Daniel's been reading about the couple who climbed the Empire State Building spire, and instead of just filing that under "people with too much free time," he's got four actual questions. How big is the urban exploration community, however it defines itself? Which cities pull these people in? How do the people who own and maintain the infrastructure see it? And how do the police actually respond, given that half the community seems to believe trespass is just a civil matter and the other half is getting arrested?
The Empire State Building spire climb is a perfect entry point, because it sits right at the collision of everything Daniel's asking about. You've got a global magnet city, a spectacular piece of infrastructure, an owner who absolutely does not want people up there, and a police response that depends entirely on jurisdiction.
And a couple who filmed it and posted it, which is the part that's changed the whole shape of this thing in the last five years.
Right. The filming and posting is not incidental anymore. It's the engine.
Let's start with the size question, because Daniel asked it first and it's the one where the honest answer is nobody knows.
Nobody knows, and the people who study this are explicit about it. There's a paper from last year looking at urbex across the Visegrad countries, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and the authors say plainly that no serious quantification has ever been published. The activity is illegal, so you can't draw a representative sample. You can't survey people who by definition don't want to be identified.
Which means every number you see is a proxy. Subscriber counts, hashtag views, arrest records.
And the proxies are enormous. The urbex hashtag on TikTok has passed thirteen point seven billion views. Billion with a B.
Thirteen billion views of people standing in damp concrete rooms.
Some of it's beautiful. Some of it's a fourteen year old falling through a skylight in an abandoned Debenhams in Plymouth, which happened in February.
There's the through-line. The same hashtag contains both.
The community itself resists definition. One of the New York explorers quoted in a piece last month described it as a web of people with similar interests, not a rigid group. Pretty clique-y, very inner inner circles. And the inner circles exist because location secrecy is the whole currency.
If you post the coordinates, the place gets trashed.
That's the line. It'll get completely trashed if people find it. So the people who've been doing this for twenty years are horrified by the TikTok wave, because the new generation posts everything with enough metadata to find the building in ninety seconds.
Which means the community is simultaneously growing and fragmenting. The veterans are pulling away from the newcomers at the exact moment the newcomers are making the activity famous.
And the veterans are publicly telling kids to stop. There's a UK channel with about a hundred and fifty thousand subscribers that put out a video essentially saying do not do what we do if you're under eighteen. The community is policing itself against its own imitators.
Which is a strange position. The old guard built the aesthetic, the new generation monetized it, and now the old guard is standing in the ruins saying please stop monetizing the ruins.
Bradley Garrett, the geographer who did his PhD by climbing cranes with London explorers, put it well. For a lot of young kids it's a moonshot. If I can get into these places and get amazing photos and get a huge amount of likes, I can become an influencer.
So the size is unknowable but the growth is real. The Visegrad study used Google Trends over a decade and found interest rising across all four countries, with Czechia the most intense.
And in the UK, the police guidance from twenty eighteen noted that a few British explorers already had over a million followers each. That was eight years ago, before the current wave.
So what are we actually looking at? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Millions of casual viewers who never climb anything?
I'd say the active core, the people who actually enter abandoned sites, is probably in the tens of thousands globally. The passive audience is in the hundreds of millions. The overlap is where the danger lives, because the passive audience is full of fourteen year olds who think a million views is worth a skylight fall.
That's the community. Now the magnets. Daniel asked which cities pull these people.
Detroit comes up in every conversation. The Rust Belt capital. One explorer said Detroit alone could fill a lifetime. The scale of abandonment there is unlike anywhere else in the US.
Because the city literally depopulated. You've got entire neighborhoods, schools, factories, theaters, all empty, all within a few square miles.
And Gary, Indiana is the Midwest's urbex capital. Which is a title you earn by having the most spectacular industrial decay per square foot in the region.
Gary, Indiana. The city that makes Detroit look optimistic.
New York is a different category. It's not about abandonment, it's about layers. Steve Duncan, who's been doing this in New York since the nineties, talks about the city being built in many different layers, and if he can get deeper into those layers he can go further into the past. He's walked forty blocks underground in near pitch dark.
Forty blocks. In the sewers.
Forty blocks. The manhole covers are twenty six inches across, standard, and he just drops in and walks.
I need to sit with that number. Forty blocks underground in the dark, in a sewer, voluntarily.
The New York explorers are also climbing bridges, rooftops, the spire of the Empire State Building. That city is a magnet because the infrastructure is both spectacular and accessible, and because the legal response is, as we'll get to, weirdly lenient.
