The Flint Water Crisis In Flint, Michigan

When people mention the state of Michigan there is nothing really positive that comes to mind because as a whole, the state is not doing very well for itself. Especially with Flint, Michigan being all over the news because of the unsafe water issue, most people think of it as another issue going on in the already suffering state. People fail to realize that Flint; Michigan was actually a thriving city at one point because it is where General Motors was founded. The nation fails to realize that Flint is a result of bad policy because the people of Flint, like many other states in America were told, “Demolition Means Progress”. The Flint water crisis is something that has been going on for a while but is just now getting attention. No one is the first one to jump on issues of Michigan because it is labeled, just another issue of the already struggling state. But Flint was not always struggling and things need to be done to correct the wrongs of the bad policy. Knowing the history of something is the first step into doing the right thing. Andrew R. Highsmith does a very good job of painting the picture of the “old” Flint, Michigan in his book, Demolition Means Progress: Flint Michigan, and the Fate of …show more content…
In a General Motors factory, a shiny, new, gold-plated, gold-trimmed Chevrolet Bel Air is rolling off that lot. This shiny new car is actually the fifty-millionth car to be produced in the United States. This is a huge deal because this fifty-millionth car was predicted to be the milestone in the motor industry. It was just a mere stepping stone to what was to come for General Motors future and the future of Flint, Michigan. There were roughly 200,000 residents of Flint at this time and 80,000 of them were on the payroll for GM (white and black). With all the success the city of Flint was experiencing because of the GM company, no one could have predicted the economic fall that came