Better late than never: Flint, Michigan finally has an ambitious plan for fighting blight.
Flint, Michigan, recently adopted a new plan to eliminate blight over the next five years. With about a third of the city’s properties in derelict conditions — 19,842 homes, commercial structures and vacant lots — it is shocking that this didn’t happen 10, 15, even 20 years ago.
If it had, perhaps the plan would involve fewer demolitions and more preservation. It also would have been cheaper.
The new plan, for the first time, calculates the cost of eliminating blight in Flint, and it’s a whopping $107,748,130. It is probably no surprise that Flint doesn’t have that cash lying around: the funding shortfall is $98,255,850.