Many people have a problem envisioning what extreme economic failure looks like in a Western country. Enter Detroit. Detroit serves as a warning for how global markets treat losers. Selected quotes from a Denver Post article, "How low can homes go, try $0" :
The median price of a home sold in Detroit last month was $7,500, according to Realcomp, a Farmington Hills, Mich., multiple-listing service, down 50 percent from last year... 1,228 homes listed for under $10,000, 209 of which were under $1,000.
Police stopped patrolling these neighborhoods years ago.
Some of these neighborhoods are so desolate, crime isn't much of a concern. I could take you to 30 square blocks of urban prairie.
They take the hinges, the knobs, the sinks, the faucets, the vanities, the toilets; some of them go for the tiles. They even steal the brick off the sides of some of these houses. Street dealers traffic in furnaces, water heaters and appliances.