Flint

Flint is located in Genesee County, which is in the Flint/Tri-Cities region (also called Saginaw Valley) and also includes Saginaw, Bay City and Midland. It is the seventh-largest city in Michigan, and while it has historically been known as a “factory town,” over the last few years it has seen a renaissance in its downtown area and an explosion of creative, dedicated talent investing time and money in the city.

In 2006 the nonprofit Uptown Reinvestment Corp. (an umbrella group of Flint-based public and private executives), in association with the state’s Cool Cities Initiative (a bid by then-governor Jennifer Granholm to spur growth and investment in the state’s key cities in an effort to retain college graduates and creative talent), began work on adaptive re-use projects, salvaging historic buildings that had sat empty and transforming them into mixed-use buildings housing corporate offices, lofts, restaurants and retail space. Since then Uptown Redevelopment has redeveloped whole blocks of downtown Flint. Grants from nonprofit organizations like the Flint-based C.S. Mott Foundation as well as the Michigan Economic Development Corp. have assisted Uptown’s efforts. As of October 2011, Uptown has control of 12 properties, including Blackstone’s Pub & Grill, representing $64 million in investment. In 2008, the UM-Flint opened its first on-campus housing and was filled to capacity in the Uptown-renovated First Street Residence Hall.

Flint as also seen an upswing in young professionals passionate about their city work towards renewing it. The Genesee Regional Young Professionals started as a grassroots “guerrilla” group of young professionals seeking to build the community and are now a well-respected voice and force in the community. And the majestic Grand Fountain in the heart of Flint sat empty and unused for 17 years and was potentially a target for demolition before Dave Johnson (a consultant for the Downtown Development Authority) came along and took on the massive project of getting the fountain working again – a project that was deemed too costly in a study by the Project for Public Spaces. His DIY efforts, funded by the Ruth Mott Foundation, got the fountain flowing again.

Flint has also seen huge growth in the arts. The Greater Flint Arts Council has been hosting the Flint Art Walk every second Friday of the month for the last six years, and it has grown organically and exponentially since then, involving dozens of businesses and attracting thousands of people every month. The Flint Public Art Project is something of a social engagement experiment intersecting art, the community and the city itself (with support from local businesses and city government) with “projects” that might include public art installations and large-scale performance in collaboration with “local artists, community advocates, cultural institutions, neighborhood associations, businesses, real-estate developers, and political leaders in the city.”