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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Minutes of the Flint City commission from July 8, 1957 cites Commissioner carl dellings and others who argued the new GM suburban plants would stimulate the local economy. This willingness to subsidize GM's expansion into the suburbs was an ongoing source of controversy.
GM was using over half of the City of Flint annual water supply and grants more services to the suburban plants threatened to deplete Flint's water resources and overwhelm the waste treatment facilities.
Ted Moss, then flint public works and utilities director, argued that Flint lacked the capacity to serve these suburban plants. It was not until May 1953 that the Flint City Council abandoned it's prior ad hoc policies and began to deny water and sewer services to the suburbs. "Nevertheless, GM officials consistently won special exemptions from sympathetic commissioners. (Flint News-Advertiser, March 26, 1954)
page 219
Last edited by untanglingwebs on Sat Mar 31, 2012 4:24 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Sat Mar 31, 2012 7:48 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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When the flint City commission voted to to subsidize water and sewer services to the new Cjevrolet plant on Van Slyke Road, Robert clark, the director of the Flint CIO political Action Committee spoke:
"In taking this action the city fathers are completing the cycle and it now appears thst General Motors plants outside the city are going to enjoy all of the major services rendered by the city, including fire and police protection; water and sewer disposal-eveything except the doubtful privilege of paying city taxes.' ("Flint taxpayers Pay the Shot", Searchlight, April 17,1952)
page 220
On July 8, 1957 Commissioner Robert Egan in a Flint City Commission meeting said that costly water and sewer extensions only servedd to send the plants away from Flint. |
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Sat Mar 31, 2012 7:57 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Unlike other industrialized and Major United States Cities, Flint developed a complex three-tier system of water billing that further subsidzez the suburban Gm plants. The GM plants obtained their water at a rate cheaper than the residential customers.
"Between September 1959 and january 1960, for instance, industrial customers used 53.7 percent of Flint's water output but paid only 37.2 percent of the city's water revenue. Over the same duration, residential customers contributed 51.9 percent of the city'swater revenue while using only 34.5 percent of the total water purchased. Although the city charged suburban water customers a special premium for service, the commissioners discount for industry offset the higher costs that GM and other suburban industrial consumers paid."
(page 220) |
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Sat Mar 31, 2012 8:06 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Temple Dorr of the Taxpayer's Protective league was a vocal opponent of these sudsidies and recognized they marked the beginning of a GM strategy to decentralize Flint.
"Of the eight new industrial complexed opened by GM in Genesee County between 1940 and 1960, none was located within Flint's municipal boundaries. Further, in many instances, the jobs created by GM suburban construction campaign were not new, but rather they replaced existing jobs performed by workers in the city's aging turn-of-the=century plants".
(page 222) |
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Sat Mar 31, 2012 8:15 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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"Major expansion is already occurring in General Motors activities in Genesee County without comparable increases in employment. For example, between 1957 and 1967, General Motors employment increased 3.2 percent. Yet during this time, Chevrolet, Buick and Fisher Body all carried out large expansions... Automobile producted may be expanded without a corresponding increase in employmentCharles W. Minshall, Genesee County Economic Conditions Conclusions report (Columbus, Ohio: Battelle Memorial Institute, 1969), 3-15
page 223 |
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Sat Mar 31, 2012 8:22 am |
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Dave Starr
F L I N T O I D
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| Where is the document available for download? |
_________________
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 Mar 31, 2012 10:01 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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More Offers:
demolition means progress
[PDF]
Demolition Means Progress - Deep Blue at the ...
deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/62230/1/ahighsmi_1.pdf- Similarto Demolition Means Progress - Deep Blue at the ...
Demolition Means Progress: Race, Class, and the Deconstruction of the American Dream in Flint, Michigan. (Volume 1) by. Andrew R. Highsmith. A dissertation ... |
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Sat Mar 31, 2012 4:28 pm |
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Civic Park
F L I N T O I D
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Highsmith's dissertation is highly informative and worth reading. One question I did have concerns the names of Flint neighborhoods.
Floral Park is often used to refer to a very large section of land southeast of downtown, including the area taken by the highway interchange. But the black residents I've spoken to of various ages refer to Floral Park as a a relatively small area bounded by Lapeer Road on the north; Howard on the east; Floral Park on the south; and Fern Ave. on the west. (Give or take a few blocks depending on who you talk to.) This corresponds with the original 1909 plat of Floral Park. This area is also referred to as "the bottoms" or "the hollow" by some former residents.
Elm Park was an area roughly due south on the other side of the railroad tracks and shaped like an "L" with the railroad tracks on the north; Howard and Marbury on the east; the jagged outlines of Thread Lake on the south; and Warner on the west. This was considered a nicer area than Floral Park, which had some of the worst housing in the city. This is the original boundaries on the original plat.
Obviously, neighborhood boundaries determined by the residents can vary and usually don't correspond to the rigid plat boundaries. The official Civic Park, for example, is very different from the broader area residents would call Civic Park over the years.
But I had a hard time finding any black residents who lived in the area at various times who would describe the area taken by the highway interchange as "Floral Park." And residents who lived in Elm Park might even take offense if you said they lived in Floral Park. They certainly differentiated between the two areas.
So I have a couple questions that I'd love to hear feedback on...
1. Was there a specific name for the black neighborhood that was taken by the 475-69 interchange, because I don't think it was called Floral Park? (Maybe white planners/politicians in Flint called it that but black residents didn't?)
2. Can anyone correct my findings on the neighborhood names? Maybe I just talked to the wrong people.
Thanks. |
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Tue May 22, 2012 2:26 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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| parrt of it was called Sugar Hill. There is still a floral Park street. |
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Tue May 22, 2012 5:14 pm |
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Civic Park
F L I N T O I D
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| So roughly where was Sugar Hill? Somewhere where the interchange is now? And I realize these are all fluid, changeable boundaries. Just trying to get a rough idea. Thanks. |
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Tue May 22, 2012 6:18 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Highsmith defines the areas I will try to review again. He sis a professor so maybe you can e-mail him. City Hall now sits on the area mostly known as Floral Park so the switch was made a long time ago. Highsmith pulled much of the information from archives at U of M and Kettering. Inez Brown could be a good resource to help identify the areas. Many of Highsmith's interviewees are now deceased.
He also had a lot of information on Civic Park. I tried to identify many of his resources . I personally found his work insightful. |
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Tue May 22, 2012 6:30 pm |
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Civic Park
F L I N T O I D
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| Thanks for the info. I had a chance to talk to Highsmith and it seems that much of the cloverleaf area was informally referred to as Floral Park by both planners and residents, even though it didn't match the much smaller official plat boundaries. And the fact is some sections of any town don't really have a specific name, so its easy to lump them in with the main area when discussing a project like the cloverleaf. I saw this growing up in Civic Park. Some residents might call the shopping district on Welch between Dupont and Chevrolet Civic Park. Others wouldn't. And the area certainly wasn't part of the original Civic Park subdivision. Same goes for the term North End. I notice it's now anything north of the river for many people, but it referred to an area much farther north in the seventies. |
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Tue May 22, 2012 6:41 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Reading Highsmith was a revelation and he answered so many questions I had about Flint, about the housing projects and so much more. I was not raised in Flint and really did not understand much about it's history.
I encourage everyone to read Highsmith. |
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Wed May 23, 2012 8:44 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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| Andrew Highsmith is writing more about Flint-can't wait! |
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Tue Dec 18, 2012 9:26 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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| Highsmith gives some insight into the violence occurring in the housing projects. Can't wait to get his book ! |
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Fri Aug 09, 2013 7:05 pm |
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