2 ms·

Half of my family is from Flint, so I'm unfortunately familiar with the flight it, and many nearby towns. One of the problem with them is that the town itself

Half of my family is from Flint, so I'm unfortunately familiar with the flight it, and many nearby towns. One of the problem with them is that the town itself wasn't compelling enough for people to stay when the primary industry dried up. I think any from-scratch city will need to be very well designed and balanced with features that actually make people want to live there, not just need to because of jobs. This is where walkable streets, great mass transit, parks, and room for the types of businesses that people actively love (the smaller cafes, shops, venues, etc.) matter most. At least one major university is critical too, and those can be ramped up rather quickly. UC Merced is only 15 years old with a student population of over 8000.

headcanon 6y ago
At its origin, a settlement at Flint made absolute sense because it was at an ideal halfway point[1] between Detroit and Saginaw on the Saginaw Trail[2] in an era where traveling between the two port cities took multiple days. It also had the added bonus of being on the Flint river which made it an ideal focal point for the burgeoning logging industry. The eventual industrialization made it a good location for an automotive plant later on. However, once cars became commonplace and travel between Saginaw and Detroit only took a couple hours, Flint was no longer needed as a stopping location, and ended up primarily existing as a company town for the auto plants, which made it too dependent on the welfare of the auto industry. So once the plants shut down, so did any kind of economic draw to the city. The lesson being that any city needs a healthy economic ecosystem representing multiple industries in order to sustainably survive, or else it will share Flint's fate. On a more human side, I worked briefly with some of the people in Flint's startup community and was massively impressed with the optimism and attitude of the people there in the face of their economic situation. It was very inspiring, and I sincerely hope that the state of Michigan is able to manage that city better and leverage what strengths it has and will have in the future. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint,_Michigan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint,_Michigan 2: https://thumbwind.com/2018/12/07/saginaw-trail/ https://thumbwind.com/2018/12/07/saginaw-trail/

headcanon 6y ago

At its origin, a settlement at Flint made absolute sense because it was at an ideal halfway point[1] between Detroit and Saginaw on the Saginaw Trail[2] in an era where traveling between the two port cities took multiple days. It also had the added bonus of being on the Flint river which made it an ideal focal point for the burgeoning logging industry. The eventual industrialization made it a good location for an automotive plant later on. However, once cars became commonplace and travel between Saginaw and Detroit only took a couple hours, Flint was no longer needed as a stopping location, and ended up primarily existing as a company town for the auto plants, which made it too dependent on the welfare of the auto industry. So once the plants shut down, so did any kind of economic draw to the city. The lesson being that any city needs a healthy economic ecosystem representing multiple industries in order to sustainably survive, or else it will share Flint's fate. On a more human side, I worked briefly with some of the people in Flint's startup community and was massively impressed with the optimism and attitude of the people there in the face of their economic situation. It was very inspiring, and I sincerely hope that the state of Michigan is able to manage that city better and leverage what strengths it has and will have in the future. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint,_Michigan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint,_Michigan 2: https://thumbwind.com/2018/12/07/saginaw-trail/ https://thumbwind.com/2018/12/07/saginaw-trail/