7 ms·

By all measures, this is due to the kind of neglect and mismanagement one would expect to see in an underdeveloped or war-torn country, not in a city inside a s

by cs702 4y ago

By all measures, this is due to the kind of neglect and mismanagement one would expect to see in an underdeveloped or war-torn country, not in a city inside a state that is part of the most powerful country on earth. And Jackson is the state's largest city and as well as its capital! It must be so embarrassing for the politicians who have been running Mississippi. They've done a truly terrible, horrible job on this.

RhodesianHunter 4y ago
You would think that, but history tells us that in Mississippi nothing will change.
- 11235813213455 4y ago
  except climate
School-Cotton 4y ago
> not in a city inside a state that is part of the most powerful country on earth Why not? There are plenty of ecological catastrophes in China and were in the Soviet Union when it existed. I suspect “powerful” isn’t exactly the variable you’re trying to describe, and you actually mean something like “most developed”. But stories like this prove that the US indeed isn’t the most developed country in the world.
- InCityDreams 4y ago
  The Richest Third World Country In The World?
- seanmcdirmid 4y ago
  Whenever there is a heavy rain in one of China's cities (e.g. Beijing or Wuhan), the whole city simply floods...like up to your head. It took a country like Japan to dig huge drainage tunnels to figure out how to avoid that problem in that region (so I would conclude, Japan is the most powerful country if judged solely by infrastructure quality).
hollywood_court 4y ago
Us Southerners love to shoot ourselves in the foot. We do it every single election cycle and then make disparaging remarks about states like California.
- nradov 4y ago
  California does certain things better, but we also manage to burn down half the state every summer. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/california-wildfires-grow-overnight-evacuations-ordered/ar-AA11r3ys https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/california-wildfires-grow-... Today we're in the middle of a power shortage, to the extent that EV owners are asked not to charge their cars. https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/california-electric-vehicle-charging-flex-alert/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/california-electric-vehic... Some small towns have literally run out of water. https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2021/06/california-water-drought-shortage-crisis-well-failure-teviston/ https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2021/06/california-... I'm not trying to excuse the negligent mismanagement of Jackson's public water system, just pointing out that there are serious infrastructure problems nationwide. The bill is coming due.
  - hollywood_court 4y ago
    I am not arguing that California does anything better, but it’s odd hearing Southerners complaining about California whilst also reaping the rewards of California’s success. We receive a great deal of money from California and we don’t use that money responsibly. And then we disparage California. It’s so strange.
    - systemvoltage 4y ago
      As a Californian, I've been pretty disappointed by the efficiency of our government and the amount of corruption here. Infrastructure is collapsing. It is not a good idea to not criticize your own local and state government, I really don't give a shit what people of Alabama think about California. We need to get our collective heads out of the blue vs red game and just look at the facts of how governments are running. Used to be that local newspapers were popular, not anymore. No one is watching. For the amount of taxes I pay, I expect way more from our governments. California should have cities that look like Zurich, not SF and LA.
bradleyjg 4y ago
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K7fgB0m_y2I https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K7fgB0m_y2I Phil Ochs - Here's to the State of Mississippi (1965)
theropost 4y ago
As much as we like to blame government, and politicians - at the end of the day, ll... We are the government. We are the politicians. We are the inept, lazy society who has let it come to this. We are the ones fighting amongst ourselves, unable to converse and work with opposing viewpoints.
- 8ytecoder 4y ago
  Not necessarily. Jackson is a typical blue city in a red state. Even before all the gerrymandering, a single city won’t have enough political power at the state level. Given the political differences, state officials can withhold funding or hold back on maintenance without much repercussions.
  - xienze 4y ago
    I can name numerous blue cities in red states that, you know, have municipal water systems that work properly and have for decades. Stop blaming the Republican boogeyman for problems that are due to city-level incompetence and corruption. Jackson is most definitely not a well-run city that’s being held down by the white man. It has lots and lots of problems of their own design.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      Democrats are using their party in order to associate themselves with the victims. This is an all-black city within a virulently racist state. That's the problem it has, and if you filtered cities by blackness, you'd find crumbling infrastructure and bad water everywhere. Comparing them to wealthy blue suburbs/cities within poorer red states is not useful. White people in the state are trying to get funds to go to where they live, not where other people live (just like everyone does), and additionally they live in a revanchist mythology of Jackson being overrun by blacks with the help of the Democrats, and tell stories of how beautiful Jackson was to their grandparents. That would be enough to seal off any possible empathy. Jackson is just big Flint. Or Dixmoor: https://news.google.com/search?q=dixmoor+water https://news.google.com/search?q=dixmoor+water In the 60s and 70s, ghettos grew to encompass entire cities while the middle-class retreated to subsidized enclaves. In the 2000s, the grandkids moved back into the city for work and to imitate people on television who seemed cooler than them. Maybe this is the next phase of the cycle.
systemvoltage 4y ago
