Detroit is an interesting example of a city far too big for its population. Decades of chaos and then restaging, led in many places by people who stayed and figured it out.
Apparently Japan has been reevaluating its whole approach to urbanism the past decade and other countries and cities (probably even Detroit) are following their model: Let the distant suburbs slowly die and focus on building amenities near the urban core. It's called the "compact-city policy" I believe.
Turning demographic collapse into a lifestyle fantasy with soft lighting and just enough edge to feel clever. Like if you hang the word “intentional” over a dying suburb, it’ll stop smelling like abandonment.
I read your piece — cul-de-sacs as communes, ghost cities as playgrounds for the proactive, fertility as rebellion. And at first, sure, it feels like vision. Like strategy. But dig one layer deeper and it’s not vision at all. It’s repackaged retreat. Nostalgia dressed up in apocalypse drag. You’re not building the future. You’re squatting in its remains and pretending the lease is signed.
You want to take over an abandoned Italian villa or a depopulated Chinese tower block and fill it with weird art and good intentions? Knock yourself out. But don’t kid yourself — this isn’t pioneering. It’s gentrification with better taste in books.
You’re not colonising space, you’re colonising silence. You’re moving into the pause after the scream and calling it peace. But there’s blood in that pause. There’s absence. There are stories in those empty buildings that don’t include you — not yet — and turning them into pirate communes just because the market left is a hell of a thing to romanticise.
The frontier you’re describing is paved with other people’s departure. Other people’s collapse. You didn’t build the opening. You’re just walking through it with a blueprint and a blog.
And let’s not pretend this is new. Marginalised people have been doing this kind of survival architecture for centuries — without seed funding, without newsletters, without NYT podcasts to help make the ideology feel tidy. You’re late. You’re loud. And you’re dressing your privilege up as prophecy.
The pirate metaphor? Cute. But laughable. Pirates burned ships. You’re talking about “pro-coupling, pro-fertility” communes. That’s not rebellion. That’s prep-school missionary work with more Instagrammable curtains. You want to breed your way out of civilisational decline? Be my guest. But at least admit what it is: a self-replication strategy dressed in commune drag. It’s not hope. It’s not bravery. It’s species panic with decent graphic design.
You keep saying we should imagine a world of high-agency individuals carving out new meaning in forgotten places. But you’re still imagining that agency against a backdrop of assumed safety. You’re not fighting the tide. You’re just trying to make the flood more aesthetic.
The thing you’re building — whatever name you give it — only works if you don’t look too closely at the bodies under the floorboards. And when you frame that as optimism, you flatten the grief. You skip the reckoning. You fast-forward to the curated after-party without sitting through the part where everything hurts.
So build your little world. Turn the bones of dead suburbs into something that hums. But don’t call it a solution. Don’t write it like the future’s waiting for you to arrive. It isn’t. It’s already bleeding out in a dozen languages. And if you’re not willing to sit in that, if you can’t bear to name the mess before you move in, then you’re not a pirate.
You’re a squatter with a Pinterest board.
—
Simian Smith
Still where the walls groan, the pipes stutter, and the future hasn’t been photoshopped yet.
Believe it or not I actually agree with you. I think while we're here in this moment facing down an impending population collapse, we should do everything we can to stop the population collapse from happening. I think consciousness is (obviously!) the greatest thing in the universe, and I want more of it, not less.
This piece is a bit cynical and a big glib, but ultimately I hope it serves to draw awareness and spark conversation about the population collapse. If the best our children's generation has to look forward to is playing pirates in deserted cities, I hope they make the most of that, but it's certainly not ideal. And then where do they go from there?
Glad you responded, Peter, not just with chin up, but with something real behind the grin.
You’re right: if all we’re offering the next generation is the chance to cosplay meaning in abandoned cities, then we’ve already lost more than population numbers. The dream shrinks to fit the ruins, and eventually the ruins feel like home.
But I respect what you’re doing, saying the quiet part out loud: that we need more people, not just to fill graphs, but to carry the flame of experience, insight, noise, risk, love. Consciousness, yes. But messy, embodied, glitchy consciousness, the kind that bleeds and writes and ruins dinner parties with truth.
I don’t think we disagree much. Maybe just on how much rope the future still gives us before it decides it’s done with our little experiment. You’re putting up blueprints. I’m still sifting through the wreckage. Both matter.
And if your piece gets a few more people to stop treating depopulation like background static, then it did its job, even if it poked the monkey in the process.
Detroit is an interesting example of a city far too big for its population. Decades of chaos and then restaging, led in many places by people who stayed and figured it out.
