I think being dismissive of this sort of thing ignores the bigger point. American Society has a group of people (I'm going to say age 35 and below) who had never lived through a significant downturn before this. So sites like this aren't necessarily saying "Detroit is a lost cause" they are marveling at the idea of abandon buildings which is a fairly new concept to a lot of us.

I, for example, grew up in Las Vegas and am endlessly fascinated by the Fontainebleu building (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontainebleau_Resort_Las_Vegas). It's a 68 story resort that just ran out of money after they constructed the outer structure. So this 735ft tall neon blue building just sits there in the middle of the strip waiting to be dealt with (most believe it will never be finished at this point).

But my fascination with it isn't that I think the Vegas strip is dying its just that I'd never seen something like that fail to be completed before.