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Economist: Back from the Dead (Cleveland, OH & Flint, MI)

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Back from the dead
Oct 25th 2007 | CLEVELAND AND FLINT
From The Economist print edition

Glimmers of hope in two of America's industrial cities

FLINT, Buffalo, Dayton, Saginaw—for years these names have read like tombstones in the graveyard of America's rustbelt. But something is changing in Flint, Michigan, the symbol of industrial gloom. Like other rustbelt cities, Flint's population rose on the back of manufacturing (Flint was the birthplace of General Motors). Then came the white exodus to the suburbs and deindustrialisation, with Flint's ruin made famous in a film by Michael Moore. Flint's population is now just more than half what it was in 1960. One-third of its residents are officially poor.

But there are glints of progress, and not just because GM is building a new factory. Construction workers are beginning to transform the downtown area. There is a heated contest for mayor: Dayne Walling, a Flint-born Rhodes scholar brimming with good ideas, is challenging Don Williamson, the incumbent, in November's election. Flint is trying to chart its own course. And it is not alone. A faint spirit of change is wafting through some of the rustbelt's grimmest streets.

Scholars at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, DC, think-tank, argue that America's old industrial cities can indeed rise again. Big cities such as New York and Chicago have experienced a rebirth, thanks in part to fine mayors and a surge of immigration and new business in the 1990s. Most rustbelt cities have had a more modest revival or none at all. But urban optimists insist that the renaissance can spread: cities are the natural centres of the new knowledge economy and will only grow more appealing to young people and ageing baby-boomers, who want amenities near their homes.

Still, there is much work to be done. Key to any revival are basic improvements: a city must be safe, its rubbish collected, its schools adequate. How to make a city viable in the long term is an unresolved question. But a few places are trying to provide answers.

An early task is to address the physical problems. Some 16m people live in America's old industrial cities; they will not stay if their downtowns look abandoned. In Flint a shrinking population and high foreclosure rates (not a new trend in this town) mean you can hardly go a block without seeing a decrepit house. Blighted buildings are like cancerous cells: they spread crime and lower nearby property values, gnawing away at Flint's shrunken tax base. Many cities share this problem. In Youngstown, Ohio, the mayor plans to tear down blighted areas so he can save threatened but still viable neighbourhoods.

A small band in Flint is following a less radical but still imaginative strategy. Dan Kildee, the county treasurer, founded a land bank in 2002 that acquires abandoned buildings through foreclosure, then readies them to be sold and returned to the tax rolls. The bank, which won Harvard's innovation award in September, claims to have increased property values by more than $112m so far.

Also in Flint are LISC, part of a national non-profit group that channels grants and loans toward community work, and Uptown Developments, which is using so-called “baklava financingâ€â€”layers of private investment, loans, grants, federal and state tax credits—to build residential lofts as well as retail and office space downtown. Together, these groups are trying to make Flint liveable, a city that might lure a start-up or retain its students after graduation. Mr Williamson has helped by repaving hundreds of miles of roads. Mr Walling, if elected, plans to harness this work under a broader plan for downtown, its surrounding neighbourhoods, three local colleges and medical centres.

The physical task is serious enough. Addressing the rustbelt's structural economic problems is a much thornier question. Cleveland is slowly experiencing the physical renaissance sought in Flint, with new museums, a university building designed by Frank Gehry, a plan to reclaim the lakefront and another to improve transport between downtown and a hub of universities and hospitals. But to tackle its larger economic woes, the city is tying its fate to the rest of north-east Ohio.

Making use of the hinterland

A more regional approach can benefit not only inner cities, but their surroundings as well. For decades cities and suburbs have competed for jobs, residents and state and federal aid to ill effect. To change this, the Fund for Economic Future, an alliance of foundations in north-east Ohio, worked with civic and business leaders from 16 counties to launch a regional scheme in March. The plan includes supporting companies that build on local strengths, such as Cleveland's universities and medical centres (the Cleveland Clinic is America's leading hospital for cardiac care), and improving workforce training for high-tech manufacturing, health care and other understaffed sectors.

The Fund is also exploring ways for the region's various governments (754 in all) to share revenue and rationalise services. Tax-sharing schemes have helped other struggling cities, including Dayton, Ohio and Rochester, New York. Cleveland and some surrounding towns have already agreed to split taxes from businesses that move within the area; in exchange, Cleveland is providing water services.

These schemes to revive Flint, Cleveland and cities like them are making progress, but it is slow and uneven. Improvements in Cleveland in the 1990s were then threatened by recession, and the subprime crisis has not helped. Jennifer Vey of Brookings argues that local efforts could be bolstered by state support, which has been meagre. She points to Pennsylvania as a state with a strong urban agenda—Pennsylvania has the advantage of a governor, Ed Rendell, who was mayor of Philadelphia.

Even the most avid urban optimist does not expect these cities, having declined for decades, to recover overnight. Flint's home prices dropped by a startling 21% so far this year. On a recent afternoon in Cleveland, a “Believe in Cleveland†banner was matched by a nearby beggar with a sign that just read “Hungryâ€. But there are hints of progress where there was none. William McMickens, a cab driver and son of a factory worker in Cleveland, pointed to construction along Euclid Avenue: “When this is done, the whole city is going to change.†In these cities, long left for dead, a hard hat is a sign of hope.
 
I missed this post. Really interesting for sure. That's one reason I enjoyed having the opportunity to see Baltimore, one of the cities that started the trend (it's where the Rust Belt meets Boswash).

Buffalo is trying the same approach - large tracts of near-east side housing were cleared and rebuilt, unfortunately the new housing stock is very suburbanesque. Also using its architecture and attractions to bring people back in.
 
Cleveland has been coming back for some time, all you have to do is go into that city and you can see progress all around the last several years. That beggar with the Hungry sign can be found in many places, including Malibu California, or on toney Park Avenue in New York City. Progress does not mean the elimination of real, or even faux poverty, such as it is interpreted these days.

Flint, on the other hand, is a total surprise. As glibly as this article states, white flight does not explain Flint's problems as much as it illustrates the symptoms of what has occurred there. They have tried many things and failed many times. Those ties to the American automobile industry are hard to break free from in that part of Michigan.

The rest of these cities fall somewhere between too little too late to getting better if given a chance and some time.
 
At least the middle sized, formerly industrial cities are making progress. The urban centre is regaining prominence as a place to live through the US and Canada. Some people are discovering that the largest cities are out of their price range, so they're finding downtown Hamilton or Buffalo, creating a trickle effect of revitalization. The unfortunate thing is that many of these places need a stream not a trickle.
 
Yes, because no longer is suburban living perfectly respectable. The change is more dramatic in the US, where suburban living traditionally has been a measure of success, and yet more and more people are living and investing in urban centres.
 
I'm aware of the American phenomenon. What I was really asking was, did urban living ever lose prominence in Canada? I don't think so.
 
My original reasoning was that though there was no "white flight" movement in Canada, the attempted suburbanization of even downtown Toronto and Montreal through parking lots and expressways represented the loss of prominence. But now I believe that such reasoning is possibly presentist, because that generation's conception of urbanization was potentially different from ours. If it wasn't then, yes, urban centres lost prominence. I think some research would be necessary, unless you can provide some insight.
 

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