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Demeralda
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Someone sent me this article, I hadn't seen it before. Pardon if it's a repeat posting.
Back from the dead
Oct 25th 2007 | CLEVELAND AND FLINT
From The Economist print edition
Glimmers of hope in two of America's industrial cities
FLINT, Buffalo, Dayton, Saginaw—for years these names have read like tombstones in the graveyard of America's rustbelt. But something is changing in Flint, Michigan, the symbol of industrial gloom. Like other rustbelt cities, Flint's population rose on the back of manufacturing (Flint was the birthplace of General Motors). Then came the white exodus to the suburbs and deindustrialisation, with Flint's ruin made famous in a film by Michael Moore. Flint's population is now just more than half what it was in 1960. One-third of its residents are officially poor.
But there are glints of progress, and not just because GM is building a new factory. Construction workers are beginning to transform the downtown area. There is a heated contest for mayor: Dayne Walling, a Flint-born Rhodes scholar brimming with good ideas, is challenging Don Williamson, the incumbent, in November's election. Flint is trying to chart its own course. And it is not alone. A faint spirit of change is wafting through some of the rustbelt's grimmest streets.
Scholars at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, DC, think-tank, argue that America's old industrial cities can indeed rise again. Big cities such as New York and Chicago have experienced a rebirth, thanks in part to fine mayors and a surge of immigration and new business in the 1990s. Most rustbelt cities have had a more modest revival or none at all. But urban optimists insist that the renaissance can spread: cities are the natural centres of the new knowledge economy and will only grow more appealing to young people and ageing baby-boomers, who want amenities near their homes.
Still, there is much work to be done. Key to any revival are basic improvements: a city must be safe, its rubbish collected, its schools adequate. How to make a city viable in the long term is an unresolved question. But a few places are trying to provide answers.
An early task is to address the physical problems. Some 16m people live in America's old industrial cities; they will not stay if their downtowns look abandoned. In Flint a shrinking population and high foreclosure rates (not a new trend in this town) mean you can hardly go a block without seeing a decrepit house. Blighted buildings are like cancerous cells: they spread crime and lower nearby property values, gnawing away at Flint's shrunken tax base. Many cities share this problem. In Youngstown, Ohio, the mayor plans to tear down blighted areas so he can save threatened but still viable neighbourhoods.
A small band in Flint is following a less radical but still imaginative strategy. Dan Kildee, the county treasurer, founded a land bank in 2002 that acquires abandoned buildings through foreclosure, then readies them to be sold and returned to the tax rolls. The bank, which won Harvard's innovation award in September, claims to have increased property values by more than $112m so far.
Also in Flint are LISC, part of a national non-profit group that channels grants and loans toward community work, and Uptown Developments, which is using so-called “baklava financing”—layers of private investment, loans, grants, federal and state tax credits—to build residential lofts as well as retail and office space downtown. Together, these groups are trying to make Flint liveable, a city that might lure a start-up or retain its students after graduation. Mr Williamson has helped by repaving hundreds of miles of roads. Mr Walling, if elected, plans to harness this work under a broader plan for downtown, its surrounding neighbourhoods, three local colleges and medical centres.
The physical task is serious enough. Addressing the rustbelt's structural economic problems is a much thornier question. Cleveland is slowly experiencing the physical renaissance sought in Flint, with new museums, a university building designed by Frank Gehry, a plan to reclaim the lakefront and another to improve transport between downtown and a hub of universities and hospitals. But to tackle its larger economic woes, the city is tying its fate to the rest of north-east Ohio.
Making use of the hinterland
A more regional approach can benefit not only inner cities, but their surroundings as well. For decades cities and suburbs have competed for jobs, residents and state and federal aid to ill effect. To change this, the Fund for Economic Future, an alliance of foundations in north-east Ohio, worked with civic and business leaders from 16 counties to launch a regional scheme in March. The plan includes supporting companies that build on local strengths, such as Cleveland's universities and medical centres (the Cleveland Clinic is America's leading hospital for cardiac care), and improving workforce training for high-tech manufacturing, health care and other understaffed sectors.
The Fund is also exploring ways for the region's various governments (754 in all) to share revenue and rationalise services. Tax-sharing schemes have helped other struggling cities, including Dayton, Ohio and Rochester, New York. Cleveland and some surrounding towns have already agreed to split taxes from businesses that move within the area; in exchange, Cleveland is providing water services.
These schemes to revive Flint, Cleveland and cities like them are making progress, but it is slow and uneven. Improvements in Cleveland in the 1990s were then threatened by recession, and the subprime crisis has not helped. Jennifer Vey of Brookings argues that local efforts could be bolstered by state support, which has been meagre. She points to Pennsylvania as a state with a strong urban agenda—Pennsylvania has the advantage of a governor, Ed Rendell, who was mayor of Philadelphia.
Even the most avid urban optimist does not expect these cities, having declined for decades, to recover overnight. Flint's home prices dropped by a startling 21% so far this year. On a recent afternoon in Cleveland, a “Believe in Cleveland” banner was matched by a nearby beggar with a sign that just read “Hungry”. But there are hints of progress where there was none. William McMickens, a cab driver and son of a factory worker in Cleveland, pointed to construction along Euclid Avenue: “When this is done, the whole city is going to change.” In these cities, long left for dead, a hard hat is a sign of hope. |
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Fri Nov 30, 2007 4:26 pm |
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twotap
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quote:
Have you ever seen the John Waters version of the movie Hairspray? I'm always struck by the scene where Penny's mother has to walk through the ghetto to get to the record store, and a black guy pops out and asks her for a dime. She immediately starts screaming, "take everything, just don't hurt me!" All the black people in the neighborhood are laughing at her because she's so scared of them. And though it's a caricature, you see what I'm driving at. Only exposure enlightens people like that, because they sure aren't hearing it.
