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| What lies beneath London, ON August 2023 This photo originally shared on Instagram |
The concrete overhead is crumbling. Rusty water from the rail tracks overhead pools on the sidewalk below, mixing with clumps of old bird poop for added effect. A man in tattered jeans screams at passing cars for no apparent reason.
Hanging around here for any longer than necessary feels like an unacceptable risk, yet I feel the need to at least snag a fast photo, to remember what this place feels like, to tell at least part of the story of a city cracking at the seams.
We’re no different from many cities. Burgeoning homeless population. Unchecked addiction. Non-existent mental health services. Spiralling street crime. An exodus of businesses from the already beleaguered core.
Familiar problems, sure, and no immediate solution. Or even a long-term one, as we can’t even agree on which paths offer the most promise to reverse this cropping decline.
For all the despair, I look back at this near-apocalyptic scene and see light at the end of this particular tunnel. This neighborhood at the other end was once a showpiece, where entire generations came to live and work and make memories they cling to till this day.
Once there was at least something here, and it seems cruel to turn our backs completely without doing at least…something.
So today I don’t. I stay despite the rising screams behind me so that I can at least snag one picture before I continue on my way. I’m saddened by what I see, and it bothers me that all I can do in the moment amounts to recording a few pixels before I quickly leave this place.
But I’m equally unwilling to walk away for good. And making a simple memory seems like a reasonable place to start.
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Related:
Stories in textured brick, October 2021
I'm staring at old buildings again, March 2021
City held hostage, December 2020
The promise of urban renewal, February 2020
Look beneath the surface of the city, December 2019
White building, blue sky, August 2019
Walking home downtown at night, December 2018
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