[Indentured Servant]

Originally Posted by drro

I watched the first episode and Flint is actually worse than I thought. At the meeting in North Flint the elderly lady says there are shootings back and forth all night. The police are understaffed and can't respond to many calls, a man who got robbed and assaulted got a visit from the police the next day. At the end a teenager got shot and killed in the drive-way. Pretty disturbing stuff.

Yes, but those things, except for the police arrival time, can be found in most cities. Whether the police arrive 2 minutes after or two days after, they could not have prevented the crime from happening in the first place. Policing can only have a real impact on crime if there is like 1 police officer for every 100 people and or if the police usurp the civil liberties of citizens. In other words, treat everyone in high crime communities as if they are criminals by assuming they are guilty of something until proven innocent by searches and random stops. That would be worse than living with the crime, however, and breed even more hatred and contempt for police which would ultimately result in civil unrest and rioting.

[jakebarnes]

Originally Posted by drro

I watched the first episode and Flint is actually worse than I thought. At the meeting in North Flint the elderly lady says there are shootings back and forth all night. The police are understaffed and can't respond to many calls, a man who got robbed and assaulted got a visit from the police the next day. At the end a teenager got shot and killed in the drive-way. Pretty disturbing stuff.

Not to understate the problems Flint faces, but you know a TV drama isn't a documentary. So I wouldn't entirely base Flint on a TV show. That said, a good friend lives in the nice part of Flint and even there the gas stations have thick bullet proof glass and it is shady once you get to the main street.

[Indentured Servant]

Originally Posted by jakebarnes

Not to understate the problems Flint faces, but you know a TV drama isn't a documentary. So I wouldn't entirely base Flint on a TV show. That said, a good friend lives in the nice part of Flint and even there the gas stations have thick bullet proof glass and it is shady once you get to the main street.

It is a documentary. All the events shown are real life....no actors. The documentary is just presented as a series.

[jackmccullough]

My wife and I have watched the first two episodes and we thought they were very good. My wife lived in Michigan the first thirty years of her life and I also lived there for many years, although we never lived in Flint. Still, if you're familiar with Michael Moore's work, like Roger and Me, you know that things have gotten very bad in Flint since the loss of all the automotive industry jobs.


As a point of comparison, Burlington, Vermont, a college town of about 40,000 and containing some poverty and some really affluent areas, has a police department about the same size as that of Flint, which has more than double the population and a lot more socio-economic problems.

[jakebarnes]

Originally Posted by Indentured Servant

It is a documentary. All the events shown are real life....no actors. The documentary is just presented as a series.

I stand corrected, sorry!

[drro]

What the series does not explain so far is how it got so bad in the first place. It is mentioned a GM factory closed down but things like that happened to many rust-belt cities which are in a much better condition than Flint today. In the meeting in the north side of Flint someone mentions shootings back and forth all night. Who is doing the shooting? Why and what are they shooting at? What makes them tick? I have my suspicions but this is what I would like to see explained. Perhaps letting people on the streets anonymously give some explanation about what is going on. So far it has mostly been the police and some politicians talking which does not give the whole picture.

[magellan]

I've heard it's really good. Been meaning to check it out.

[Indentured Servant]

Originally Posted by drro

What the series does not explain so far is how it got so bad in the first place. It is mentioned a GM factory closed down but things like that happened to many rust-belt cities which are in a much better condition than Flint today. In the meeting in the north side of Flint someone mentions shootings back and forth all night. Who is doing the shooting? Why and what are they shooting at? What makes them tick? I have my suspicions but this is what I would like to see explained. Perhaps letting people on the streets anonymously give some explanation about what is going on. So far it has mostly been the police and some politicians talking which does not give the whole picture.

I don't think it is the shootings, because many cities also have shootings and crime....but population and economic growth. Atlanta is one such place. The city of Chicago is grew in population last year....and they have been dealing with crime issues for a while.

The thing about Flint is that it is a standalone city and metro area than really only had GM as the draw. People are not going to move to Flint because of the warm weather or the mountains or recreational opportunities in the area or the great institutions of higher learning. The loss of GM and the degree in which the city grew from and depended on GM.....was definitely the catalyst. Detroit as a city/region.....is to big to fail. Yes, the city declined and took a hard tumble down but it has so much infrastructure and institutions and other things for it to bounce back. Flint has none of those things. Flint's best hope is its proximity to Oakland county.

The shootings likely are the result of drugs and money.....like most every other city. People trying to find opportunities/monies through narcotic trafficking, like people did during the prohibition era with bootleg. That led to crime and violence then and now.

[Tenacity-99]

Yes, Flint is a real S-hole "country", or city in this case. The Flint Council and other people running Flint aren't really interested in doing anything to help bring the City back either.

[Indentured Servant]

Originally Posted by Tenacity-99

Yes, Flint is a real S-hole "country", or city in this case. The Flint Council and other people running Flint aren't really interested in doing anything to help bring the City back either.

Thanks to S-Hole corporations and their boards creating disposable cities. Gives us some great ideals, and how to fund them, that the city council could or should be doing to bring the city back. Maybe they should have tried what Grand Rapids tried when attempting to woo Amazon. Scrap together a 2 billion dollar give away to corporate interest......but in this case paid for by the poorest citizens in the nation. I mean, that is what the council should be doing right? They should be creating new opportunities like Amazon, Oracle, Facebook, Google moving to the city. The fact that they are not wooing these corporations is PROOF that they don't care about the city. If they wooed businesses, they would come.