Welcome to Flint

Over the next week we are in the town of Flint, 60 miles northwest of Detroit. You might have heard of the city from Michael Moore (from Flint himself) in his film Roger and Me. These postcards are a little reminder that in the 40s and 50s the city was booming. In the 80s the city sank into severe economic depression after years of deindustrialization. In the 2000s became known for high crime rates and ranked as amongst the most dangerous in the United States. Michigan placed the city it in a state of financial emergency in 2011. This kind of reputation never helps a city. One of the city's biggest problems seems to be not what you do see (e.g the media's urban porn style photography shoots ) but what you don't. That is the families and professionals that have left. The 'white flight' is a term used to describe large-scale migrations of white peoples from racially mixed urban inner city areas to racially homogeneous suburban or ex-urban areas. Those with money and jobs essentially have often left the city behind. Driving from Detroit airport out to Flint its clear that many of these people are still surviving and thriving, they just aren’t doing so inside the city gates.