Famously derelict

I live in a boom city. People are fleeing California, leaving Michigan and Minnesota, leaving Texas and Alabama, and moving to Portland so fast there aren't places to put them. Formerly-derelict areas have been bought up by developers and are now being razed to make way for apartment blocks. One well-known exception is this fiercely-guarded derelict former depot. It was used by a utility company in the '50s, and some very short-sighted executive decided the ground under it would be a great place to store toxic waste. Now it is unfit for any use at all and will be unfit for maybe half a million years into the future. My understanding is that it is so toxic that it's not even safe to destroy it. The "Keep Out" notices, the fences, the barbed wire, and the live security guard who harassed me and threatened me with arrest when I tried to photograph it are all ways the city keeps it "derelict." Thanks to Sarum Stroller for his Derelict Thursday project.

One of the reasons why people are fleeing California is the drought, documented powerfully in the photographs and video here. (It's a heart-breaking story, and the black-and-white photography is unusually fine.)

Speaking of fine photography, Leif Anderson, who has only in the last couple of years been taking photography to heart, has just posted some of her photographs in her blog.