Flint: The Comeback Kid...According to Kiplinger's

Flint has a knack for showing up on the ubiquitous lists that rank some aspect of a city. They're always lists that most cities would like to avoid. Most Miserable. Most Depressed. Most Dangerous. Kurt "Bad News" Badenhausen spends a lot of his time at Forbes compiling these useless tallies. But they sure generate online hits, so they're not going away any time soon.

So even though I've questioned the need for these lists, it's still refreshing when the Vehicle City shows up on a list for something positive. Kiplinger, the influential business forecasting company, has selected Flint as one of 13 "Comeback Cities" in 2011.

The health care and life sciences industries are giving long-suffering Flint a shot in the arm. Diplomat Specialty Pharmacy relocated its headquarters from the suburbs to the city, using a former auto assembly site for its offices, while both the city’s public hospital, Hurley Medical Center, and McLaren Regional Medical Center are bulking up.

Meanwhile, Flint’s traditional employer, the auto industry, is no longer at idle. General Motors -- the community’s single largest employer -- plans to start a third shift at its assembly plant in Flint for a net increase of 750 jobs, phased in over the summer. Flint's employment fell nearly 12% during the downturn, and is forecast to rise about 2.6% this year.

The Evolution of Jane Avenue

Jane Avenue's new look.

If there is a single block that has come to epitomize Flint's struggles with economic decline and population loss, as well as the Genesee County Land Bank's efforts to deal with blight and abandonment, it's the 1600 block of Jane Avenue on the city's east side. Although it is just one of more than 400 blocks in Flint that are more than 50 percent abandoned, it became a handy visual aid for many journalists, including me, to illustrate Flint's problems. Here are a few of the photos I took for "The Jane Avenue Blues," a slide show that accompanied a profile of Dan Kildee, the former land bank chief who now runs the Center for Community Progress, that was published in Slate.


Arson is a byproduct of abandonment in Flint, and Jane Avenue had more than its share of fires. David Harris of The Flint Journal reported on the street in January:

A single east-side block of Jane Avenue between Minnesota and Iowa avenues was the hardest hit in the city, with 20 arsons last year.

What once was lined with houses is now just barren land on the north side of the street.

All that’s left is a burned-out shell of a house. The rest of the charred homes have been bulldozed away and the sites filled with dirt.

The bark on the trees is still black from the fires. The houses on the south side of the street remain standing but are dilapidated.

“They burned the whole block,” said Allen Willard, 53, who lives in the only occupied house left. “I used to wake up at 2 or 3 a.m. I’d open my eyes, and I’d see flames (reflecting) on my bedroom wall. A house a week started going down.”

It's not much consolation, but Flint is not alone. Adam Geller, covering nationwide arson trends for Insurance Journal, reported:

Fires in vacant homes rose 11 percent to 21,000 in 2006 — the latest year for which figures are available — while all home fires rose just 4 percent, the National Fire Protection Association reported in April. More than four of every 10 vacant building fires were intentionally set, the group reported.

Some of that is arson for financial reasons. But in neighborhoods of sagging homes worth little, fires are often set by vandals, the homeless or people seeking revenge.

The threat grows as empty homes multiply, said John Hall, the NFPA’s division director for fire analysis and research. Vacant homes nationwide topped 19 million earlier this year, up from 15.7 million in 2005, according to the Census Bureau.

“The best way to prevent vacant building fires is to prevent vacant buildings,” the NFPA concluded.

Or eliminate the buildings altogether. When I was in Flint last month, I drove down Jane and discovered that nearly every house had been demolished. It's probably the best solution for the block at this point, but it's still hard to get used to the new view that's created when an entire block disappears.

It's Opening Day in Detroit

Buyer's Remorse

Michigan, where Democratic and Republican governors alike appear to be equally unpopular.

John Terbush of Talking Points Memo reports:

In Michigan, Governor Rick Snyder (R) is facing a backlash of his own.

Last November, Snyder beat Democrat Virg Bernero by a huge 18-point margin. But in a PPP poll released yesterday, registered voters suggested they wish they'd elected Bernero -- who won a hypothetical do over, 47% to 45%.

Since taking office, Snyder has pursued a number of controversial proposals, such as one that would grant him the power to declare a financial emergency in a given city and appoint an emergency manager to modify or void union contracts, and even dissolve a city government -- a proposal one supporter likened to "financial martial law."

In PPP's latest poll, 50% of respondents said they opposed that proposal, versus 32% who said they supported it.

The also poll found that a majority of registered voters in Michigan disapprove of Snyder's job performance. Fifty percent of respondents said they disapproved of the job Snyder was doing, while just 33% said they approved.

Divine Intervention

Ah, the joys of eBay. Would you pay $395 for a faded photo of Jesus hovering over Flint?

Giving Up on the Borderlands?

The city of Flint hasn't officially endorsed the shrinking city concept, but budget woes may help make it a reality.

Ron Fonger of The Flint Journal reports:

The city says it can't afford to help pay for fixing one of the most deteriorated sections of Carpenter Road, Flint's northernmost border, leaving the Genesee County Road Commission saddled with the full bill for the local share of the job.

Flint Artifacts: 1977 Longfellow Yearbook

Bucks for Broadside

Broadside is a print-only newspaper published in Flint. It's been around three years and hearkens back to those thrilling days of yesteryear when people believed in the power of newspapers to make a difference, regardless of the financial realities. I've worked at a few of those newspapers, so I have a rooting interest in Broadside. Like many newspapers these days, Broadside is having trouble making ends meet. I'll let Broadsider Robert Mabbitt explain:

"...in its own small way, [Broadside] provides a service to local readers as the only publication in the area where they can find a real diversity of perspectives facing our community and our world. But for some reason, businesses in Flint don't have a lot of extra room in their budgets to buy print advertising in anything that isn't bright, glossy, and a blind cheerleader for all things Flint. For a publication whose business model is to sell only enough ads to cover each issue's printing costs (± $777), that can be a pretty precarious position. Which, after the computer we use to layout each issue crashed and burned, is precisely where we find ourselves."

How can you help? You can go here to donate to Broadside and keep it running. Or go here to subscribe and catch up on some Flint news. Want more info? Check out this NPR story on Broadside.

Drunk-Proof Cars

Are "drunk-proof cars" coming to a dealership near you?

Mark Huffman of ConsumerAffairs.com reports:

Two members of the U.S. Senate, one a Democrat and the other a Republican, have taken a step by sponsoring the ROADS SAFE Act, which would authorize $12 million a year for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to develop technology that would prevent an intoxicated person from driving a vehicle.

The objective, of course, is to prevent drunk drivers from getting on the road and causing fatal accidents. Senators Tom Udall (D-NM) and Bob Corker (R-TN) co-sponsored the legislation, expressing hope their bi-partisan approach will help secure passage.

Charlie Sheen Encounters a Tough Crowd in Detroit

It sounds like the most entertaining aspect of Charlie Sheen's "performance" in Detroit is A.O. Scott's fantastically negative review in The New York Times:

You could say that Mr. Sheen and the audience failed each other. The ticket buyers did not show him the “love and gratitude” to which he felt entitled, and he did not give them the kind of entertainment they thought they had paid for. But you could also say that the performer and the audience deserved each other, and that their mutual contempt was its own kind of bond. The ushers, in their black gold-braided uniforms, retained an air of inscrutable dignity in the midst of an orgy of depthless vulgarity. Everyone else in the room — onstage, backstage, in the $69 orchestra seats — had to swallow a gag-inducing, self-administered dose of shame. And no, the journalists who traveled to Detroit to gawk and philosophize at the spectacle are not exempt from that judgment.