Kristiena Sartorelli wrote an interesting list for Movoto of “29 Things You Need to Know About Flint Before You Move There.” It is a positive piece of boosterism, pretty well researched, and, in that sense, a welcome change from the sort of coverage we usually get.
However, it occurred to me that, in focusing almost exclusively on things to do in Flint, it is better as a list of things to know about Flint before you “visit” there, than “move” there. After all, visiting is mostly a question about your interests, your scheduling, and your pocketbook. Moving to a place means wrapping your whole life up in it. As someone who has spent the last twenty years of my life trying to get people to move to Flint, I thought my own list would go a little something like this:
29 Things You Need To Know About Flint Before You Move There
1. People From Flint Like Their Coney Island Hot Dog Their Way
Sartorelli was perfectly correct on thing #1; I wouldn’t change it at all.
2. You can move into a nice house in Flint for less than it will cost you to lease a parking space in some cities.
According to City-Data.com, the median home value in Flint in 2012 was $32,000.
3. Have a job lined up before you move.
At 17.6%, Flint’s unemployment is about twice the national average.
4. You’ll be moving into a city with many big-city amenities…
Within city limits you’ve got the Cultural Center (with multiple museums, performance venues, and one of the Midwest’s largest Planetariums), a very well-regarded farmers’ market, and a full lineup of cultural events throughout the year. When you consider assets just outside of city limits, like the Genesee County Parks System, the list increases.
5. …many of which the city is divesting itself due to inability to meet maintenance costs.
Large swaths of the dozens of meticulously landscaped parks have gone to seed and many haven’t seen a lawnmower in years. Other assets, like property downtown or Atwood Stadium, are deeded away to the colleges or developers. On that note:
6. You don’t get to elect meaningful leadership.
The city is run by a state-appointed Emergency Manager. Although residents can now elect their city council members, their powers are chiefly symbolic.
7. The Emergency Manager is largely in place because the state stiffed Flint on tens of millions of dollars in revenue sharing.
Michigan withheld over $54 million dollars of its standing budgetary commitment to revenue sharing with Flint; enough to eliminate the current emergency.
8. Flint is a city with a lot of racial tension.
Hoo boy, this one is complicated. This is oversimplified, but up through the 1960s, minorities were held back from jobs in the auto industry and consigned to dense, polluted, poorly-located, and expensive neighborhoods near the factories. The passage of the open-housing ordinance in 1969 coincided with the construction of the interstates and widespread block busting and White Flight. Flint today is over 60% African-American and over 30% Caucasian. There are poor white neighborhoods and poor black neighborhoods, but the majority of stable, wealthy neighborhoods are white and these also benefit from central locations, better city services, and perks like security coverage from local universities. Activists have also argued that initiatives like the new Master Plan are primarily a voice for the interests of predominately white, suburban development interests (read “gentrification”). Many parts of Flint are also severely segregated. This long and sometimes tragic history has imbued every discussion of local politics or public policy with a palpable sense of racial tension, that too-often goes unrecognized and unanswered in official conversation.
9. Flint’s athletic, musical, artistic, and cultural bona-fides are legit.
Local boosterism can get carried away, but everything good you might hear about Flint’s cultural scene is absolutely legit. From ? and the Mysterians to the Dayton Family, from the young punk rockers of the Local 432 to the big name acts that drive up north from Detroit to the Machine Shop, Flint is and long has been a happening place for music. Ditto this for our athletic legacies (both Mateen Cleaves and Claressa Shields trained at Berston Field House on the North Side), and our arts scene (institutions like the Ruth Mott Foundation, the Flint Institute of Arts, and Buckham Gallery provide a supportive environment for local artists, just as home grown theater troupes have cultivated a nationally recognized style).
10. Flint is proud of its history…
Check out any of the museums or historical plaques. Or better, ask any old timer about “the good old days.”
11. …sometimes, even too proud.
In fact, Flint can get so wrapped-up in the glories of its wealthy, prestigious, influential past that it short-changes its present innovators and residents, who often have to carve out a new path, in new directions (from urban farming to street art). This isn’t an ephemeral pride; it acts in the chambers of our government, and holds back Flint by refusing it to grow into the city it could be in the future. Anti-poultry ordinance, I’m looking at you.
12. We have a lively expatriates community.
Since so many people left, Flint has networks across state lines and international borders. I have been helped to find, and have helped others find, jobs in Chicago through connections with other Flintstones. This Flint diaspora benefits the city (and complicates our identity) in endlessly fascinating and unforeseen ways. Check out http://www.flintexpats.com.
