Is FLINT, MICHIGAN the WORST City In the United States?

thank you Flint has a cultural center the vehicle City there wasn't a single public high school left in this

city

the fall of Flint started long before the water crisis parking for residents only eh well the only resident left here is this cat Flint Michigan one of the most troubled cities in the United States, let's check it out, we start right where we left off as this will be my third video in my Flint series and we will tour this area of ​​the

city

that is outlined on the map. Do me a favor, if you enjoy this video, be sure to check out my second channel, which is linked below.

My goal is to reach 1000 subscribers by the end of the year, so if you could help me get there I would definitely appreciate it. Last but not least, if you can't get enough of me here, you can always follow me on my other social media accounts and those links are also below, in the meantime you can get used to seeing sites like this not only in this video. but in almost all of my other Flint videos within this series, as residents continue to move away from Flint at a rapid pace, the question is whether Flint Michigan is the

worst

city in the United States.

Without a doubt, a strong argument can be made that Flint is the absolute

worst

city to live in in the US during the 10-year period from 2010 to 2020 because during that time crime in the city was worse as, according to data FBI officials, Flint had the highest homicide rate in the country for three consecutive years. years and most importantly, we all know the lead water situation. Not only was the water unsafe to use, but the city and state lied to residents and told everyone it was safe to use at first, when in fact it wasn't. Lead water caused an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in Flint during the time of the water crisis, resulting in too many deaths.

Foreign crime has actually decreased in Flint and it is no longer considered the murder capital as it once was at least last year. 2022 has been a good year so we will have to see how the future plays out because the violent crime rate in Flint today is still three times the national average rate and although crime is down quite a bit from 10 years ago, that doesn't mean that Flint solving its crime problem, if anything, just shows how bad things were at their peak. Anyway, here is Flint's current crime rate based on the most recent data and you can see that it is over 1200 for every 100,000 residents not good overseas, we head south on Martin Luther King Avenue and This looks identical to most other major thoroughfares in Flint today, but yes, this is the north side of Flint, this particular area has experienced tons of abandonment, especially in the last decade and when it comes to the areas Most dangerous areas of Flint or where most of the crime occurs, the north side of Flint has long been considered the worst area of ​​the city and keep in mind that we are just going to check things out in this video. as far north as Stewart Avenue, but the north side of Flint is much larger than this small section as the areas of Flint that are north of Stuart Avenue are considered just as bad, so we'll look at the areas north of Stuart Avenue In my next Flint Abroad Video, well, let's talk about the story of how Flint got to be the way it is today.

There are so many factors. Over the last decade, Flint has experienced its worst population decline yet, in percentage terms, that is, and it's safe. Let's assume that was mainly due to all the lead water going to every school, home and business during the water crisis because during this period Flint lost 20,000 people between 2010 and 2020, which is 20.7 percent of the population, meaning that one in five living in Flint in 2010 had left the city by 2020. foreigner and that's what everyone thinks about when they think about Flint these days, they think about the water crisis and they think in lead water, but Flint has had a tough time for a long time, as high crime rates have controlled the city for many years, as I mentioned earlier in this video, and the worst years for crime were the 90s, 2000 and 2010, not to mention the economic depression. the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs and all of these factors have hit Flint hard for half a century.

Flint has lost a double digit percentage of its population during every census count since 1980. It is foreign and I think it goes without saying that this street used to be full of houses today not so much here is a Google satellite view of this area in 1999 and now the most recent foreigner let's get back to it, let's look at the numbers again here, it's 1970 and Flint has 193,000 people, only a small percentage decrease since 1960 Well, let's fast forward to 1980 and at this point Flint has lost 34,000 people in that period of 10 years. Now your initial thought might be that this is about job losses in the manufacturing sector, but GM didn't have its first rounds of mass layoffs. the area until the late 70s, as it was between 1978 and 1982, when those first waves arrived, so if that was not a factor until the late 70s, it is safe to assume that the initial population decline was due mainly to the flight of whites to the suburbs. areas and that thought is supported by looking at the Genesee County population graph because the county still experienced 1.4 percent population growth during that same time period, that is, if you want to call that growth, since the county I was seeing double-digit percentages. of growth for most of the previous decades of its existence, as 1980 was when the county's population peaked, but yes, there is more to the early stages of Flint's decline than just the auto industry, although the industry automotive was the one that contributed the most to Far and Away, more than Anyway, it was to Detroit. 1970-1980 was the official turning point for Flint as the city went from being one of the best cities in the country to what would eventually be one of the worst cities in the country, if not the worst, abroad.