These are the people that have been running the city: - (D) Harvey Johnson Jr. [2009-2013] - (D) Chokwe Lumumba [2013-2014] - (D) Charles Tillman [2014] - (D) Tony Yarber [2014-2017] - (D) Chokwe Lumumba [2017-Present] From the article: > “No one is taking responsibility” for the crisis, she said. “You have the governor and the mayor blaming each other. They just keep going back and forth. Both of them knew the water needed to be fixed. This has been going on for years.” May be they need to elect different people at both state and local levels.
- jamroom 4y ago
  From the NYT article it looks like the state legislature holds the purse strings on any federal funds that might help: "the State of Mississippi received $75 million to upgrade drinking water systems across the state, with an additional $429 million coming available over the next five years. But that money is in the hands of the state Legislature, not Jackson officials."
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    It is the job of the mayor to look out for their city, lobby for it. They can also sue the state government. An impoverished city like Jackson, that's a hard problem. I think the problem is quite deeper than just funds. Jackson has been in decay economically.
  - nradov 4y ago
    Local water systems really shouldn't depend on federal funding. Unless there's some kind of interstate impact, that should be entirely a state and local issue. Mississippi could certainly afford to keep water flowing, they just chose not to prioritize it.
  - bradleyjg 4y ago
    > on any federal funds that might help Why do they have to be federal funds? Mississippi is a poor state within the US but if you look at global comparisons it has a robust tax base. There’s no reason it needs to depend on federal largesse for the basics. It just needs better governance.
dehrmann 4y ago
But Mississippi is one of the poorest states in that country.
- cs702 4y ago
  Mississippi's GDP per capita is roughly between Spain's and Portugal's, so by global standards, the state is actually quite wealthy -- definitely wealthy enough to ensure everyone has drinking water in all its cities.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - makomk 4y ago
    Spain has a fairly substantial shantytown outside Madrid. There are also urban areas there (including, I think, some fairly touristy ones) which just discharge all their raw untreated sewage into the rivers and sea because somehow none of the governments have managed to build sewage treatment for them, so I do wonder about the quality of their drinking water. In general, there seems to be more regional inequality and poverty in the developed world than most people realise.
    - cs702 4y ago
      Yes. There are more than a few shantytowns throughout Spain, but keep in mind that they tend to be inhabited by Gitanos (often called Gypsies or Romani in English) who haven't yet fully integrated into mainstream Spanish society. Gitanos are in fact systematically marginalized by governmental and other institutions in Spain.[a] And also, yes, there's quite a bit of dysfunction and corruption in Spain -- more than in its fellow EU members to the North. That said, I have a hard time imagining Spanish politicians ever neglecting infrastructure in a major city (let alone the largest one, the capital, Madrid) to the point that the city's entire population finds itself without access to drinking water. [a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gitanos#Marginalisation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gitanos#Marginalisation
sokoloff 4y ago
This is a city water department that has failed, not a state facility. Those in charge should be ashamed, indeed, but that shame is at a city level as far as I can tell.
- yardie 4y ago
  The city of Flint, MI didn't have a water problem until the governor took control of the budget, appointed a special administrator, who promptly switched that city over to a polluted water source.
  - mattmcknight 4y ago
    Actually, Detroit cut them off before the new source was ready to come online. "The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department sends Flint a letter terminating their water service contract, effective in 12 months, or April 2014, which means Flint must find an alternative source of water until the Karegnondi construction is completed" [1] In addition, the water was not polluted. When they switched to the Flint River source, they failed to add corrosion controls, so the accumulated corrosion in Flint's existing lead pipes quickly dissolved, allowing lead from the pipes to seep into the water. [1] https://www.freep.com/pages/interactives/flint-water-crisis-timeline/ https://www.freep.com/pages/interactives/flint-water-crisis-...
- mjmahone17 4y ago
  In the US states tend to have the most power. The federal government can coax states by offering more money (for instance, funding 90% of highway projects), but can’t usually force states to take any specific action. There are exceptions but in general, if you want an action to happen the state needs to be OK with it. Cities may have a lot of autonomy or almost no autonomy, depending on the specific state and city. It’s constitutional for a state to take over a city’s services, and it’s not uncommon for there to be a huge overlap in services provided between different political entities. In this specific case it sounds like the state encouraged the development of suburbs for people to commute into Jackson, but did little to invest in Jackson’s infrastructure. The primary means of fixing infrastructure is through property taxes, and those taxes also pay for roads and parking for commuters who don’t pay (as they’ve moved outside the city limits). Basically from my understanding the suburban development and urban flight is causing Jackson to need to pay more for infrastructure on less income. Ultimately, a state that allows its most important city to falter has a problem at the state level. Even if the city has problems as well, the state has the political tools to fix city issues, if it cares to. In this case the state could have taken income taxes from the suburbs and used it to invest in city infrastructure, but has consistently chosen to cut taxes instead.
hollywood_court 4y ago
It’s a Southern thing. Alabama isn’t much better. It’s the worst place to have a child in the entire country. We have people without access to fresh water or sewer systems. We have people living in conditions worse than anything I ever saw in Haiti. And we keep voting to actively make it worse.
- Consultant32452 4y ago
