PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Long before its water crisis turned it into an international symbol of environmental injustice, Flint, Michigan, was a battered and bruised city. Once a proud General Motors company town whose residents enjoyed the highest standard of living in the United States, by the turn of the twentyfirst century, Flint had lost tens of thousands of jobs and half of its population to deindustrialization and white flight. Its rate of violent crime consistently placed it at or near the top of the list of the most dangerous cities in the country. A higher proportion of its houses stood vacant than in any other American city. More than 40 percent of its residents lived below the poverty line. Its underperforming public schools struggled to retain students, an astonishing 68 percent of whom left the district between 2006 and 2015. And with an evershrinking tax base, it teetered perpetually on the brink of fiscal crisis, barely able to sustain basic city services. When I moved with my wife and threeyearold son to Flint in the summer of 2015, I was well aware of the wounds the city had suffered and the uncertainty that lay in its future. But I saw another side to Flint as well. There were the thriving cultural institutions, propped up by the philanthropy of foundations started by former GM executives— an art museum, a performing arts center, a planetarium, a symphony orchestra. There was the reviving downtown, boasting a growing array of food, music, and entertainment offerings as well as one of the best farmers’ markets in the state. There were the young families moving into my neighborhood— indeed, onto my street— who lived in Flint not by necessity but by choice, and who had every Preface and Acknowledgments