The Wicked 1980s As unemployment is skyrocketing not only in Flint but throughout Genesee County, during this time people had to move because there simply weren't enough jobs to support a population of 450,000. Today, Genesee County is down to 406,000 and that number continues to shrink. Flint's biggest mistake was that it relied solely on the auto industry, specifically the manufacturing jobs they brought with them. GM's headquarters has always been in Detroit, so there were never any corporate jobs in the area they were all in. Downtown Detroit and Oakland County, which is a wealthy area that is between Detroit and Flint, anyway in Flint yes, they were all manufacturing jobs and the jobs were found through more than half a dozen facilities that They range from smaller engine plants spread throughout the Flint area to massive plants. industrial complexes like Buick City and Chevy in the foreign hole, this is the abandoned Cook Elementary School, one of 13 abandoned schools that the city of Flint sold in June 2022 because they couldn't afford demolition costs, more on that later , but if.

As manufacturing jobs continued to be eliminated during the 1980s, the community continued to fall apart from the 1980s through the 1990s. Flint lost 11 percent of its population, which represented 20,000 residents, and in return, the county experienced the first population loss in its existence. 4.4 percent is also good for 20,000 residents. You can always watch my previous video in my Flinch series, which would be video 2, and in that video I show you the huge Buick City plant and talk more about why there were so many jobs in the area. The auto industry eventually left the area, but in this point in 1990 the city of Flint had lost most of its tax base and the community was suffering in multiple ways seeing poorly maintained infrastructure, fewer police officers and increasingly worse performing fire schools, etc.

So on, basically everything the city was financially responsible for was neglected abroad from 1990 to 2000. Flint lost another 11 percent of its population, representing a loss of sixteen thousand. Genesee County, on the other hand, saw a slight increase in population, but at this point Flint was a major crime hotspot, as drug murders and gang activity dominated the city streets. Anyone who had the financial means to leave the city had already done so, and Flint became known as a poverty-stricken city in a crime-ridden city, like many of the others. inner cities around the country, like Detroit, Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia, although those cities are much larger than Flint, you could say that things were just as bad in Flint as they were in those other cities, thank you, from 2000 to 2010, Flint lost 18 percent. of its population is good for a loss of 22,000.

Now things are starting to get interesting in the city as a lot happens during this decade in 2002 the state assigned the city an emergency manager, let's talk about emergency managers as in the In the state of Michigan, the state is authorized to assign such emergency managers to a unit of local government that is experiencing a financial emergency. Flint is one of a dozen Michigan cities that have needed one over the years anyway, during 2002 Flint announced a 30-year program plus a million-dollar budget shortfall that led to an administrator being assigned emergency services to Flint, which being a Flint local, Ed Kurtz, the city tried to fight it in court, but it was a losing battle and ended up costing the city $245,000 during this period. city ​​employees suffered huge cuts to their salaries, other workers were laid off entirely, other things included reduced funding for parks and in some cases utility bills being cut entirely, bills were increased public services and certain city departments were closed in 2003, the budget was able to be reduced by 14 million, about half of the 2002 budget deficit.

In 2004, the city was able to regain control, but does this sound like a good city to you? managed? Flint, in the early 2000s, before the water crisis, was unable to manage its own budget. to defunding city services, closing public schools along with increasing taxes and utility bills, I believe in the decade from 2010 to 2020, the city lost its largest percentage of its population, as a 20.7 percent decline was good for a loss of 21,000 residents. and as most of you know, this was the period of the water crisis. Now we're not going to get too deep into the water crisis in this video, as I'll talk about that in my next Flint video.

