Flint became famous because people there figured out how to make things. First, it was finished lumber, and then, when the trees ran out, it was carriages, and then it was automobiles. Flint became Vehicle City, Detroit’s little brother that could compete with it in every way.

When GM started closing plants in Flint in the mid-1980s, unemployment skyrocketed. As crime and drug use went up, more people left town, draining the city’s tax base. And after years of missteps and questionable decisions by the local government, there was the water crisis. That put Flint back in the national consciousness again, but not for reasons it would have ever wanted.