Dead End: NAFTA and Life Expectancy

It's good to have an MIT study back you up, but if you lived in Flint in the '70s and '80s you probably already knew this:

"A new paper adds to the understanding of NAFTA’s costs. In it, economists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago found that American workers in communities that were more exposed to competition from Mexican imports saw a significant shortening of their life spans after the trade deal went into effect in 1994," Ana Swanson writes in the New York Times.

"The new study concludes, for example, that in the first 15 years of NAFTA, about 3 percent of 45-year-old men lost a year of their remaining life expectancy as a result of the trade deal. The researchers saw increases in mortality across most major causes of death, including illness, drug overdoses and suicides. The overall trends particularly affected working-age men, and were more pronounced in the Southeast and parts of the Midwest, like Michigan."

Flint Artifacts: Buick Lubriplate

 

Flint Postcards: Downtown Flint with Orange Accents

 

Flint Photos: VW Experimentation at Flint Central High School in 1960

Charting Decline on a Flint Street with Google Street View

It's easy to explore my old Civic Park neighborhood in Flint via Google Street View. Twenty years ago, the experience was more nostalgic than distressing. A digital trip down memory lane. 2402 Bassett Place and the neighboring house at 2406, once owned by the Bowden family, looked pretty much the same, even though the surrounding blocks were already in serious decline. But it was only a matter of time before Bassett Place caught up with the rest of Civic Park. 

AUGUST 2008

The crack down the middle of my old driveway has widened, reminding me of Andy Goldsworthy's Drawn Stone installation at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, though it obviously draws far less attention and adoration. Otherwise, the two houses look much like they did when I lived on Bassett Place in the 1970s and '80s. The low-resolution image helps hide the fading paint and less-than-pristine yards, but there would be no real cause for alarm if I drove down the old street in 2008.

JUNE 2011

A sunny day and higher resolution make the two houses look even better almost three years later. The pine and the chestnut trees provide some welcoming shade.

SEPTEMBER 2015

Just four years later, and it's all over. Both houses are boarded up. The screened-in front porch where my family gathered in the summer to watch baseball games across the street in Bassett Park is open-air now. The siding has been stripped from my childhood home, reverting back to the original minty green. 

JANUARY 2022

Almost seven years later, and the boards on the windows and doors of the two houses appear to be doing their job. The two structures look more or less the same in this winter scene. A closer look reveals that our old garage is a shell — the door is gone and there are large holes opening in the back. And the small white house to the south — once owned by the Procuniers and then the Kildees — hasn't survived. It's gone.

JUNE 2025

The houses are slowly returning to nature by summer 2025. The tall grass and encroaching shrubbery make it seem less bad and more of a natural progression. At least things are growing instead of rotting away. (Of course, the Google car may have cruised by between mowings by the city or the land bank, but if the decline is inevitable, at least it appears green and vibrant in what could be the last google images before these two abandoned houses disappear forever.)