  Wait till you find out about rural Alaska.
  - octonion 4y ago
  - pxeboot 4y ago
    Many people in the (few) remaining villages without running water don't want it, and certainly don't want to pay anything for it.
  - newaccount2021 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
parkingrift 4y ago
Urban decay. Maybe the state will step in to save Jackson, but maybe not. There isn’t a quick fix to reverse the situation in Jackson. Even with dedicated funding and committed resources it would be a multi-decade effort to save the city. The state government may just let the city rot away and disappear.
- afterburner 4y ago
  > Urban decay Aka "the white people moved out of the town and the rest of the state doesn't care about it now"
- cableshaft 4y ago
  It's the state's capitol and largest city (by more than 2x the population of its second biggest city), if the state isn't willing to help in that situation, I'm not sure what the state government is there for. Small towns I can see slipping through the cracks, but not your largest/capitol city. Now it's possible the state just doesn't have the resources to fix it, I wouldn't be surprised about that (and reading an article that appears to be the case, they're even getting $429 million from the federal government for it and they're saying it might cost billions to fix). But that's different from just deciding not to.
  - coliveira 4y ago
    Jackson is a black city in a state run by white supremacists. What is happening there is exactly what the state wants to happen.
  - parkingrift 4y ago
    Jackson has 150k residents in a state with 3m total residents. It’s also a state that is historically associated with libertarianism. The state is usually not responsible for local municipal infrastructure. I’ve read various estimates on the cost to “fix” Jackson but these estimates are just to address infrastructure problems right now. It’s probably an order of magnitude more money to reverse the downward spiral and turn Jackson into a growing city. It’s not as if Mississippi is a thriving state with cash to spare. Take away federal funding and federal welfare and it’s a third world country deep in poverty. The total annual spending by the Mississippi state government is $23 billion.
pkrotich 4y ago
I guess your idea of America is from movies - immigrated here 24 years ago from a so called third-world country and I can tell you it’s rather unsettling when you see the bowels of America especially in the southern parts (I live in Louisiana).
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  Honest question - why do we send so much foreign aid but don't fix our own backyard? This has been going on for decades and there must be an opportunity cost here. Sure some things cannot be solved by just throwing more money at it, but a lot of things can be. I remember this was a popular topic in pro Ron Paul 2008 reddit discussions. More people are eager to help Ukraine than our own states. They'd be ashamed infact.
  - cyberlurker 4y ago
    I suspect a lot of foreign aid is actually used to stabilize parts of the world so they don't turn into hotspots for things like terrorism. Not that there isn't a wish to improve the lives of others, but it is easier and cheaper to maintain the status quo.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - jasonlotito 4y ago
    Ukraine accepts aid. States reject aid. People are willing to help, but people have to be willing to be helped.
  - creato 4y ago
    When you say "send so much foreign aid", how much do you think we send? It's around 1% of the federal budget (maybe not this year, but until 2021 at least). In contrast, the federal government "sends" 16% of its budget to states (in 2019 at least), and obviously the rest of government spending is intended to at least indirectly benefit people in US states. Ironically, googling sources for this is difficult because almost every result is about how Americans think we send 10-25% of the federal budget as foreign aid, but the actual number is far less.
MisterBastahrd 4y ago
For most of the southern states in the US, their ideology demands that disasters disproportionately impact the poor for the sin of being poor. In order to do this effectively, the various state governments actively avoid supporting, maintaining, or improving infrastructure past the bare functional minimum during good times. They know that for all of their crying and complaining about welfare and handouts, the federal government will be right there to write them a check to fix their shit when times are tough, and they'll turn around and use that money to pad the pockets of themselves and their political donors. That money has to trickle down through the state legislature's pockets before even making it to the city.
GeekyBear 4y ago
>It must be so embarrassing for the politicians who have been running Mississippi. Water systems are run by the cities, not the state. It's fair to say that maintenance has been put off for long before the current city leadership took office, but it's also fair to say that the current leadership knew the system was failing (it's failed several times over the last few years) and didn't even develop a plan of action. As the House member whose district includes Jackson put it: >U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson said the state bears some blame for neglecting Jackson for decades, but if the capital city cannot properly run its water system, “I would not be in favor of the city being given back the authority to run it.” Thompson said he has been talking with the mayor and other city leaders and repeated, “I have not seen a plan,” about a long-term fix for the water system. https://mississippitoday.org/2022/09/02/bennie-thompson-jackson-water-crisis/ https://mississippitoday.org/2022/09/02/bennie-thompson-jack... He's also said that, like everyone else, he can't even get details on what went wrong this time. >“I think it would be advantageous for the city to come up with a plan, and to share that plan with as many sources of help as possible. I know there’s a water problem with the city of Jackson, but nobody has shared the facts on the problem with me, as one of the Representatives, as well as what the cure or the plan for correcting it.” https://yallpolitics.com/2022/08/23/thompson-jackson-shouldnt-expect-federal-help-on-water-crisis-until-a-plan-is-put-forward/ https://yallpolitics.com/2022/08/23/thompson-jackson-shouldn...