Europe's different. Berlin is one of the iconic destinations. Cold War sites, abandoned amusement parks, the whole twentieth century sitting there empty.
Germany has over eight hundred tracked abandoned locations. France has the broadest mix, Belgium is dense enough that you can hit multiple sites in a single trip. Italy has frescoed villas and ghost towns. Poland, Spain, the UK.
And the UK has its own weird specificity. Plymouth's fourteen story civic centre, empty since twenty fifteen. Oldway Mansion in Paignton. A former amusement park in Helston.
Bretton Hall near Wakefield. These are all places that local kids know about and national explorers travel to.
Chongqing in China is the one that surprises people. Over five hundred documented abandoned places across China, and Chongqing is described as one of the most extraordinary urbex experiences on the continent.
The verticality of Chongqing. The city's built on mountains, so you get these massive empty structures stacked on hillsides. It's a different kind of abandonment.
So the magnets break into types. The Rust Belt cities are magnets because the economy left. The global capitals are magnets because the infrastructure is iconic. The European cities are magnets because the twentieth century left a lot of concrete behind. And Chongqing is a magnet because it's Chongqing.
Daniel also asked about the IBM Somers complex in Westchester. That's a documented magnet, and it's a useful case study because it's not a city at all. It's a suburban office campus that IBM abandoned, and it's drawn forty two arrests since February.
Forty two arrests at one abandoned office park in seven months.
New York State Police announced eight more in June. The place is apparently full of explorers, and the police have made it a priority.
Which brings us to the third question. How do the people who own and maintain this stuff actually see it?
This is where the research gets interesting, because the owners have a very different view from the police, and it's not what you'd expect.
The owners are not calling the police.
They've learned not to bother. In the UK, trespass is a civil matter. The police rarely show any interest. The shopping centre operators put out formal guidance in twenty eighteen saying exactly that. The police won't act, so the owners pursue civil injunctions instead.
Which is a weird legal tool. You get a court order that says this person cannot enter this property, and if they do, it's contempt of court, which means prison or a fine.
And the guidance says the urbex community respects these injunctions. They're typically one to five years, and they actually change behavior. A trespasser who laughs at a no trespassing sign will take an injunction seriously.
Because a no trespassing sign is a request. An injunction is a judge saying I will personally ruin your year.
That's the mechanism. The owners figured out that the civil courts are more useful than the criminal justice system for this particular problem.
But the owners are also spending real money. Plymouth City Council said they've had several reports of people trying to break into the civic centre and had to commission extra security. Their words: this costs money.
And the civic centre is a live site with asbestos and empty lift shafts. The council isn't just protecting property value, they're protecting people from falling down a shaft or disturbing asbestos.
The asbestos point is the one that doesn't get enough attention. The Rochdale factory owners warned that trespassers risk disturbing cancer causing fibres. An abandoned asbestos factory is not just a cool photo location. It's a building full of a material that kills you twenty years later.
And the fire services make the same argument from a different angle. Cheshire's fire service put it bluntly. Firefighters are going to put their lives at risk unnecessarily when they have to rescue someone from a collapsed floor.
So the owners and maintainers see it as a cost. Security costs, legal costs, and the cost of having to rescue people from their own decisions.
And they see it as growing. The Revo guidance calls it a significant and growing problem. They track roof topping, in-out challenges where someone enters by bike or go kart, overnight challenges in cinemas and theme parks and pools.
In-out challenges. The idea that you have to get in and out of a shopping centre on a go kart and film it.
That's the gamification. The building becomes a level to beat.
Which leaves the fourth question. How do the police actually respond?
The answer is it depends entirely on where you are, and the variation is wild.
Give me the range.
In New York City, an explorer named Cleet said the police were great about it and his court case was dismissed immediately. He's been arrested, charged, and walked away with no consequences.
In Westchester County, forty two people arrested at IBM Somers since February, charged with misdemeanor criminal trespass.
In North Wales, the police put out a statement four days ago, September thirteenth, that's about as aggressive as it gets. They explicitly reject the civil trespass defense. Their words: you will be arrested, any items that may have evidence such as phones and recording devices will be seized.
And they mocked the online advice. There seems to be some not so great advice online, advising that you just tell the police it's civil trespass and the police will bow down to your amazing legal expertise. Not here.
That's a police force doing PR, but the underlying point is real. The civil trespass defense is true in England and Wales as a matter of law, but it doesn't stop an arrest if the officer suspects burglary or criminal damage.
And once you've got bolt cutters or a crowbar, you've crossed the line from trespass to going equipped for burglary.
