i just want to say something about the walk through the eastern part of downtown detroit, which i'd never wandered through before and will probably not wander through again, if i can avoid it.

it's really legitimately gone. i was a five minute drive from downtown, and i was walking through abandoned lots, and glowering at coyotes in the shadows. coyotes actually don't camouflage well in the city because the grey reflects in the moonlight. they'd do much better in the snow, mind you. see, the eastern coyotes nowadays are actually half wolf; the lighter colour in a warmer climate is not a winning combination, which is possibly a factor in the migration into cities. they'll stand there and watch you from a safe point, calculating whether they think they can win a fight with you or not. what you need to do in that situation is walk in the middle of the road. they think they're better camouflaged than they actually are and won't want to walk towards the streetlights. i'll just say that i saw more than one.

the habitat is actually ideal. these were either big lots when they had houses on them, or they're the culmination of several abandoned lots side by side. there's nothing left. no foundation. no driveway. if you didn't know better, you'd think there was never anything there.

you'd be forgiven for thinking it makes downtown detroit feel like a forgotten ghetto. i wasn't here a few years ago; maybe there was a time when that was true. today, even the ghetto is gone. it's not like that at all. and, it's not even like suburbia. it feels more like you're walking through the very edges of a city, that point where civilization meets the forest. when you come out of it, you don't expect to come across a city street so much as you expect to come across a farm, or a truckstop diner on the interstate....

i don't know what's to come of this place. maybe, in the end, they'll just let the trees go, and allow it to establish itself as an urban park. right now, it's just weird to experience.

....and, as i continually point out, the real danger is not people but wild canids.