Flint Michigan Update – ABC TV’s nightline will probably be running a piece tonight on the situation in Flint Michigan. The “Progressive” answer to the now 6,000 abandoned houses in the city (and Flint isn’t that big) is to bulldoze them and return the land to the “land bank” to let the city revert to nature.
Realtytrac.com lists 2902 houses that banks and people are still trying to sell – there are 631 houses in the city for $10,000 in less, if anyone is interested in buying up a city and starting a cult.
Looked up the condo complex (in the “suburbs” of Flint) where I used to live – I sold my unit for about $60k when I left Michigan in 1998. Before the real estate bubble burst, RealtyTrac says last year the unit was “worth” about $130,0000. Similar unit is listed now for $41,500 and has been on the market for a year. How’s that GM Flint thing working out, Michael Moore?
If “progressives” believe that flattening Flint is the best idea for urban blight, why don’t they increase the scope of their vision to include most of Detroit as well? For as much of an economic black hole as that city has become, returning it to productive farmland would increase property values in Wayne county. As for the residents, why not offer them one way tickets to Cuba, so they can have “the best healthcare in the world” (according to CBS’ 60 Minutes).
The city council of Detroit was considering exactly that a few years ago… to cut down the expenses of law enforcement and fire protection, they proposed putting up walls around large areas of Detroit and abandoning them.
In the filrm Roger & Me, Moore alludes to how Flint initially tried to deal with its problems. When downtown turned into nothing but vacant storefronts, the city hired artists to come to town to paint “fake stores” on the buildings so people wouldn’t realize the buildings were vacant. I vaguely remember seeing that on 60 minutes or some similar show.
Their next attempt was to create “Auto World” a theme park showing you Hollywood’s concept of how cars are made – and turn Flint into a tourist destination. The only conventions it ever held were labor unions before the hotel went bankrupt and reverted to the city. Auto World was absorbed by the University of Michigan, the school that Michael Moore dropped out of after one semester.
Google Maps has Street View coverage of the city. If you go there, it will offer you a link created by some clever person that maps all of the houses that are on the city’s list to be demolished. Most of it appears to be the housing stock on either side of what used to be Buick’s plant – very cheap construction probably built in the 1920s to house “workers” within walking distance of the factory.