Michael Moore's Hometown To Be Bulldozed

US cities bulldoze their way to survival

Flint, 96 kilometres north of Detroit, was the original home of General Motors. The car giant once employed 79,000 local people but that has shrunk to about 8000. Unemployment is approaching 20 per cent and the population has almost halved to 110,000.

The exodus, coupled with the consequent collapse in property prices, has left sections of the city almost abandoned. In the centre, the once grand Durant Hotel — named after William Durant, GM's founder — has been empty since 1973, roughly when Flint's decline began.