By Robert M. Beckley

The “cowboy economy” is a phrase used to describe the American ethic employed when land was plentiful and the cry across the land was 'westward ho.' Noted economist Kenneth Boulding coined the phrase in the 1960s while he was a member of the UM faculty. The cowboy metaphor symbolized the “illimitable plains” and the “reckless and exploitative” behavior of American economic activity. At the same time Boulding was predicting the consequences of the cowboy economy, Buckminster Fuller was encouraging humanity to think of the earth as a spaceship with a limited amount of life support. Despite these warnings, a frontier mentality that continues to allow strip mining, overgrazing, and woodland clear cutting still prevails.

The cowboy ethic has devastated American cities. Especially those cities formed in the 1800s around economies that have since become obsolete or where entire industries have moved “somewhere else.” Michael Moore's infamous film Roger and Me vividly captured the impact of corporate cowboys on what they left behind. Flint, Michigan has become symbolic of the consequences of de-industrialization. Moore exposed the auto industry's cowboy ethic and the way that ethic was deconstructing Flint.

Flint is located on the low rolling banks of the Flint River where Native Americans found convenient access from one shore to the other. White settlers later located there and used the river for shipping newly cut soft wood logs to Saginaw Bay and the Great Lakes. After the soft wood was cut and only hard wood was left, Flint became home to the carriage industry that was dependent upon quality hard woods. The “horseless carriage” followed soon after. General Motors was formed in Flint as a conglomerate of small manufacturers and soon grew into a corporate behemoth that became symbolic of American industrial prowess in the mid 20th century. Now Flint's economy is challenged with reinventing itself once again.

In a 1920 planning study prepared for the city of Flint, John Nolan cited housing as one of the major problems facing the city. While jobs were plentiful, housing was not and, according to Nolan's report, people were sleeping in tents and cardboard shacks. In response, small poorly-constructed housing was quickly erected on narrow lots, close to the factories that provided employment. This building cycle was repeated after WWII when the demand for automobiles and the means to pay for them soared. Much of this housing stock has now outlived its useful life and it is no longer close to centers of employment. Rather than reinvest in this obsolete commodity, housing in Flint is often the victim of abandonment and whole neighborhoods are soon infected with this contagion.

Flint's most recent master plan was created in the 1960s and projected Flint would grow to 250,000. But instead the cowboy economy caught up with Flint. Since that projection Flint has been used up and discarded by the industrial revolution. A town that once housed more than 190,000 people and was projected to grow to a quarter million now holds fewer than 120,000. In Flint, GM employed close to 80,000 people at one time, now it employs fewer than 17,000. Master plans for cities are based on growth. It's no surprise then that Flint hasn't had a master plan in four decades. Perhaps it is time to rethink our strategies for developing master plans based on criteria other than managing growth. Flint could certainly have used a master plan to manage its decline.

Managing shrinking cities has become not just a Michigan problem. Industrial and manufacturing cities have been bleeding jobs and people since the 60s and 70s throughout the U.S. and Europe. Property abandonment is a very visible and sometimes tragic result. Abandoned property decreases the value of surrounding properties, harbors criminal activity, and creates urban blight that spreads block by block. Michael Freeman, a colleague, observed, in the wake of the destruction created by hurricane Katrina “Flint has experienced the same kind of devastation that New Orleans has, but in slow motion.”

As planners know, clearing title to abandoned property and keeping it out of the hands of speculators have been major obstacles to urban redevelopment. Traditionally state law affecting tax foreclosure requires either the transfer of abandoned properties to private speculators through tax lien sales or the property becomes state-owned through tax foreclosure. In both cases there is a strong likelihood the property remains abandoned, uncared for and undeveloped. The process takes years, and each year the property further deteriorates.

In 1999 Michigan passed Public Act 123. Under this new law, abandoned property can be foreclosed after only one year. This was followed in 2003 by a six-bill package that created new legislation related to abandoned property, chief among them being House Bill 4483 that enacted the Land Bank Fast Tract Act. Dan Kildee, Genesee County Treasurer, has spearheaded these changes in the law, helped by a team of people dedicated to changing laws that once favored abandonment. Genesee County happens to be the home county of Flint Michigan.

Under the new system, all property lost to foreclosure is titled to the ownership of counties who wish to take advantage of this new legislation. In 2001 Kildee formed the Genesee County Land Reutilization Council (LRC) to help the county manage the properties it would be receiving under this new process. He also realized that the LRC would need to have plans for the appropriate disposition of the county's newly-acquired property. He approached Dean Douglas Kelbaugh seeking to engage the University in creating an approach the LRC could use in planning for the disposition of its property. Doug invited me to this meeting. I was fascinated by Kildee's vision and the opportunities presented by this new legislation. After a year of preliminary planning and with the support of the Charles Stewart Mott and the Ruth Mott Foundations, we were able to assemble a planning team that consisted of Christina Kelly (M.U.P. '01), Jeff Burdick (M.U.P.'00), and me. The framework for our planning was based on two principles: smart growth and sustainable neighborhoods. A long list of activities was created that could support these goals, ranging from demolition of abandoned and unsafe structures to changes in planning ordinances that would encourage appropriate new development. Jeff Burdick assumed the responsibility of neighborhood planner charged with defining and implementing programs that would support sustainable neighborhoods in Flint as well as surrounding communities suffering the same blight that affected the city itself. Christina Kelly tackled the issues of smart growth as we attempted to determine ways we might make Flint attractive to development once again. Her experience in environmental remediation was fundamental to helping us construct a brownfield plan that supported $5 million in bonding capacity and an EPA grant for $2.2 million.

In 2004 the LRC was made the Genesee County Land Bank under House Bill 4483. The land bank administration (LBA) is funded largely by late fees and penalties imposed on those who delay paying their taxes. The fund has brought $4 million to the program in its first three years. Surprisingly, the Land Bank has received a significant number of properties of some value that it has been able to sell and put back on the tax roles. This is one tangible benefit of having a countywide program. But, most significant is what the Land Bank has done with the more than 4,000 properties that have been within its possession in the past three years. These accomplishments are detailed below.

The success of the land bank has led to the creation of the Genesee Institute. The Institute has three missions: planning for the Genesee County Land Bank; technical assistance to others wishing to form land banks; and research on issues related to land banking activity. There is hope for cities that have been abandoned. Because of its size and the fact that Flint is in a viable, though slow growth region, it is possible for it to embrace the future and to reconstruct itself. First, it must stop the tumultuous slide it has been in for the past three decades. The Genesee County Land Bank, along with others, is putting the brakes on disinvestment in Flint and its poorest neighbors and promoting an end to the cowboy ethic.

Robert M. Beckley
Dean and Professor Emeritus of the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning Beckley has served as a consultant to the Genesee County Land Bank since retiring from teaching in 2002. He currently holds the position of Executive Vice President of the Genesee Institute. For more on the Genesee County Land Bank go to its web site http://www.thelandbank.org.

This article appeared in Portico 2005/3.