Ah yes nothin like a good Hollywood flick to set the record straight.  What the hell does that have to do with private or home schooling. Try walking thru the northend of Flint alone some night now thats realism.. |
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Fri Nov 30, 2007 4:48 pm |
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Deena
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What a great article Desmerelda, and no, I hadn't seen it. I don't know how anyone can go through the downtown and UM/F area and not gain a bit of optimism about Flint. There will be people LIVING downtown and amenities cannot help but follow. I'm half dreaming of opening a bakery down there in a year or two. I'm a "glass half full" kinda gal and I do like what I see happening.
Does anyone know the latest update on the status of the Durant Hotel? I sure love that building. |
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Fri Nov 30, 2007 4:53 pm |
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twotap
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quote:
I'm half dreaming of opening a bakery down there in a year or two. I'm a "glass half full" kinda gal and I do like what I see happening.
Let me know if you do Ill drive 125 mi south for a loaf of your homemade bread.  |
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Fri Nov 30, 2007 5:02 pm |
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Deena
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It would be worth it! I bake bread from flour imported from Canada. It's courser than flour milled here and the bread is to die for and the buns are even better! Be nice to meet you too. 
Besides, I like being home when school is out, and my daughter swims every evening. A bakery would be the business for me... |
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Fri Nov 30, 2007 5:09 pm |
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twotap
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Well even though I sound like a hardass right wing whacko I hope all those good things do happen for Flint. I have fond memorys of what downtown was. I guess we might as well end our somewhat 3 way  discussion about public vs private and call it a draw. Well with maybe a slight edge in my corner  . Hey did you see the pet photos thread on open chat? Got any pets lets see em. |
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Fri Nov 30, 2007 5:29 pm |
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Deena
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Do me a favor when you're next in Flint.
Go visit Whittier. I assure you that you will be pleasantly surprised. All of Flint seems to have such an inferiority complex that it does a poor job of tooting its own horn. This school is something to crow about. |
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Fri Nov 30, 2007 5:31 pm |
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twotap
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| Anything is possible, shall I tell em Deena sent me? |
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Fri Nov 30, 2007 5:34 pm |
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Dave Starr
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quote:
Deena schreef:
Do me a favor when you're next in Flint.
Go visit Whittier. I assure you that you will be pleasantly surprised. All of Flint seems to have such an inferiority complex that it does a poor job of tooting its own horn. This school is something to crow about.
It's great that we have an excellent school here. Now, about the rest of the Flint schools.......????? |
_________________
I used to care, but I take a pill for that now.
Pushing buttons sure can be fun.
When a lion wants to go somewhere, he doesn’t worry about how many hyenas are in the way.
Paddle faster, I hear banjos. |
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Fri Nov 30, 2007 6:20 pm |
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twotap
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| Deena, Demeralda? your up. |
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Fri Nov 30, 2007 7:48 pm |
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last time here
Guest
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where do you guys get all this negative information about flint schools
anyway??
sounds like an awful lot of assumptions. i think we have excellent
teachers. no better or worse than anyone else.  |
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Fri Nov 30, 2007 7:54 pm |
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Dave Starr
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| I base it on some of the papers the neighbor's kids bring home & show me. |
_________________
I used to care, but I take a pill for that now.
Pushing buttons sure can be fun.
When a lion wants to go somewhere, he doesn’t worry about how many hyenas are in the way.
Paddle faster, I hear banjos. |
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Sat Dec 01, 2007 8:56 am |
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last time here
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damn..just saw it today. flint did have a few schools that didn't make it.
thank god southwestern passed. |
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Sat Dec 01, 2007 10:13 pm |
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Deena
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And it's always worth noting why some schools don't pass. Most generally it has to do with the number of kids not tested, the percentage of special ed kids, or some other hokey reason. Until we recognize that the 100% passing that the government is mandating by 2011 AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN, we're all going to be disappointed in testing results. No matter how they tilt the test, ALL kids will never pass any test.
As for "the rest of the schools", I only have personal recent experience with one other. My daughter attended Pierce Elementary. It's a fine school, and the 5th, 6th grade campus at Sarvis provides a school experience that I'd challenge any kid not to love.
Honestly M r. Starr, you're looking for more than what's out there. Any kid determined to get a good education in FLint has that option readily available to them. When you begin talking about the papers your neighbor children showed you, did you ever wonder why their parents weren't on top of that situation? Teachers are responsible for about 25% of what kids learn. I lay the other 75% at the parents' door. |
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Sun Dec 02, 2007 10:20 am |
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Dave Starr
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| The parents thought those papers were great. They look at the grade, not the paper. There's another neighbor with the opposite problem. She desperately wants her 14 year old son to go to school, while he'd rather hang out with his thug buddies. He gets picked up by the police, and she gets called to pick him up. I've taken her to pick him up, since she has no car, & he's laughing like it's all a joke. You can drop him off at the door to the school, and he'll go in the front & right our the back. He mouths off to her & dares her to slap him, so he can claim child abuse. It's a sad situation, and nobody seems to be able to help her. |
_________________
I used to care, but I take a pill for that now.
Pushing buttons sure can be fun.
When a lion wants to go somewhere, he doesn’t worry about how many hyenas are in the way.
Paddle faster, I hear banjos. |
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Sun Dec 02, 2007 11:40 am |
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