02/11/2024
It's hard to pinpoint the year that Flint reached the point of no return, the juncture when the city's post-war prosperity ended for good. There's no definitive answer. But the tipping point may have been 1973, when I was a seven-year-old student at Saint Michael’s on the edge of downtown. That’s the year C. S. Mott died at the ripe old age of ninety-seven. His foundation would live on, continuing to generously fund local initiatives and projects around the world, but it was hard to imagine the Vehicle City without the paternalistic guidance of "Mr. Flint." It was also the year when the OPEC oil embargo caused a spike in gas prices, followed by fuel shortages and lines at service stations. GM was near peak employment in the Flint area, with roughly eighty thousand workers at the time, but the crisis triggered a round of layoffs, a trend that would plague the city for decades as “Generous Motors” abandoned its birthplace in search of cheaper labor in right-to-work states and foreign countries. It's also the year that the Durant Hotel, named after G.M.'s flamboyant founder, closed its doors. Flint would never be the same.
An indepth look at the past, present, and future of Flint, Michigan by journalist Gordon Young.
