Environment Health History Land Planning Research Transit
Mapping Flint
Flint, the Vehicle City, birthplace of the General Motors Company and the United Auto Workers, a vanishing city propelled to the spotlight by one of the largest municipal public health crises in the 21st Century, the Flint Water Crisis
Category: Planning
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This map popped up in the Wikimedia Commons. The map comes from the Bureau of Public Roads (September 1955). The book is an abstract art piece of how we carved our cities up so that cars could go fast. The book includes a few introductory paragraphs that note the maps show approved routes and additions…
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I still have an AutoWorld souvenir bag from my childhood, but by the time I was never old enough the Six Flags property was already closed (1985). The site (demolished in 1994) is now part of the UM Flint campus and the William White Building sits on part of the site today. Could the site…
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In 2016, I attended the Congress for New Urbanism event in Detroit, where data and tech startups were excitedly asking about the potential to buy up Flint real estate post-water crisis. I was surprised and appalled. I had already had family members move out of the city as quickly as they could, and there was…
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Many people have heard my ZIP Code soapbox speech and I recently wrote a longer piece about ZIP Codes in Detroit. In Flint, the oddity of ZIP Codes and the reliance on ZIP Codes for health statistics and health information tracking for the misunderstood “protection” of patient data. The short soapbox speech is that ZIP…
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This map is one of 35 other cities profiled in a city market survey by the advertising department of the Curtis Publishing Company, called: “City Markets: A Study of Thirty-Five Cities.” The primary market assessment conducted here was based on circulation of newspapers and magazines, but included auto sales, consumer goods, and transportation spending. The…
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What if “Vehicle City” had a metro rail system? This is a long running topic for the Detroit metro area where I organize an annual “transit fantasy” meetup where people have created over a dozen fake mass transit systems over the years. This transit fantasy map of Flint comes from Redditor, RikkaTheSecond: I was bored…
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What cardinal direction matters most in Flint? The Mott Foundation is focused on North Flint: “We define north Flint as everything within the city limits north of the Flushing Road/5th Avenue/Longway Boulevard corridor.”
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Flint, to me, has always been about family and cars. My great grandfather worked for Chevrolet in what became better known as “Chevy in the hole.” My grandfather worked at the Flint Assembly Plant and was an active member of the UAW. My grandmother’s family opened the first Chrysler dealership in the Flint area in…
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Flint embarked on an ambitious master planning process when it didn’t even have a planning department in 2013. This was the city’s first master plan since 1960. The “Imagine Flint” effort engaged over 500 residents through 280 engagement sessions and hosted community events. Flint is currently in another master plan update process for 2024-2025. The…
Mapping Flint 