13. While your house will be cheap, you will pay over $100 per month for water.
There are a lot of reasons: aging infrastructure, legacies of higher water cost from Detroit, and most significantly the fact that the city has repeatedly (and illegally) dipped into the water fund to pay off its unfunded pension obligations.
14. People will grumble about public transit, not recognizing that by American standards our public transit is actually quite good.
Don’t be in a hurry, but MTA will get you from point A to point B, in the city or the suburbs, for a walk of a few blocks and a dollar and change.
15. If you call the police, they may not come for hours, if they come at all.
That is because Flint has, in its entire police force, only about one officer per 700 residents. Worse, more public safety cuts are looming in the future.
16. If you live in a stable neighborhood, the high crime rates won’t affect you that much. If you live in most of the city, you have to be much more careful.
As is true across America, much violent crime is connected with the illegal drug trade, which is, in turn, driven by poverty, hopelessness, and a lack-of-opportunity. Neighborhoods near the colleges, Downtown, and employment opportunities deal with garden variety property crimes and, at worst, scrappers, but fairly little violent crime. Violent crime is endemic throughout much of the North, South, East, and West Sides.
17. It is true that Flint is now a “college town.”
With over 20,000 students spread among three institutions within city limits (U of M Flint, Mott Community College, Kettering University, and a fourth if you include nearby Baker), this is a real claim, with real cultural and economic benefits.
18. It is also true that Flint has a graduation rate of well under 40%
The Flint Community Schools are losing hundreds of students a year, while charter and private schools are also struggling. Some suburban schools, absorbing hundreds of students from the city, are at full capacity and strained to provide for all of their students.
19. Vacancy is at a decades-low along Saginaw Street in Downtown Flint.
New businesses have sprung up, many catering to the college crowd: well-managed and fun businesses like Blackstones, the Lunch Studio, Cafe Rhema, the Flint Crepe Co., Paul’s Pipe Shop, Cork, the Torch, and others.
20. Saginaw Street is just one street Downtown.
The district covers over a half square-mile by most definitions and still has daunting vacancy rates.
21. Downtown covers only a half square-mile of a city more than 60 times that size.
22. Many residents feel that investment downtown has come at the expense of opportunities to invest in neighborhoods.
These have seen such drastic losses as water shutoffs, downed power lines, unmowed lots in public areas, and potholes and sinkholes that will eat your car.
23. If you’ve guessed from all of the above that Flint is a city divided by both class and race then you are right.
Essentially, the whole region has taken a hit since the auto industry downsized. Thus, suburbanites think they’re living through lean times, Flintstones in stable neighborhoods think they’re living through hard times, and the 80% of Flintstones living in destablized and depopulated neighborhoods know they’re living in hard times. Everyone feels that they’ve gotten the short end of the stick and that it’s not their fault.
24. There’s a lot of negativity, all the time.
The national media certainly doesn’t help by only profiling the negative stats (typically in nuance-free clickbait compressions of FBI crime stats — notably compiled in what the FBI considers to be a reckless and unsound manner). This negativity can be relentless. It overcomes almost everyone from time to time.
25. That said, we are national leaders in charitable giving and volunteerism.
Negativity isn’t the whole story: http://www.mlive.com/business/mid-michigan/index.ssf/2012/12/volunteerism_strong_in_flint_r.html
26. Church involvement is a chief driver of #25, and Flint is a surprisingly diverse community for religious practice.
Both the city and the suburbs serve Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, and Buddhist communities, as well as assertive and organized humanist groups.
27. Sometimes the beauty is bizarre, by typical American standards.
By 2011, Pierce Golf Course had reverted to a full prairie in the midst of a neighborhood planted with lush trees; deer and heron are commonly sighted. They don’t care about the noise of nearby I-69 or the Dort Highway Red Light District. To them, this makes a good home. When a new owner bought the golf course, it was mowed. But that plan fell through, and now the park is becoming a prairie once again. You learn not to fight this, but to see beauty wherever you happen upon it.
28. This city is a study in contrasts.
The rotten things are undeniably rotten. The good things are truly good. You learn to live with paradox.
29. Sartorelli gave shoutouts to a lot of great places, I just want to add to the list a bit: Pasadena Ave. Dawn Donuts, Max Brandon Park, Kearsley Park, the Starlite Coney Island (um, technically Burton, but…), the Atlas Coney Island, the Dort Mall, La Azteca, El Potrero’s, the Olympic Coney Island, McKinley Park, and the Golden Leaf Club.
BONUS: Some people will say Flintoids and some will say Flintstones. It’s your choice.