But I'm still talking about an emergency. Flint was assigned one once again in 2011 and understanding the role of these emergency managers is crucial to having a full understanding of how the water crisis occurred, as these emergency managers have the job of reducing the budgets of these Michigan cities that are assigned and that means doing things on the cheap anyway In 2011, a year before this incident, Governor Rick Snyder signed an updated version of Michigan's emergency management law that gave these Emergency managers have more control and more power every time they take charge of these money problems. cities for now I'm going to speed up the video so we can see everything in a timely manner anyway maybe you're like me and wondering why there is a pedestrian overpass over this road that has no traffic well on the left is Max Brandon Park and we're going to do a little semicircle around the park and the building you see here is the Flint Development Center, a resource for families with young children, so it's nice to have in this area. at least, and Max Brandon Park looks like a nice sizable wooded area, well anyway back to the story as in late 2011 Flint assigned its emergency manager and this time it was Mike Brown.

Immediately, about 100 city employees were laid off and pay was eliminated entirely. It seems the city council and even Mayor Brown really enjoyed the ability to use such power, police officers and firefighters were safe from layoffs anyway as the city received a $6.9 million grant. dollars during this time in total 30 orders. were granted by Brown over a nine-month period and taxes were increased even more than before and new fees, such as a $66 street lighting assessment and a $143 garbage collection fee, were given to all foreign residents of Flint to add more illustrations about just how bad things were in Flint duringThis time Flint was named the most violent city in the US from 2010 to 2012.

Some people will say that Flint went from vehicle city to murder city to toxic water city from 2010 to 2012. , Flint was also recognized for having more arson fires per capita than any other city its size or larger now, if you think I've mentioned a lot of bad things that have happened in Flint right now, I haven't even mentioned a few of them though. the worst things, since during the second round of Flint being governed by an emergency manager, most of the public schools in Flint that were able to survive the first round of Emergency Management were not able to stay at this time, today there are only Remains eight elementary schools within Flint Community Schools and that number is expected to decrease further in the coming months.

The rest of the schools in the district are magnet school academies and Montessori schools, as you heard me say in my introduction to my Flint. videos there is not a single traditional public high school left in the city, in fact we will see one of the abandoned ones later that has not yet been demolished anyway the only two schools left in the district that serve grades 9 through 12 include Southwestern Classical Academy, which is a magnet school and the Accelerated Learning Academy long after a nine-month period, Brown is forced to resign as Flint's emergency manager and Kurtz was called in to replace him.

Kurtz is the same emergency manager who ran the city in 2002 once again the city of Flint tries to fight this in court.but they are not successful abroad, moving now to January 2013, the news came out that the manager City public figure Barnett Jones resigned after people discovered he had a second job in Detroit that paid him a six-figure salary. I mean, there's no way he can do that and bring the amount of energy necessary to be the public safety manager in Flint, so it was a low blow for the city and the residents this year. Flint continues to be recognized as the most violent city in the US according to FBI statistics. doing that four years in a row abroad, a month later, in February 2013, Flint police officers filed a lawsuit against the city for forced concessions, as they were upset about a five percent pay cut, reduced retirement benefits along with working longer hours, so we can see that Flint was out. got off to a great start in 2013.

No, a month later, the president of the Flint Police Officers Association, Kevin Smith, lost his job and this action was taken after Smith expressed some concerns he had with the department . Smith then took Flint to court and this time the city of Flint lost thanks, so as the year progressed, the role of emergency manager changed for the rest of the year in June 2013. Kurtz resigned only to see Mike Brown regain control of the city later in September. Brown resigned this time. manager is Darnell initially had prior experience as an emergency manager in Saginaw during a seven-year period along with a prior stint as Flint city manager and serving as the city's mayor pro tem in previous years, the foreigner was the who was in charge when the decision was made to change the city's drinking water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River, which was only supposed to be a short-term solution and was supposed to be another cost-saving decision, but it ended up being a very stupid decision since everyone knows there was no thought given to, oh I don't know, testing the water quality of your new source before making the switch and doing the proper and necessary research that would be required. such a movement to know how to treat it properly. new water to be safe to use once again, we can talk about the water crisis in depth in my next Flint video.

At the time he was handed over to Gerald Ambrose Ambrose held the position for only four months, but during his term he rejected a City Council vote to make the switch from the drinking water source back to Detroit's water source from the Lake Huron. Ambro called the move incomprehensible and as a result Ambrose was also charged for his role in the Flint water crisis as they both faced many of the same charges and we can talk about that in my next video. Well, Ambrose resigned in April 2015 and at this point, all financial decisions for the city had to be approved by the Flint Receivership Transition Advisory Board or the RTAB, which had the power to override decisions made by the mayor and city council if they were not financially responsible decisions.

