In the initial phases of this project Ameregis and Metropolitan Area Research Corporation (MARC) were contracted to produce an analysis of the regional trends in Genesee County. From this analysis a document was produced titled: Genesee County Metropatterns: a Regional Agenda for Community and Stability in Genesee County, Michigan. The report was authored by Myron Orfield and Thomas Luce. Myron Orfield is a nationally recognized leader in land use, social and fiscal equity and regional governance reform. Ameregis is a research and geographic information systems firm that documents evolving development patterns in U.S. metropolitan regions, and the growing social and economic disparities within them with help from its partner MARC.
The Genesee County Metropatterns analysis reports that:
"..demographic and fiscal trends in Genesee County show how poorly planned, inefficient development and competition for tax base are hurting almost every city and suburb in the region – wasting resources, harming the environment and undermining the nation’s promised of equal opportunity for all.”
It finds that the City of Flint has a tax base that is only two thirds of the regional average and growing considerably slower than average. Poverty rates are high and growing in the city and median income is less than two thirds the regional average.
While this information is not unexpected the report also finds that the majority of suburban residents in Genesee County live in communities where social change, fiscal stress or population growth with low or modest resources are present. Conditions between communities do vary and the report groups the suburbs into five classes based on household, property tax and school population variables.
The five suburban groups along with the City of Flint are:
1) Central city with 29% of the regions population
2) Stressed suburbs with 6% of the population in Genesee County
3) At-risk established suburbs with 2% of the population
4) At-risk, low density suburbs with 22% of the population
5) Bedroom-developing suburbs with 22% of the population
6) Low stress suburbs with 22% of the region’s population.
Each of these groups has it own challenges and the report documents how the problems and their solutions are related to thinking about them in a regional context rather than at an individual community level. The map depicting the distribution of community groups distribution appears below.
The crucial finding of the report however is that, despite these problems, there are strategies available that can lead to improvements in Genesee County communities. They do require regional cooperation and a focus on tax reform, cooperative land use planning, coordinated economic development and metropolitan partnerships.
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