who had snuck into the government

0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:26.200
<v Speaker 1>controlled area. And it's, um, that's sort of what I

0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:28.760
<v Speaker 1>meant by by the creepy because you go in and

0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.360
<v Speaker 1>you see all the stuff that people left behind in

0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:34.119
<v Speaker 1>a hurry, and so you see all these modern artifacts,

0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:38.000
<v Speaker 1>you know, pieces of of these people's lives that they

0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:40.639
<v Speaker 1>just that they had to leave behind as they ran

0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:42.800
<v Speaker 1>as fast as they could away from the radiation. And

0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:44.640
<v Speaker 1>and like you said, it's a lot easier to relate

0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:46.800
<v Speaker 1>to because these are things in our lives as well.

0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:50.280
<v Speaker 1>It makes it a lot more haunting, I think, yeah. Um.

0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:53.160
<v Speaker 1>And and then there's other cases like Detroit. Now Detroit

0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:56.320
<v Speaker 1>is not an abandoned city, but there are entire sections

0:02:56.320 --> 0:03:00.040
<v Speaker 1>of it that are basically abandoned. And it's it's it.

0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:02.440
<v Speaker 1>He can become abandoned or partially abandoned just from an

0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.680
<v Speaker 1>economic downturn, which is the case of Detroit, right right,

0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:09.520
<v Speaker 1>So I mean, have you been on forgotten Detroit dot com. Yeah,

0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:13.080
<v Speaker 1>I've been there before. Um, it's it's pretty fascinating, especially

0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:16.240
<v Speaker 1>because these areas are right next to places that are

0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.600
<v Speaker 1>still inhabited. Um, but they're they're bordered there like a

0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:22.880
<v Speaker 1>world away, boarded up that's just natural light coming in.

0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:25.200
<v Speaker 1>And again, like you said, modern artifacts is kind of

0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:28.800
<v Speaker 1>scattered throughout right. It's amazing to think that a city

0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:32.040
<v Speaker 1>that I think of is one of the largest cities

0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:35.840
<v Speaker 1>in North America, you know, just has these huge sections

0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:39.560
<v Speaker 1>where you know, people are the population has receded enough

0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:42.880
<v Speaker 1>to become you know, create little pockets of abandoned city, right,

0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:45.760
<v Speaker 1>And Detroit's hardly alone. I drove to Alabama recently and

0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:49.119
<v Speaker 1>I can't tell you how many dying towns I drove through,

0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:52.440
<v Speaker 1>and they have these fantastic ornate downtowns that are all

0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:55.720
<v Speaker 1>just boarded up and unused. And there was a heyday

0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:58.160
<v Speaker 1>there and it was fairly recently, like the forties or

0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:02.640
<v Speaker 1>fifties or sixties. But the populations dying off there's there.

0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:05.280
<v Speaker 1>The economy can't support it any longer. So these towns

0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:09.200
<v Speaker 1>are slowly becoming abandoned. Oh sure. And there you know,

0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:12.320
<v Speaker 1>the roads get rerouted when the interstate system, you know,

0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:14.960
<v Speaker 1>changed the way people traveled around the country. Yeah, that's

0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:17.440
<v Speaker 1>pretty much like instant death for a town. You know. Yeah,

0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:20.279
<v Speaker 1>that's true. Oh, speaking of a town that no longer

0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:23.039
<v Speaker 1>has roads leading to it, of your number one that

0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:27.080
<v Speaker 1>you chose for the articles. For those of you who

0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:30.400
<v Speaker 1>who are unfamiliar with it, it's a a city that

0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:33.159
<v Speaker 1>was a coal mining Uh you know had coal mining

0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:36.640
<v Speaker 1>is one of its major um staples. Well it was.

0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.920
<v Speaker 1>It was what gave Centralia life, but it also killed

0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:42.560
<v Speaker 1>it too, didn't it true. Well, you know, they ignited

0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:44.800
<v Speaker 1>that underground coal fire, and of course it's sitting on

0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:48.039
<v Speaker 1>a massive amount of coal, so you know, this is

0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:52.719
<v Speaker 1>burning underground, giving off toxic fumes, uh, you know, causing sinkholes,

0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:55.400
<v Speaker 1>people falling in. Yes, some some twelve year old kid

0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:58.480
<v Speaker 1>um almost got sucked into a hundred and fifty ft

0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.720
<v Speaker 1>sinkhole that suddenly erupted neath his feet. That's when people

0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:04.760
<v Speaker 1>started moving out. But there's still about a dozen people left.

0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:07.000
<v Speaker 1>And despite the fact that the government has taken away

0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:10.680
<v Speaker 1>the roads using eminent domain. Actually the government also took

0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:12.560
<v Speaker 1>away their lands and these people are now squatting in

0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:14.760
<v Speaker 1>their homes. So if you haven't caught the drift that

0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:19.160
<v Speaker 1>abandoned cities are pretty interesting. Look up five modern abandoned

0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:21.960
<v Speaker 1>cities on how stuff works dot com. It will creep

0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:25.279
<v Speaker 1>you out. For more on this and thousands of other topics,

0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:28.359
<v Speaker 1>is that how stuff works dot com. Let us know

0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:31.360
<v Speaker 1>what you think. Send an email to podcast at how

0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:36.680
<v Speaker 1>stuff works dot com. Brought to you by the reinvented

0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:39.400
<v Speaker 1>two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you