Rebuild Flint!

[Octafish]

Hire Jacque Fresco to do the job:



A former NASA scientist, Fresco has envisioned the post-capitalist future where people are put ahead of property.
He says the greedheads and warmongers are running the planet into the ground.
He described his "Venus Project: Beyond Politics, Poverty and War."
If We the People wanted to, we could rebuild the planet.
Robots can do the heavy lifting, and people are freed to enjoy living and doing.
The guy's getting on in years, but his ideas are on the money:

The Venus Project

Start with Flint. It could be a Model City for the rest of the country...and inspire a better future for the planet.

PS: Those who broke Flint should pay, starting with the billionaires who foisted the Govnerd on Michigan in 2010 and Raygun on America in 1980. They can afford it.

[OneGrassRoot]

1. Huge K&R (video in my post)

[Octafish]

3. That's exactly what it's about.

Thank you, OneGrassRoot! I heard Fresco speak in Ann Arbor in 2009. Without notes, a podium, or chair, he spoke to us for about an hour. He didn't want to take anyone's portfolio or listen to their ideas -- he's that focused on using his time for what he is committed to accomplishing. He's turning 100 years young this March.

As OGR's video shows: For everybody in Flint and out of Flint, We the People have better things to do than rot in prison -- whether incarcerated at hard labor or inside a cubicle at work or limited by our own intellectual horizons. The future of the our planet and civilization depend on it, as does that of our selves and our children.

[OneGrassRoot]

11. Very cool that you saw him speak...

I discovered the Venus Project around 2007 or 2008, but I admit that I've not kept up with this vision in recent years, being bogged down by the day-to-day endless suffering all around.

We need hope and a vision, and Fresco provides this in a way that resonates tremendously with me.

Time to find balance and continue the work to reduce suffering, but also increase hope and joy simultaneously.

Thanks, Octafish.

[Siwsan]

2. Flint needs to be restored, not rebuilt

Downtown Flint has some beautiful, iconic buildings., like the Mott Foundation Building, built in 1929, and the Capital Theater, opened in 1928. And still some amazing neighborhoods full of beautiful homes built in the first quarter of the 20th century and some quite a bit earlier. Carriage Town is a great example, along with the Durant Dort Carriage Company, the real birthplace of General Motors. A whole lot of work has been done to restore our down town area. We even have our beautiful arches back.

The roads, bridges and complete water system needs to be replaced but there is a whole lot of character in this town that can be saved, along with the whole lot of rubble that needs to be cleared. But the last thing I'd ever want to see is a generic gentrification of my home town.

[Octafish]

4. Most important points, Siwsan. No cookie cutter approach from above, either.

What I propose -- using Fresco's ideas -- is to rebuild the city to make it liveable, sustainable and a model for the future. It doesn't have to look like the photo, but the idea is that we need new ways of living in order to protect the planet and its ability to sustain human life.

It certainly would be no gentrification. That's the path we're on now. Where jobless, crumbling cities are left to rot and die. In Detroit, the rich are buying up blocks -- I imagine for pennies on the dollar, but the papers don't report that sort of thing.

[Siwsan]

5. That I can agree to.

I don't think most people realize, or pay attention to, the immense historical role that Flint played in projecting the US into the powerful country it is, today. From the beginning of the automotive industry, through the transformation of our auto factories into manufacturing the machinery it took to win the 2nd World War. And high on those contributions was what the huge Sit Down Strike of 1936 pushed into motion that helped give birth to the middle class.

It is so sad that we will now be known, best, as the town that was poisoned by the governor.

[hunter]

8. Restoring and upgrading what exists is generally more energy efficient than tear-down and rebuild.

It can also be accomplished without massive relocation of existing communities.

Replacing water pipes in homes and under streets isn't the overwhelming task it used to be, thanks to modern plastics.

People need jobs, the jobs need to be done, just do it.

Hell, let's scrimp on military spending if we must. What exactly are we "defending" if everything is falling apart here at home?

(Sadly, I know the answer to that: There are people getting multi-million-dollar-year-end bonuses for destroying communities both here and abroad.)

[Siwsan]

10. I think the only "upside" to this water disaster will be the jobs created to fix it

At least I hope that is how it works out. They really need to make sure that nobody with any connection anywhere even close to the vicinity of anything to do with Snyder gets a contract.

[Overseas]

6. K&R. Thanks for letting us know about Fresco's ideas.

[MisterP]

7. Fuller proposed this for East STL

(of course the question with arcologies is always where are the people gonna go? it's the same thing that happened with slum clearance)

[ancianita]

9. Love this idea. Rebuild some of it from the empty plastic bottles.