Keep in mind that these emergency managers are appointed by the state and are not voted on by Flint residents, so it is as if the state is giving a city a mayor that the city did not vote well for at all. Anyway, with all this chaos taking place between city and state administration and with all the jobs lost, remember that there are 73,000 fewer GM jobs in the area today compared to the 1960s and with more than 100,000 people leaving the city proper, Flint has seen extreme levels of abandonment and today the city is more abandoned than ever.

It's not as bad as it used to be, but it's still three times the national average rate; however, today's Flint is more about unemployment, economic depression. High poverty rates, no schools, few grocery stores and how most properties in the city are abandoned and empty and of course still recovering from the water crisis, speaking abroad, having no schools, This is the abandoned Flint Northern High School. Now I've seen quite a few abandoned schools since I put this YouTube channel together and this might be the biggest abandoned school I've yet seen Flint Northern closed in 2013 and quickly reopened as Flint Northern Academy; however, it closed for good in 2014 and has been here rotting ever since, thank you, thank you and you can see what the parking lot looks like today. falling apart a pile of trash lying around some large objects too 40 years ago this parking lot would have been filled mostly with GM cars, but not so much today Flint Northern's athletic teams were the Vikings and well-known alumni include The Actor and boxer Tony Burton, who had played Tony Evers in the Rocky movies, former track athlete Mike Miller and former NFL running back Thomas Rawls, thank you, thank you, what is this?

Looks like assigned parking reserved for the vice principal, huh? I'm not saying, I can't understand what the other one is saying, but anyway some interesting relics were left behind. As you try to get out of here, you come across this minefield of potholes and trash and before we get out of here we have another relic. at the south entrance to Flint Northern High School, home of the Vikings, who knows how much longer that sign will stand from here. I skipped the footage forward where I came across another abandoned school and if you want to see the lost ones.

Images from this video, be sure to subscribe to my second channel or my archive channel linked below as I will have it and any other lost images from this Flint series uploaded there once the Flint series is complete. Is there an abandoned school? but across the street there are even more abandoned houses, that just shows how far Flint has fallen from his Glory Days. Well this is the old Civic Park Elementary School, the building was completed in 1922 and closed in 2009. Civic Park Elementary School was built by General Motors during World War I, during that time Flint was a boom town as People were flocking to the city from everywhere, there were thousands of vacant positions in the automobile plants, in fact, Flint couldn't keep up. with the housing demand of those days, but yes, the story is quite different a hundred years later, right, and this is what it looks like across the street from the school, well, it's hard to see a city like this in the United States United, but the problem is that there are more and more cities that are starting to look like Flint, and, by the way, Flint is not the only city in this country that has had problems with lead water.

Try Newark, New Jersey or more recently Jackson Mississippi, basically, if a city was being developed from the beginning, let's say you know some older urban core east of the Mississippi River that was founded in the 19th century and developed through At the beginning of the 20th century, almost all of these cities have conducted water lines. I hope you all know that, but anyway We didn't know that lead was a toxic metal in those days people thought that lead was a reliable and affordable material and that it could be used in many different ways. It was very versatile.

It could be used in paint like most. you know, but yeah, lead service lines, there are so many that you might not even realize how many there are and in fact, it might make you uncomfortable knowing how many lead service lines are still used in the United States, specifically in the east. of the Mississippi River in the Rust Belt region and in Far Eastern

states

like New York City, Boston, I think it would really surprise some of you, and obviously Flint is also not the only city in the country that has trouble managing your finances. city ​​50 miles to the southeast appears Detroit, however, there is no denying that Flint has had one of the ugliest declines for a city in American history and that people continue to leave Flint at a rapid rate today, with an average family income of only thirty thousand. dollars per year, not many cities are below that, and with a poverty rate as high as 37 percent, not many cities are above that, it's hard to name many places that are doing worse than Flint.

With that said, I end the video here. Be sure to leave a similar comment and subscribe if you haven't already, because doing all those things helps these videos destroy the evil monster that is the YouTube algorithm. Also make sure to hit that notification bell so you can get notified every time a new video goes up, other videos like the one you saw here can be found on my Flint playlist, my American Hoods playlist or on my Michigan playlist Last but not least, if you can't get enough of me here, you can always follow me. on my other social media accounts and those links are below, see you next time, peace.