Main entry:

Young, Gordon, 1966-

Title & Author:

Teardown : memoir of a vanishing city / Gordon Young.

Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, ©2013.

Description:

viii, 276 pages, 15 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-267) and index.
Prologue: Summer 2009 -- Part 1: -- Pink houses and panhandlers -- Bottom-feeders -- Bourgeois homeowners -- Virtual vehicle city -- Bad reputation -- Road to prosperity -- Bar logic -- Downward mobility -- Black and white -- Forest primeval -- Naked truth -- Toughest job in politics -- Urban homesteaders -- Part 2: -- Quitters never win -- Burning down the house -- Emotional rescue -- Get real -- Living large -- Fading murals -- Gun club -- Bargaining with God -- Psycho killer -- Part 3: -- Winter wonderland -- Home on the range -- California dreamin' -- Thankless task -- Joy to the world -- Epilogue: Summer 2012 -- Updates -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Sources and further reading -- Index.

Summary:

Book Description: After living in San Francisco for 15 years, journalist Gordon Young found himself yearning for his Rust Belt hometown: Flint, Michigan, the birthplace of General Motors and "star" of the Michael Moore documentary Roger & Me. Hoping to rediscover and help a place that once boasted one of the world's highest per capita income levels, but is now one of the country's most impoverished and dangerous cities, he returned to Flint with the intention of buying a house. What he found was a place of stark contrasts and dramatic stories, where an exotic dancer can afford a lavish mansion, speculators scoop up cheap houses by the dozen on eBay, and arson is often the quickest route to neighborhood beautification. Skillfully blending personal memoir, historical inquiry, and interviews with Flint residents, Young constructs a vibrant tale of a once-thriving city still fighting-despite overwhelming odds-to rise from the ashes. He befriends a rag-tag collection of urban homesteaders and die-hard locals who refuse to give up as they try to transform Flint into a smaller, greener town that offers lessons for cities all over the world. Hard-hitting, insightful, and often painfully funny, Teardown reminds us that cities are ultimately defined by people, not politics or economics

ISBN:

9780520270527 (cloth ; alk. paper)
0520270525 (cloth ; alk. paper)

Subject:

Young, Gordon, 1966-
Plant shutdowns Michigan Flint.
Urban renewal Michigan Flint.
Usines Fermeture Michigan Flint.
Rénovation urbaine Michigan Flint.
Economic history
Plant shutdowns
Social conditions
Urban renewal
Flint (Mich.) Social conditions.
Flint (Mich.) Economic conditions.
Michigan Flint

Holdings:

Location: Library main 283267
Call No.: BIB 221337
Status: Available