Devon and Cornwall Police put it in terms of resources. PC Mike Smith said while we're having to constantly attend these buildings and secure them and remove people and deal with the damage inside, we can't be dealing with actual crime.
That's the police framing. Every abandoned Debenhams callout is a car not responding to a domestic.
And the North Wales line about seizing phones is significant. The phone is the whole point of the activity for the social media generation. If the police seize the phone, they've seized the evidence and the incentive in one move.
So the legal landscape is a patchwork. New York City dismisses cases. Westchester County charges misdemeanors. North Wales seizes phones. Devon and Cornwall complains about resources. And the explorers themselves have no idea which jurisdiction they're in until the officer shows up.
There's a generational split in how the community talks about this. The older explorers, the ones who've been doing it for decades, tend to understand the law and avoid the confrontations. The TikTok kids believe the myth that trespass is always civil and the police will always walk away.
And that myth is now being actively dismantled by police forces who are tired of pulling teenagers out of collapsed buildings.
The eighteen year old explorer in the BBC piece said we're not doing anything illegal. There's an unspoken rule, take only photos and leave only footprints. And then he said it's the same as going into a museum really. Why aren't we held to the same expectations?
Because museums have insurance and working fire exits.
And because the museum wants you there. That's the distinction the eighteen year old missed. The building owner's consent is the whole difference between a museum and a crime scene.
The owners would say the photo is the problem. The photo is what brings the next fifty people.
And the next fifty people bring the vandalism. The location secrecy code exists because every time a location goes public, it gets stripped for copper or trashed.
So we've got the four answers Daniel asked for. The community is uncountable but clearly growing, driven by social media. The magnets are the Rust Belt, the global capitals, Berlin, the UK industrial towns, Chongqing. The owners see it as a cost and use civil injunctions because the police won't act. And the police response varies from dismissal to phone seizure depending on the jurisdiction.
But there's a fifth thing that's been nagging at me through all of this.
Go on.
The safety externality. The firefighter who has to go into the asbestos factory to rescue a sixteen year old didn't choose to explore anything. He's there because someone else made a bad decision and filmed it.
And the fourteen year old who fell through the skylight in Plymouth. He didn't understand that a skylight from the nineteen eighties can't hold his weight. He learned it the hard way, and a rescue crew had to deal with the result.
The fire service framing is the one that's hardest to argue with. You can have a philosophical debate about whether abandoned buildings should be open to the public. You can't have a philosophical debate about whether a firefighter should have to risk their life because someone wanted a cool photo.
The owners would also point out that security costs money that could go to something else. Plymouth City Council isn't spending on extra security because they enjoy it. That's money not spent on services.
And the injunction approach is interesting because it's one of the few places where a legal tool actually changes behavior in this space. The explorers respect injunctions. They don't respect signs. That tells you something about what actually deters people.
It tells you that the threat of prison works better than the threat of a fine. A no trespassing sign is a fine nobody ever collects. An injunction is a judge who will remember your name.
Hilbert: The thing nobody's mentioned is the copper.
Say more.
Hilbert: All these abandoned places, they've got copper wire in the walls, copper pipe in the ceilings, brass fittings. The explorer with the camera goes in and takes photos. The scrappers go in the next week and take everything else. The photos are the map.
That's the location secrecy problem in a different form. The photo doesn't just bring more explorers, it brings people who want the copper.
Hilbert: I did building maintenance in the early two thousands. We had a vacant warehouse in Cleveland, old garment factory. The owners paid for a security guard, cameras, the whole thing. The explorers still got in. They posted photos of the loading dock. Two weeks later the scrappers stripped every inch of copper out of that building. Took the pipe right out of the walls. The owners ended up paying more for the damage than the security.
So the photo is the advertisement for the salvage operation.
Hilbert: The explorers think they're documenting history. The scrappers see a parts list.
That's a consequence the owners live with and the explorers never see. They take their photo and leave, and a month later the building's been gutted.
Hilbert: The injunction thing is real, though. We had one kid who kept coming back. The owners got an injunction, and he stopped. Not because he suddenly respected the law. Because the judge told him the next time he'd do thirty days. That's different from a sign.
The judge made it personal.
Hilbert: Judges are good at that.
The copper angle adds another layer to the owner's frustration. It's not just the trespass, it's the cascade. The explorer documents, the scrapper follows, the building loses whatever residual value it had.
The insurance company gets involved, and suddenly the owner's premiums go up because the building's been flagged as a target.
Hilbert: Insurance companies don't like paying for copper theft. They'll drop you.
