Design Observer :: Join the Discussion http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/ en-us Design Observer Group 2013-06-09T22:24:31-05:00 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0 http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2013-06-09T22:24:31-05:00 http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2012-09-13T08:33:14-05:00 mike rowe http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-07-22T15:49:50-05:00
Thank you for your time.]]> Gary Kidd http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-04-04T09:05:47-05:00
Or as the wise woman from ESL astutely said, "Professor, we don’t need to be studied. We need help!"

Help us with Genesee Tower, the tallest downtown building, which we recently purchased. Help us with rehabing old homes. Help us with jobs.

We've got office space available. Cheap. Only slightly singed. (You see how a good chuckle can alleviate the seriousness).]]> Brad Mikus http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-03-13T11:23:18-05:00 xpez2000 http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-03-10T19:30:21-05:00 evelyn delbridge http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-03-03T14:08:09-05:00 Shaun Smakal http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-03-03T00:40:08-05:00
You can take the Girl out of Flint, but you can't take the Flint out of the Girl.

Thanks for sharing!]]> Erna http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-03-02T20:24:52-05:00 David Whatson http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-03-02T16:22:19-05:00
"We Are What We Make."]]> Matt DeFrain http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-03-01T22:14:49-05:00 dennis brownfield http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-02-26T10:04:18-05:00
Only in America do slums follow abandonment; elsewhere the name slum still stems from its root: overcrowding.

There is more poverty in the suburbs now than in the city. There are more unemployed than ever. The stage is set for a turnover; we teeter on the brink. The tension is excruciating, but there seems to be a wait ... to discover the direction of the movement to come.

As a designer from Cincinnati who started out wanting to change these realities, I have to admit that the real solutions are personal and not in the realm of building. But that, in itself, is a reality that I feel should be changing, person by person, today.]]> Maria http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-02-24T18:17:19-05:00
Each of your students might spend a profitable term taking and doing something with a house in one of these towns. Perhaps they put it back together. Perhaps they further dissemble it or perform a transformation. They would each learn a great deal and leave behind things of value, or at least not further damaged. Parachuting around, as you've done, makes it easy to put scabs on the heart and objectify the communities and their residents.

These are not the first towns that find themselves at the end of a fifty year cycle of disinvestment. What they need is economic activity, some low-key public safety, some culture, and some ways that individual creativity can be permitted to flower and mutate into cash inflows. Many other towns have done the hard work and are making the transitions.]]> jon http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-02-24T18:16:50-05:00
We say "Let's prevent its recurrence" without knowing how.

It's the system that's at fault, the one we're all addicted to.

Some call it progress, some call it regress, none dare call it by its real name: acrasia.

Poor us.]]> david stairs http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-02-23T23:42:01-05:00
Having grown up in Flint, it's taken me a while to intellectually acknowledge that it's not going to be what it once was, and that it's important to let go of a lot of expectations in order to figure out what comes next. But it's not so easy to emotionally accept the reality of Flint. As Wes points out, it's difficult to keep going back to Flint and seeing the houses, buildings and streets that figure so prominently in your memory of the place decaying or completely gone.

I've done a lot of reporting in Flint. I understand the forces that led to this point. But there are still days when I look around the city and just can't believe this was allowed to happen.

Gordon Young
www.flintexpats.com]]> Gordon Young http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-02-19T13:30:41-05:00 Pablo http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-02-18T14:56:26-05:00
You are correct in saying Flint is the example of what may be in store for many other American cities. Perhaps, there would be meaningful change if every federal congressperson and senator had to live as a squatter in an abandoned home in Flint, without money, utlilities, insurance and police protection for just one month. Then they might appreciate the real impact of their decisions.

What could/should architects do to address this problem? I have no specific answers but I do have a suggestion, and that is: encourage the practice of making inexpensive, modular and durable housing that can be quickly erected and dismantled and reused elswhere. Such architecture could then follow the migrations of the dispossesed and displaced people, much as nomadic people have lived for ages. ]]> Mike http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-02-17T10:34:58-05:00
http://www.cadc.auburn.edu/rural-studio/Default.aspx

see also

http://citizenarchitectfilm.com/

]]> Ian Roberts http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-02-17T10:10:34-05:00
Earlier this week, I watched Michael Moore's film, Roger & Me. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the decline of Flint. ]]> Beau http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-02-17T09:43:40-05:00 Jane http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-02-16T09:32:49-05:00
Flints downturn began long before I left, remembering trips to the Cobo with my then boyfriend to take in awesome car shows. We had to park blocks away from the arena, i remember him telling me to walk fast or the homeless people will get me. What can I say? We were immature and ill informed back then.

Now when i return to my home city of Mt. Morris I see alot in the present that I had seen in the past. The home I grew up in was abandoned and is for sale for a meesly $15K; (that hurts my feelings, because in my heart, that house is priceless.) Alot of the homes in my old neighborhood are run down, falling apart--some boarded up. Its obvious that Flints downturn has leaked into surrounding smaller cities.

I am not from Flint City but I am proud to be from Michigan, I am proud to be proud of that fact. I am sure by the time your tour ended in Michigan, you know that her people are proud to be apart of her cities, her culture, her ideals. Flint is one of Michigans greatest cities who's heart is still silently beating one day at a time. I guess that's what keeping people like Keith, Adam and Wendy rooted there--they are her heart.

Thank you for sharing your view. ]]> Stephanie Waltrip http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-02-16T08:13:49-05:00
The link below is to a proposal for Flint that responds to a similar set of questions by applying a series of public art, architecture, landscape urbanism, and urban development practices that emerged in thriving cosmopolitan centers during the same period in which Flint experienced its most severe decline. Through a phased process consisting of multiple scales and time frames, it attempts to connect practices that have been effective in other places with citizens, local institutions and political agencies in Flint that sustain its existing culture.

The project has received the tentative support of the mayor of Flint, Dayne Walling, and a number of national design institutions, local partners and participants, and emerging and established professionals in the field. We would love to have you and your students join the project in the fall if it corresponds to the schedule of future studios:

http://heroescharlatans.blogspot.com/2011/01/flint-ecological-urbanism-project.html]]> Stephen Zacks http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-02-15T14:51:56-05:00 Peter Saucerman http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-02-15T12:42:25-05:00 Shaun Smakal http://places.designobserver.com/feature/this-is-flint-michigan/24198/#comments 2011-02-14T23:47:52-05:00