Apparently Japan has been reevaluating its whole approach to urbanism the past decade and other countries and cities (probably even Detroit) are following their model: Let the distant suburbs slowly die and focus on building amenities near the urban core. It's called the "compact-city policy" I believe.
Absolutely, this will totally happen.
To Peter Clarke, Re: Pirates of the Empty Cities
You’re romanticising rot, Peter.
Turning demographic collapse into a lifestyle fantasy with soft lighting and just enough edge to feel clever. Like if you hang the word “intentional” over a dying suburb, it’ll stop smelling like abandonment.
I read your piece — cul-de-sacs as communes, ghost cities as playgrounds for the proactive, fertility as rebellion. And at first, sure, it feels like vision. Like strategy. But dig one layer deeper and it’s not vision at all. It’s repackaged retreat. Nostalgia dressed up in apocalypse drag. You’re not building the future. You’re squatting in its remains and pretending the lease is signed.
You want to take over an abandoned Italian villa or a depopulated Chinese tower block and fill it with weird art and good intentions? Knock yourself out. But don’t kid yourself — this isn’t pioneering. It’s gentrification with better taste in books.
You’re not colonising space, you’re colonising silence. You’re moving into the pause after the scream and calling it peace. But there’s blood in that pause. There’s absence. There are stories in those empty buildings that don’t include you — not yet — and turning them into pirate communes just because the market left is a hell of a thing to romanticise.
The frontier you’re describing is paved with other people’s departure. Other people’s collapse. You didn’t build the opening. You’re just walking through it with a blueprint and a blog.
And let’s not pretend this is new. Marginalised people have been doing this kind of survival architecture for centuries — without seed funding, without newsletters, without NYT podcasts to help make the ideology feel tidy. You’re late. You’re loud. And you’re dressing your privilege up as prophecy.
The pirate metaphor? Cute. But laughable. Pirates burned ships. You’re talking about “pro-coupling, pro-fertility” communes. That’s not rebellion. That’s prep-school missionary work with more Instagrammable curtains. You want to breed your way out of civilisational decline? Be my guest. But at least admit what it is: a self-replication strategy dressed in commune drag. It’s not hope. It’s not bravery. It’s species panic with decent graphic design.
You keep saying we should imagine a world of high-agency individuals carving out new meaning in forgotten places. But you’re still imagining that agency against a backdrop of assumed safety. You’re not fighting the tide. You’re just trying to make the flood more aesthetic.
The thing you’re building — whatever name you give it — only works if you don’t look too closely at the bodies under the floorboards. And when you frame that as optimism, you flatten the grief. You skip the reckoning. You fast-forward to the curated after-party without sitting through the part where everything hurts.
So build your little world. Turn the bones of dead suburbs into something that hums. But don’t call it a solution. Don’t write it like the future’s waiting for you to arrive. It isn’t. It’s already bleeding out in a dozen languages. And if you’re not willing to sit in that, if you can’t bear to name the mess before you move in, then you’re not a pirate.
You’re a squatter with a Pinterest board.
—
Simian Smith
Still where the walls groan, the pipes stutter, and the future hasn’t been photoshopped yet.
Believe it or not I actually agree with you. I think while we're here in this moment facing down an impending population collapse, we should do everything we can to stop the population collapse from happening. I think consciousness is (obviously!) the greatest thing in the universe, and I want more of it, not less.
This piece is a bit cynical and a big glib, but ultimately I hope it serves to draw awareness and spark conversation about the population collapse. If the best our children's generation has to look forward to is playing pirates in deserted cities, I hope they make the most of that, but it's certainly not ideal. And then where do they go from there?
Glad you responded, Peter, not just with chin up, but with something real behind the grin.
You’re right: if all we’re offering the next generation is the chance to cosplay meaning in abandoned cities, then we’ve already lost more than population numbers. The dream shrinks to fit the ruins, and eventually the ruins feel like home.
But I respect what you’re doing, saying the quiet part out loud: that we need more people, not just to fill graphs, but to carry the flame of experience, insight, noise, risk, love. Consciousness, yes. But messy, embodied, glitchy consciousness, the kind that bleeds and writes and ruins dinner parties with truth.
I don’t think we disagree much. Maybe just on how much rope the future still gives us before it decides it’s done with our little experiment. You’re putting up blueprints. I’m still sifting through the wreckage. Both matter.
And if your piece gets a few more people to stop treating depopulation like background static, then it did its job, even if it poked the monkey in the process.
Keep going. I’ll keep heckling.
Simian
"We need more people, not just to fill graphs, but to carry the flame of experience, insight, noise, risk, love." - Well said!