The whole thing becomes a spiral. The building's abandoned, so it attracts explorers, so it attracts scrappers, so it becomes more expensive to insure, so it stays abandoned longer.
Which is the opposite of what the explorers say they want. They say they're documenting places before they're gone. But the documentation accelerates the going.
Hilbert: Nobody thinks about the copper until it's gone.
There's one more thing I want to pull from the research, because it complicates the picture. The explorer who said police in New York were great about it and his case was dismissed immediately. That's not because New York police love urban explorers. It's because the courts are overwhelmed and a trespass case against someone with no priors is not a priority.
The leniency is not a philosophy, it's a queue.
The same activity in Westchester County gets a misdemeanor charge because the state police have the resources and the IBM Somers site has become a specific problem. Forty two arrests sends a message.
In North Wales, the police have decided the message is worth sending because they're dealing with a wave of teenagers in an asbestos factory.
The July Empire State Building spire climb is the wildcard. That couple climbed to the spire, which is about as high profile as it gets. If they're charged, it's a deterrent. If they're not, it's an advertisement.
The amNewYork piece referenced it as a driver of publicity. The climb itself becomes content, and the content becomes the reason more people climb.
Which is the loop that makes this so hard to regulate. The enforcement becomes part of the content. Getting arrested is a story. Getting away with it is a story. Either way, the views go up.
The police are in an impossible position. Enforce and you create martyrs. Don't enforce and you create a free for all.
The North Wales approach is the most coherent response. Arrest, seize the phone, make it clear that the civil trespass defense won't work. It's not about punishing the individual, it's about breaking the content loop.
Because without the phone, there's no video. Without the video, there's no views. Without the views, there's no incentive.
The eighteen year old in the BBC piece said it himself. It's the same as going into a museum. He's not wrong about the experience. He's wrong about the incentive structure. Museums don't need to arrest people to stay solvent.
The misconception here, and I think this is the one Daniel's question is really poking at, is that urban exploration is one thing. It's not. It's at least three things bolted together.
The historian who wants to document a place before it's demolished. The thrill seeker who wants to climb something and feel alive. And the content creator who wants the views. Sometimes they're the same person at different times. Sometimes they're in direct conflict.
The law can't tell them apart. A trespass charge doesn't care whether you were there for the history or the views.
The owners can't tell them apart either. The historian and the scrapper both show up after the photo goes online.
Daniel asked how big the community is. The honest answer is it's as big as thirteen billion views can make it, and as small as the inner circle that knows where the good locations are.
The magnets are the places where abandonment is visible enough to be found but obscure enough to feel like a discovery. Detroit, Gary, Berlin, Chongqing, the abandoned IBM campus in Westchester.
The owners see a cost. The police see a resource drain. The firefighters see a rescue they shouldn't have to make. And the explorers see a museum without the admission fee.
The one thing everyone agrees on is that the photo is the problem. The photo is the map, the advertisement, the evidence, and the incentive all at once.
The photo is why this won't go away. The buildings will keep emptying out, the phones will keep getting better, and the views will keep going up.
The question Daniel didn't ask, but I think is underneath all four of his, is whether this gets worse before it gets better. And I think the answer is yes, because the economic conditions that create abandoned buildings aren't going anywhere, and the social media incentives that create explorers aren't either.
We're going to keep seeing fourteen year olds falling through skylights and police forces seizing phones and city councils paying for extra security. The only thing that changes is the scale.
The scale and the sophistication. The injunction approach will spread, because it's the one thing that actually works. And the police will get better at separating the historian from the scrapper from the kid with a death wish.
I keep coming back to the firefighter in the asbestos factory. That's the person who didn't sign up for any of this. The explorer chose the risk. The owner chose the abandonment. The police chose the enforcement strategy. The firefighter just responds.
The firefighter's argument is the one that's hardest to answer. You can say the building should be open, you can say trespass should be civil, you can say the photos are valuable documentation. None of that changes the fact that someone has to go in and pull you out when the floor gives way.
That's the external cost the community doesn't price in. The photo is free. The rescue is not.
The rescue is paid for by the same public that the explorer is performing for.
There's the closing loop. The audience that watches the video is the same public that funds the fire service that has to rescue the person who made the video.
We should probably let Hilbert get home. He's been sitting on the copper thing for twenty minutes.
That's the show. Thanks to Hilbert Flumingtop for producing, and for the copper perspective.
This has been My Weird Prompts, the human AI collaboration podcast.
If you want to send us a prompt, email us at show at my weird prompts dot com.
We'll be back soon.
