Book: Tear-Down by Gordon Young

Memoir of a Vanishing City

The city being Flint, Michigan.

(Richard, I forgot to tell you about this book yesterday but perhaps you would like it…having lived and worked there.)

The author grew up in Flint but eventually settles in San Francisco and he and his girlfriend even manage to buy a small home  there for over $500K. Still, Flint is always in his heart and soul. He begins a blog, Flint Expatriates, which keeps his lost but beloved city in his mind, and is gratified by hundreds who follow the blog and who obviously also have an affection and affinity for this beleagured city, which was, not so long ago and because of the auto industry, an economically healthy place to live.

"In 1954, more than a 100,000 people crowded downtown Flint for a parade celebrating the 50-millionth car produced by General Motors."

Alas, the auto industry left, abandoned Flint and in 1987, "Money magazine ranked Flint dead last on its its of the best places to live in America." It has lost "more than GM jobs since peak employment in 1968." Thousands left, "half its residents…from 200,000 to just over 100,000 in five decades."

And this led to a train wreck of a city with reductions in police and fire-fighting forces, street maintenance and garbage pickup services, school closures and no jobs. For the most part, only those without options remained.

But Gordon just cannot get Flint out of his mind and at one point, in his beautiful City by the Bay, he begins to think about buying a house in Flint.

"I wasn't sure if this would be a permanent residence, an probable 'vacation home,' a low-cost rental for a needy family, or a rehab project that Traci and I would give to charity."

From these thoughts, follows the book. Gordon returns to Flint, making summer-long visits, checking old neighborhoods, reporting on what he finds, looking, looking for a house to buy. He talks to people: the mayor, an urban visionary by the name of Dan Kildee about his land-bank ideas, a dynamic, hard-working preacher man who buys a beautiful old church in a derelict neighborhood and works every day to make a difference in his community; he talks to those who have already committed to living in Flint and have bought homes…

He goes back and forth between the extremes of living the urban life…San Francisco, California and Flint, Michigan:

"Obviously, I was having a hard time letting go now that I'd rediscovered my hometown. It was like I lived there, except I didn't. I was wearing out my welcome in my current home by obsessing about my old home and the possibility of a future home. I was becoming the real-estate equivalent of a model-train enthusiast or a Trekkie. This had to stop."

He didn't have much money to spend to buy even a Flint house, but he keeps looking and dreaming. He has a friend, also living in California but with the same mind-set towards Flint, who had bought houses there with the idea of helping the economy and also hoping to make money. This friend had an "attraction to historic homes…which prompted to buy a big-dilapidated two-story house on University Avenue across the street from Michael and Perry in 2008. He paid $6,250 cash for it, and scrappers hit the place before he could secure it, making off with the light fixtures, door hardware, and even the built-in butler's pantry." He tries to explain: "People might say I'm a fool, but too many people left Flint and never looked back. If every Flint expatriate did something to help, we could turn the city around."

And Gordon is thinking: "Well, maybe. But how many people could fork over a hundred grand and risk financial ruin? I was struggling to commit just three thousand dollars."

What ultimately happens? Read the book to find out.