Right now, this is less of a proposal, than it is a political agenda. It’s caught in an unfortunate whirlwind of local political upheaval with Kildee and the Land Bank rushing the process forward through a private “working group” with no public input, discussion or involvement. In this scramble to “not miss this opportunity”, they’ve been dictating a specific agenda, process and participants to the city planning commission through a request for funding with the local foundations. Despite not being very happy about it, the commission accepted this with only minor modifications. (The commission’s leadership on this will come later, once they decide what to do, apparently.) This is being rushed because the temporary mayor will be replaced in August by two candidates that think large-lot, suburban-style housing and developments are the answer to the problems Flint (its north and east sides, especially) is seeing. Such a level of ignorance in city leadership is, unfortunately, a long-standing tradition in the city.

While the city needs to explore the idea of “shrinking,” it has to do so in partnership with its citizens and with the education and empowerment of those people at the forefront. Thusfar, the public process has, at best, been hijacked by special interests who, in all their good intentions, are paving a wide, smooth road straight to hell and leaving a great deal of hysteria, misinformation, paranoia, inaccurate reporting and distrust in their wake and quickly eroding the potential these efforts might have to redevelop and intensify the whole city.