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never_sleep
Location: Foothills of NC Gender: Male Total Likes: 35 likes
(LURKING)
| | | | Re: Is the Database dead? < Reply # 68 on 9/27/2019 5:25 AM > | Reply with Quote
| | | Posted by Abby Normal
It seems that forums like this and many others will eventually fall victim to the rapid fire venues like Facebook. We aren't much different than the mom-and-pop stores that go out of business when the Walmart moves in. Me whining about it won't change anything, so I'll shut up now... Abby
| I'm sure social media contributes, but I think there's honestly less to explore than there used to be. At least where I am, we get farther and farther away from NAFTA, and the old mills are getting knocked down left and right for new construction or turned into luxury apartments. Old hospitals are getting the wrecking ball. The last frontier is really empty houses, and even those are being gobbled up in some areas. After 9/11 infiltration became serious business, with risk/reward changing dramatically. Construction has changed. You don't see the sorts of mills and factories you once did. Future explorers will have a different buffet of abandonments; strip malls, restaurants, old Kmarts. But yeah, those explorers coming up put everything into IG or other sources now. And most of them only have a passing interest in it. They're hot and heavy for a couple weeks taking Iphone pics of old Burger Kings and then they move on to something else. Forums as a whole have taken a hit, which is a shame, because back and forth discussion and real community is going with them.
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| WanderingElk
Gender: Male Total Likes: 1 like
| | | Re: Is the Database dead? < Reply # 69 on 9/27/2019 3:12 PM > | Reply with Quote
| | | Posted by never_sleep
I'm sure social media contributes, but I think there's honestly less to explore than there used to be. At least where I am, we get farther and farther away from NAFTA, and the old mills are getting knocked down left and right for new construction or turned into luxury apartments. Old hospitals are getting the wrecking ball. The last frontier is really empty houses, and even those are being gobbled up in some areas. After 9/11 infiltration became serious business, with risk/reward changing dramatically. Construction has changed. You don't see the sorts of mills and factories you once did. Future explorers will have a different buffet of abandonments; strip malls, restaurants, old Kmarts. But yeah, those explorers coming up put everything into IG or other sources now. And most of them only have a passing interest in it. They're hot and heavy for a couple weeks taking Iphone pics of old Burger Kings and then they move on to something else. Forums as a whole have taken a hit, which is a shame, because back and forth discussion and real community is going with them.
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It's mostly because this site is obscure, i found this site when just looking up abandoned areas nearby to see if i could find anything and I've looked passed this site like 3 or 4 times before checking it out
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| Aran
Location: Kansas City Gender: Male Total Likes: 1848 likes
Huh. I guess covid made me a trendsetter.
| | | Re: Is the Database dead? < Reply # 71 on 9/27/2019 3:41 PM > | Reply with Quote
| | | Posted by never_sleep
I'm sure social media contributes, but I think there's honestly less to explore than there used to be. At least where I am, we get farther and farther away from NAFTA, and the old mills are getting knocked down left and right for new construction or turned into luxury apartments. Old hospitals are getting the wrecking ball. The last frontier is really empty houses, and even those are being gobbled up in some areas. After 9/11 infiltration became serious business, with risk/reward changing dramatically. Construction has changed. You don't see the sorts of mills and factories you once did. Future explorers will have a different buffet of abandonments; strip malls, restaurants, old Kmarts.
| True, a lot of the old abandonments are gone. The hospitals, asylums, and mills are getting demolished- but there are newer abandonments taking their place. Coal power plants are being decommissioned faster than ever before, while shopping malls are closing by the score. The outsourcing of blue collar jobs overseas leads to more factories being closed domestically, and there are always plenty of abandoned houses. That being said, modern technology does reduce things. In Wisconsin, the DNR has made a serious effort to seal as many abandoned mines as possible. The massive abandoned complexes with soaring architecture are harder to find than before. Most damningly, infrared camera systems are more sophisticated and cheaper than ever before, making it significantly more difficult to infiltrate and access certain "abandoned" locations undetected. It can still be done, but it's difficult- and the unique out of the way places do get blown up on Instagram, which leads to their destruction or sealing. Urbex has surely changed with the times- but I don't think that means its dead, it just means we have to work a little harder.
| "Sorry, I didn't know I'm not supposed to be here," he said, knowing full well he wasn't supposed to be there. |
| Aran
Location: Kansas City Gender: Male Total Likes: 1848 likes
Huh. I guess covid made me a trendsetter.
| | | Re: Is the Database dead? < Reply # 75 on 10/1/2020 4:53 AM > | Reply with Quote
| | | To resurrect a year old topic, I've been musing a little bit about the role of community and the UER DB in it, and I've come to a realization that I think is worth mentioning- the UER DB can provide a sense of community for explorers in smaller cities and rural areas. The small handful of large cities with massive urbex communities developed a stigma against posting in places as publicly as the UER DB due to the speed at which urban abandonments get sealed and destroyed, and the amount of foot traffic a large community can bring to a location once it becomes common knowledge. In those enclaves, knowledge of locations and history becomes cultural knowledge known by the whole community. But outside those few enclaves there really isn't any community, and most explorers act as satellite members of the large city enclaves at most. Instead of well organized and connected communities, you have loose collections of independent explorers who occasionally cross paths with each other. Knowledge of abandonments and history never becomes community knowledge because there aren't enough explorers to form a local community in the first place. And that's where I think the value of the Database lies- in providing a community and sense of cultural history for explorers outside those large cities. Most abandonments outside the big cities don't see as much traffic in a year as some of the well known urban abandonments can see in a single day, so posting them to the UER DB doesn't really do any comparable harm. The Database can serve as a cultural memory for those thinly spread explorers, where even if urbex visits take place years apart they can be remembered and provide a sense of community history through shared experiences.
