When you hear the name Flint, Michigan, you probably think of a lot of different things. For me, the first thing I think about is the 1989 Michael Moore documentary Roger and Me. Moore spends the film walking around a derelict and impoverished looking Flint, examining the effects of the closure of the city’s General Motors factory and the loss of thousands of jobs. The city came off as absolutely miserable both aesthetically and psychologically.
Oddly enough, today Flint has focused on something entirely different from car production: tattoos. In a recent study put out by website Totalbeauty.com, Flint was listed as the 4th most tattooed city in America.
‘…The people there perused chat forums and checked public directories in every state. Then they searched cities to see who had the most shops listed per capita, using population numbers from the most recent census.
According to the Genesee County Health Department, in the Flint area, that’s any facility with a Flint mailing address, there are 16 licensed body art facilities. Countywide? There’s 29.
By comparison, Saginaw County has only eight or nine. Bay County has five and Shiawassee County has three.
The artists at XTC Tattoo in Flint don’t need numbers. They know the city is saturated with shops and with people wanting tattoos.’
I myself haven’t been to Flint since I was about 12 years old. Obviously it has changed very much since then. Perhaps it’s time to give it another chance and check out the tattoo scene? I guess anything is possible.