1/ There is a tendency to view abandoned places as isolated incidents, and treat them as we do everything: as fodder for our idle interest and consumption. Nothing could possibly be more wrong or dangerous. No place exists within a vacuum; each is a microcosm of something larger

2/ Each place is representative not only of its community but of overall social trends. It's not one industry in one town that closed leaving people struggling to find employment at jobs that pay starvation wages and with no benefits, it's hundreds across the nation.

3/ It's not one public school, it's hundreds across the country. Same thing with hospitals. What do they share in common? Many things, but ultimately that they were built by the public for the good of the public, and no adequate alternatives are replacing them.

4/ Looking at sites individually instead of part of a larger tapestry that it is critical to understand is like seeing a blanket of dead fish on the beach, finding passing interest in one but ignoring the rest, and never bothering to figure out what might be poisoning the water

5/ I've been doing this for years and I can tell you that nothing big goes under without reasons that offer profound and sometimes terrifying lessons. I can also tell you that those reasons are usually ignored. A place is torn down and replaced with little fanfare or examination

6/ Progress is replacing something with another thing that is better, but that's not what is happening. We're either leaving places to rot or replacing them with things that are generally smaller, shabbier, and less for public good than private gain. Schools into condos.

7/ All of this represents a divestment in the very idea of public good or well-being. Rather than offer factory workers fair wages, safe conditions, and environmental standards work goes where we can pay a kid a nickel a day to work in a dangerous, polluted mess

8/ That in turn flattens a town's income and tax base. Nobody can afford the church, or the library, or the school. Those things bleed out and get replaced by Walmarts or Arby's staffed by the descendants of the factory workers.

9/ "Abandoned America" was never just a literal reference - abandoned buildings in America. It was referencing entire ways of life and sets of beliefs that were cast aside. Some needed to go. Some were casualties of poorly planned and implemented policy, or just greed

10/ My work is a horror story I'm unfortunately a character in. It's not about ghosts or spooky old buildings. It's about losses on such a large scale that it's almost impossible to wrap your head around, ones that are omens of very bad things to come.

11/ There's a lot of sadness and fear-mongering out there. It makes me feel hopeless and overwhelmed too. I don't have answers or know best practices. I just photograph decline, mostly in hopes that it will offer future generations some insight into who we really are and were

12/ I try to collect stories and images for a time capsule that will show what we threw away, had taken from us, what we lost. It's not happy work, offering eulogies for things that probably shouldn't have died. It's just all I know how to do.

13/ I'll leave it at this for now: we can't afford to look at calamities in the way we do other photos. They are a call to action, they are dire warnings we have ignored, they are both individual and social tragedies (and travesties). They are a falling chain of dominoes.

14/ The phenomena that produce abandoned sites seem to happen quickly but have years of build up and years of repercussions. Don't for a minute think they can be viewed with the same casual curiosity that social media encourages. You're a part of their story too.