[last edit 10/1/2020 4:55 AM by Aran - edited 1 times]
| "Sorry, I didn't know I'm not supposed to be here," he said, knowing full well he wasn't supposed to be there. |
| becckeez
Location: 804 Gender: Female Total Likes: 648 likes
trippin.
| | | Re: Is the Database dead? < Reply # 77 on 10/3/2020 11:41 AM > | Reply with Quote
| | | Posted by Aran
The small handful of large cities with massive urbex communities developed a stigma against posting in places as publicly as the UER DB due to the speed at which urban abandonments get sealed and destroyed, and the amount of foot traffic a large community can bring to a location once it becomes common knowledge. In those enclaves, knowledge of locations and history becomes cultural knowledge known by the whole community.
| While I'm not as experienced as others here, I guess I'm willing to show my age. *blushes* There was an intense network of folks working together here on UER in the 2000s, early 2010s. People would come from all over to meet up and explore locales, have camp outs, bonfires - you name it. I was fortunate enough to share some of my local locations and vice versa with folks from all over the East Coast. In fact, I still keep in touch with many of these people to this day. Their friendships are irreplaceable and their art and drive are still a source of inspiration. In fact, even when I moved all the way up to Alaska, the UER network still reached out to me and offered to show me around (God Bless you, Freak). I think 9/11 and the gradual build of the DHS really did a number. Bush armed our local cops with military-grade equipment, and then Obama doubled down. The pressure mounted. I think gentrification really did a number. Rich property owners bought up locations or got super touchy about people walking around what could be their next purchase. I think the opioid crisis really added to the pressure. The added amount of scrapping, dope dens, and the like has created even more instability to classic abandonments everywhere. I also think, something that I don't see mentioned a lot... Is that we've lost a number of explorers to the opioid crisis itself. It was incredibly painful to watch members slip away, and a lot of the folks we lost... were the glue of the community Those folks glued a lot of the network, however, through spending casual time with one another in AvChat or at Meetups, dorkin' around the forum, etc. I'd love to see more of that here again. In fact, I've enjoyed the discord - and just recently met Aran - we've had a chance to chat beyond the confines of UER forum speak <3 In the end, the Database was a grand project we were all working with, but the real Location Database was the network of folks that made up UER. Cursed Covid. Or I'd just throw up a DMV meet up - right - now. A cookout and some easy locations for experts and beginners to just have fun and take some photos. Or... I mean. Masks are a pretty standard piece of exploring equipment... Hm. Anyway. Love you guys. Stay sassy, classy, and cool af.
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| Aran
Location: Kansas City Gender: Male Total Likes: 1848 likes
Huh. I guess covid made me a trendsetter.
| | | Re: Is the Database dead? < Reply # 79 on 12/7/2020 10:24 PM > | Reply with Quote
| | | Posted by Derpyfingers Database should not exist.
| At the risk of clashing with a prominent member of the MSP community who I definitely respect I'd have to disagree. I've had the pleasure of attending events thrown by the MSP community and its satellite communities and I've explored in MSP a few times. You guys really do have an incredible amount of stuff to explore and an incredible community built around it, but the double edged sword is that the density of explorers is insane. Thelma once told me he estimated there were over 350 urban explorers in the Twin Cities alone. Naturally a database like the UER DB would be a stupid idea for you guys, because no location can withstand the traffic that many explorers would bring to it as soon as it got posted. But in the surrounding states outside the MSP bubble, there really isn't much of an exploring community. The only community that really exists in the entirety of Wisconsin (for example) is really just a bunch of satellite members of the MSP community, especially with the Chicago community as fractured as it is. There are less than ten explorers in the entire Southern Wisconsin area that I know of, and most locations around here are in small towns and require driving upwards of an hour or two to reach them. That means that we don't have hundreds of rookie explorers descending upon locations like you guys do- it can be years between explorer visits, and if we're being honest tagging and vandalism is largely a crime of opportunity, so those people won't bother to travel that far in all but the rarest cases even if they do look at the database to find stuff (which is unlikely- MSP is an exception, not a rule). You guys in MSP have the numbers and density to support a community history. Outside large cities though? The Database is the best community historical record we've got, because we'll probably never meet our successors- though of course discretion should be demonstrated for what gets posted to the DB. It's just that the bar for "sensitive location" doesn't include every location in the city like a city the size of MSP requires.
[last edit 12/7/2020 10:32 PM by Aran - edited 6 times]
| "Sorry, I didn't know I'm not supposed to be here," he said, knowing full well he wasn't supposed to be there. |
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