Getting The Hell Out Of Saginaw, Bay City And Flint

[Y M Ionhere]

"affluent Flintoids"

I think those 8 people have left in the '90's.

Remember that 95% of the area of Genesee County lies outside the City of Flint. By far, the mode of the people who moved out of the City of Flint is to move to Suburban Genesee County. Since the story promulgated by Gordon Young in his book that "strippers" were moving into houses on Parkside Drive, people in the best subdivisions in Flint have been moving to Warwick Hills and other high end subs in Grand Blanc and Fenton. The 1% of Flint is moving to high end subs in Tyrone Twp. in Livingston County and Independence Twp. in Oakland County. There's a high end sub that straddles the Genesee Oakland County Line under development. All of these subs are close to Interchanges along US 23 and I-75, for very convenient and quick commuting to Flint.

Most of the higher end people know that the Governor didn't put the Lead in the Water, and that the problem was much more complicated and sporadic that the sensational media made it out to be. So many are barely out of Flint, others are barely outside Genesee County. Probably similar situations are common in Saginaw and Bay City. A few years ago, there was a study in the Saginaw News that showed the Crime Rates in Michigan with an interactive map. It shows how the crime rates drop DRAMATICALLY in Cities and Townships just outside Central City Limits. The murders dropped to 1 or 2 per Township per year, from SCORES in the Central Cities.

Flint still has a few nice areas, though they are scattered. The former mayor, Walling, lived in a historic district that was known for being stable. And while its starting to get a little tired, the Swartz Creek Golf Course area on the southwest side is still pretty properous. There is another area on the east side that is gated off and has a lot of large, nice homes. Its the poor areas that are emptying out worse. People have left the crime-ridden north side neighborhoods and gone to the south side, closer to Atherton, or moved north to Mount Morris Twp or Genesee Twp. I suspect Flint Twp also picked up some of the migration. The area off Saginaw street north of Downtown and the state street area, from Davison to about Belle street, have the worst cases of depopulation and those had a lot of poorer blocks. Now its the deeply impoverished area near Corunna Rd that is emptying out. From what I can tell, the more prosperous areas of Flint proper have declined at a much slower rate. Some are indeed bad now. The once luxurious areas off Chevrolet Avenue are filling up with the people who used to live in the bad areas and crime is up. But even thats doing a bit better than the surrounding middle class factory neighborhoods that are now decimated.

[Deleted User 8570]

"affluent Flintoids"

I think those 8 people have left in the '90's.

Remember that 95% of the area of Genesee County lies outside the City of Flint. By far, the mode of the people who moved out of the City of Flint is to move to Suburban Genesee County. Since the story promulgated by Gordon Young in his book that "strippers" were moving into houses on Parkside Drive, people in the best subdivisions in Flint have been moving to Warwick Hills and other high end subs in Grand Blanc and Fenton. The 1% of Flint is moving to high end subs in Tyrone Twp. in Livingston County and Independence Twp. in Oakland County. There's a high end sub that straddles the Genesee Oakland County Line under development. All of these subs are close to Interchanges along US 23 and I-75, for very convenient and quick commuting to Flint.

Most of the higher end people know that the Governor didn't put the Lead in the Water, and that the problem was much more complicated and sporadic that the sensational media made it out to be. So many are barely out of Flint, others are barely outside Genesee County. Probably similar situations are common in Saginaw and Bay City. A few years ago, there was a study in the Saginaw News that showed the Crime Rates in Michigan with an interactive map. It shows how the crime rates drop DRAMATICALLY in Cities and Townships just outside Central City Limits. The murders dropped to 1 or 2 per Township per year, from SCORES in the Central Cities.

Flint still has a few nice areas, though they are scattered. The former mayor, Walling, lived in a historic district that was known for being stable. And while its starting to get a little tired, the Swartz Creek Golf Course area on the southwest side is still pretty properous. There is another area on the east side that is gated off and has a lot of large, nice homes. Its the poor areas that are emptying out worse. People have left the crime-ridden north side neighborhoods and gone to the south side, closer to Atherton, or moved north to Mount Morris Twp or Genesee Twp. I suspect Flint Twp also picked up some of the migration. The area off Saginaw street north of Downtown and the state street area, from Davison to about Belle street, have the worst cases of depopulation and those had a lot of poorer blocks. Now its the deeply impoverished area near Corunna Rd that is emptying out. From what I can tell, the more prosperous areas of Flint proper have declined at a much slower rate. Some are indeed bad now. The once luxurious areas off Chevrolet Avenue are filling up with the people who used to live in the bad areas and crime is up. But even thats doing a bit better than the surrounding middle class factory neighborhoods that are now decimated.

Automation, loss of market share, consolidation etc... are awful for places like this... all these poor folks this has created in places like this.... how are they supposed to afford all the cheap crap that is imported or made by a robot? The entire model seems less than sustainable...

[CK-722]

As someone who lived more than three decades in Flint, I am very familiar with the neighborhoods. Last year, and in previous years, we travelled from Bishop Airport to our destinations. If we had time, we went through the neighborhoods we felt comfortable with before driving the rest of the way home.. The Woodcroft Estates area South of Miller looked the same. The older and smaller house Woodcroft Subs North of Miller had some foreclosure blight. Woodlawn Park South of Court St. looked the same. Flint Golf Club looked the same, with the "Indian Reservation" further East having some foreclosure blight. Nolen Drive looked the same, except I couldn't tell if the Alden Dow designed home was being renovated or being foreclosure mined. Mott Park North of Nolen Dr. had some foreclosure blight. Glendale Heights had some blighted homes in the peripheral areas. The newer Westgate Park Estates looked the same, Westgate #1 and Westgate #2 had some foreclosure blight in the peripheral areas, with impeccably kept up houses mixed with nearby foreclosure blight.

I am not that familiar with the rest of town now, and don't know what is safe there and what isn't, so we just explored the more affluent areas for the most part. Many of the older areas are close to the same, as they never were that well kept. I have seen older homes on Zimmerman St. that have been impeccably renovated. And Zimmerman St. had low Pb levels for the most part, despite being built in the 1920s.

The areas just outside Flint are mainly very old and cheaply built during the boom town era in the 1910s and 1920s. They didn't have strict housing codes. Quite a few were taken out in the Beecher Tornado, that being part of the reason it was so deadly and devastating.

I wish that certain Flint authors would quit making money off the bad situation, sell their 700 square foot, 1.2 Million dollar houses in San Francisco, move to Woodcroft Estates with the proceeds, and run for Mayor of Flint. If you really care, you'd run for Mayor.