Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City by Gordon Young

"One can read Teardown and go 'My, my, my! What a horrid town! Thank God I don't live there!' Oh, but you do. Just as the 'Roger & Me Flint' of the 1980s was the precursor to a wave of downsizing that eventually hit every American community, Gordon Young's Flint of 2013, as so profoundly depicted in this book, is your latest warning of what's in store for you — all of you, no matter where you live — in the next decade. The only difference between your town and Flint is that the Grim Reaper just likes to visit us first. It's all here in Teardown, a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once great American city."

— Michael Moore, filmmaker, author, activist

Purchase Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City here.

1963 Corvair On Cortland Avenue in San Francisco. Perfection?

Happy Labor Day from Flint Expatriates

Fisher Body Plant #1 in 1937.

A Strange Place

"It's not a mystery; it's just the past."

— Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park

Civic Park in Decline

A screenshot of Civic Park in Flint from the Flint Property Portal. The purple sections indicate publicly owned property, which frequently means parks and abandoned houses and lots.

American

Harold C. Ford on "Detroit"

Harold C. Ford reviews Detroit in East Village Magazine:

As I drove myself home from the empty house at Rave Flint West 14 at 1 a.m., I passed The Keg Bar at the corner of Van Slyke and Hemphill Roads. The parking lot was filled beyond capacity; some 50 cars overflowed into adjoining parking lots. The fenced-in outdoor terrace was abuzz with 40 to 50 happy, imbibed patrons while many more were inside. The juxtaposition of a rollicking packed pub and an empty movie house showing a film about the deadliest civil rebellion in Michigan history, one that unfolded a mere 65 miles down the highway, was dispiriting.

Read the rest here.

Flint Photos: Flint Springs Water and Ice Co. Wagon

Adventure

Flint Artifacts: Chevy Logo