Historical Slumming

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Economic and Social History group...	Frank Foran	0	21 months ago
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New Group: "Route 50"	James Herman	0	22 months ago
new group: old facades!	docman	0	24 months ago
Nicky new-guy has a quandary	Mike Z	1	25 months ago
Removals	hoveringdog	22	29 months ago

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About Historical Slumming

Historical Slumming: The act of visiting locations such as diners, smokestack industrial sites, rural villages - locations where time appears to have been frozen many years back - so as to experience relief when one returns to "the present." (Generation X, Douglas Coupland)

Cultural backwaters, living relics of the modern past, unselfconscious anachronisms. Contemporary photos of places that seem to have resisted the progress of time. Bonus points for dive bars, roadside diners, and old gas stations ...

Photos should capture a sense of "place":
Historical slumming is primarily about location, about communities, places where people live and the people who live in them. Isolated objects alone, however antique, don't capture the sense of a place mired in the past.

Anachronisms, not artifacts:
Again, this is about living places that have seemingly fallen behind in the progress of time, not ancient art or monuments that are no longer part of a living community.

Specifically, for unselfconscious anachronism:
Historical slumming isn't about historical recreations or modern objects made intentionally to appear "retro".

Historical slumming is about visiting living places:
There's already a group for abandoned buildings. This group is about places that look outdated, but are still in active use.

Don't forget the "slumming" bit:
This isn't about pretty, antiquated locales. Historical slumming, as the Coupland quote suggests, is about places that make you feel happy to get the hell out of and return to the modern world.