My Hometown
Flint, MI is my hometown. I moved there when I was 6 years old and stayed through high school. My mom and step-dad still live there, my brother and his family just outside the city. It is a community that taught me about the issue of class (an almost taboo word in this country); our schools were integrated, and race was far less of a concern among my classmates than our disdain for the rich kids in the suburbs and at the private schools (well, some of them anyway…*ha*). My experience there has had a huge influence on my politics and my values, on how I see the world; I am proud of the person I have become and my experiences growing up in Flint have a ton to do with that. But it is, as those of us who left the city say, a great place to be “from”, not so much a great place to be anymore. It is a town built on a troubled, dying buisiness (domestic automobile manufacturing) and it is a difficult thing to watch the city in such a tragic state of decline and disrepair. Today, the NY Times published an article about Dan Kildee’s plan to demolish blocks and neighborhoods in Flint.
Instead of waiting for houses to become abandoned and then pulling them down, local leaders are talking about demolishing entire blocks and even whole neighborhoods. The population would be condensed into a few viable areas. So would stores and services. A city built to manufacture cars would be returned in large measure to the forest primeval. “Decline in Flint is like gravity, a fact of life,” said Dan Kildee, the Genesee County treasurer and chief spokesman for the movement to shrink Flint. “We need to control it instead of letting it control us.”
Dan has been advocating this plan for years; I have known Dan personally for a long time (his sister is a good friend of mine) and I don’t disagree with this plan for a lot of reasons. But it feels counterintuitive in so many ways. I remember when they were pulling down one of the GM factories in town a few years back, and there was a huge sign on the fence surround the site that said “Demolition Means Progress.” They have actually adopted that motto for the retraction campaign, which troubled me, because it was a great irony to see GM pretending that demolishing a factory was somehow helping the community. But with these homes and neighborhoods, who am I to judge? In the case of so many abandoned homes, hitting the re-set button may prove the right move. The city is even considering tearing down my High School, which is a very sad moment for me. One of my old teachers wrote an Op-Ed in the local paper, which speaks directly to my own experience at the school;
“Before the Flint Board of Education abandons the site (which will still mean significant on-going financial responsibility), or before it sells it to any other group, the people of Flint need to look carefully at what they will be losing. I challenge anyone reading this to find another high school with a public library, art center, planetarium, theater, music center and museums directly across its driveway. Add to that a vibrant community college and a rapidly developing and expanding university within four city blocks of the high school and you have an educational setting most communities can only dream about.”
My Alma Mater Is On The Ropes
Dayne Walling, one of my old schoolmates, is running for Mayor and he is a really positive, smart person who I think could do a lot to change the city. He was a Rhodes Scholar (and so modest, he didn’t even include it in his bio!) and has always been a passionate advocate for Flint. The election is May 5, and I truly hope he wins and brings some serious innovation to city government. I’m not sure why I am writing about this here, but I am feeling down tonight. It was weird to see my hometown on the front page of the NYTimes website, especially in a story advocating a massive retraction and demolition. I’m worried about the place that shaped me. Here’s hoping Flint pulls through.
Hrrrumpf! “old teacher?” I’ll have you know I’m aging well physically while managing to stay young mentally. At least that’s what the attendants tell me.
Your blog brought back many fond memories of Flint Central and Flint during less depressing times and I am happy that your time here had such a positive affect on you. It was a time when the emphasis was on learning how we can do things rather than devising excuses for why we can’t. Fortunately, we have people like Dayne and Jim Ananich (city council president) among others who have not given up on this town and are trying to move it in a more positive direction.
As I see it, Flint is really struggling with two major problems. The need for new sources of employment is of course critical to our survival. But with only a few exceptions flint’s history of conflict resolution rests on confrontation more than cooperation. Kids in this town grew up learning three R’s and one ‘s’ - strike!
The problem with conflict confrontation that leads to strikes of course is that regardless of the outcome, each side tends to walk away wondering if they could have gotten more. This in turn creates a mindset of suspicion and guardedness in which individuals tend to find it easier to find reasons not to show initiative and creativity than to work toward change for the common good.
That’s why I believe Flint’s future rests on the shoulders of your generation (no pressure). You folks know how to achieve goals by working cooperatively with people holding widely divergent opinions I guess all that Model U.N. experience paid off.
Again, good to make contact, and keep up the good work.
Thanks for this post. It captures the mixed feelings I have about systematically shrinking Flint. Logically, it makes sense. The city has lost half its population, going from 200,000 to around 100,000 today. That means a lot of empty, decaying houses stripped of plumbing, wiring and just about everything else. It’s smart for the city to systematically address this problem. At the same time, it’s hard to accept bulldozing what were once thriving neighborhoods when Flint, believe it or not, had the highest per capita income in the U.S.
As for Flint Central High, the city is absolutely nuts if they close that school. I’d argue that with the city’s declining high-school age population, they should restore Central, add on to it, and close every other public high school in Flint. In a few years, there will only be about 4,500 kids going to high school in the city anyway, according to projections.
http://www.flintexpats.com
I’m one of those who have stayed behind. Flint has great potential but we need to let go of the automotive industry. Things are happening in the area of education - U of M Flint is expanding, we have Kettering University and Mott Community College. There is a great opportunity to become a college town! I personally am excited to see what the future has in store for Flint.
Thanks, Tom. Having shared my time at Central with you, I share the heartbreak. Go Dayne!
Being a mouthy kid from Flint I made up a pat explanation for why I am that way: “When you’re from Flint they teach you to speak up for what is right; they just never teach you how to shut up about it.”
Thank-you for this Tom. Being from Flint myself, I know it a defining part of who I am. A few years ago, I was driving down either James P. Cole or Boulevard Drive to the Farmer’s Market, the long way from my parent’s house in Flushing and I drove past the former cite of Buick City and saw that exact sign: Demolition Means Progress. I was full of Flinty-style outrage. The better word for what I experienced was confusion. What type of progress? What part of our history was and is being erased by tearing down that which makes up the city? I understand that it is unlikely for Flint to return to that which it once was, a one company town, and thank goodness, however bold leadership (Go Dayne! and a bunch of urban planners) will help it become what it is to be. I admire friends who live in Flint and are making a vibrant community for themselves, they are who are going to make the difference. It is the only thing that ever has right?
Oh that’s sad. I hope you guys can go through this and stop the demolition. It’s very hard too see your home being wrecked by other people. We really can’t say goodbye to yesterday because this what made us what we are today. Good luck. Hope your friend wins the election.
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