For a city that has had a rough four decades, Flint hangs on to a surprisingly strong cultural infrastructure. The big institutions — the Sloan Museum, the Flint Institute of Arts, the Whiting auditorium — were all built when General Motors money flowed freely, and they survived the collapse that followed. The University of Michigan-Flint anchors a slowly recovering downtown.
Most of the city's tourist appeal is honest curiosity: walking past the Art Deco buildings of the old downtown, visiting the Sit-Downers Memorial that marks the 1936-37 strike that built the United Auto Workers, taking in the small but worthwhile art museum. Flint will not detain anyone for a week, but it rewards an open-minded day or two.