by cs702 4y ago

RhodesianHunter 4y ago

You would think that, but history tells us that in Mississippi nothing will change.

11235813213455 4y ago
except climate

School-Cotton 4y ago

> not in a city inside a state that is part of the most powerful country on earth Why not? There are plenty of ecological catastrophes in China and were in the Soviet Union when it existed. I suspect “powerful” isn’t exactly the variable you’re trying to describe, and you actually mean something like “most developed”. But stories like this prove that the US indeed isn’t the most developed country in the world.

InCityDreams 4y ago
The Richest Third World Country In The World?
seanmcdirmid 4y ago
Whenever there is a heavy rain in one of China's cities (e.g. Beijing or Wuhan), the whole city simply floods...like up to your head. It took a country like Japan to dig huge drainage tunnels to figure out how to avoid that problem in that region (so I would conclude, Japan is the most powerful country if judged solely by infrastructure quality).

hollywood_court 4y ago

Us Southerners love to shoot ourselves in the foot. We do it every single election cycle and then make disparaging remarks about states like California.

nradov 4y ago
California does certain things better, but we also manage to burn down half the state every summer. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/california-wildfires-grow-overnight-evacuations-ordered/ar-AA11r3ys https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/california-wildfires-grow-... Today we're in the middle of a power shortage, to the extent that EV owners are asked not to charge their cars. https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/california-electric-vehicle-charging-flex-alert/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/california-electric-vehic... Some small towns have literally run out of water. https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2021/06/california-water-drought-shortage-crisis-well-failure-teviston/ https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2021/06/california-... I'm not trying to excuse the negligent mismanagement of Jackson's public water system, just pointing out that there are serious infrastructure problems nationwide. The bill is coming due.
- hollywood_court 4y ago
  I am not arguing that California does anything better, but it’s odd hearing Southerners complaining about California whilst also reaping the rewards of California’s success. We receive a great deal of money from California and we don’t use that money responsibly. And then we disparage California. It’s so strange.
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    As a Californian, I've been pretty disappointed by the efficiency of our government and the amount of corruption here. Infrastructure is collapsing. It is not a good idea to not criticize your own local and state government, I really don't give a shit what people of Alabama think about California. We need to get our collective heads out of the blue vs red game and just look at the facts of how governments are running. Used to be that local newspapers were popular, not anymore. No one is watching. For the amount of taxes I pay, I expect way more from our governments. California should have cities that look like Zurich, not SF and LA.

bradleyjg 4y ago

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K7fgB0m_y2I https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K7fgB0m_y2I Phil Ochs - Here's to the State of Mississippi (1965)

theropost 4y ago

As much as we like to blame government, and politicians - at the end of the day, ll... We are the government. We are the politicians. We are the inept, lazy society who has let it come to this. We are the ones fighting amongst ourselves, unable to converse and work with opposing viewpoints.

8ytecoder 4y ago
Not necessarily. Jackson is a typical blue city in a red state. Even before all the gerrymandering, a single city won’t have enough political power at the state level. Given the political differences, state officials can withhold funding or hold back on maintenance without much repercussions.
- xienze 4y ago
  I can name numerous blue cities in red states that, you know, have municipal water systems that work properly and have for decades. Stop blaming the Republican boogeyman for problems that are due to city-level incompetence and corruption. Jackson is most definitely not a well-run city that’s being held down by the white man. It has lots and lots of problems of their own design.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    Democrats are using their party in order to associate themselves with the victims. This is an all-black city within a virulently racist state. That's the problem it has, and if you filtered cities by blackness, you'd find crumbling infrastructure and bad water everywhere. Comparing them to wealthy blue suburbs/cities within poorer red states is not useful. White people in the state are trying to get funds to go to where they live, not where other people live (just like everyone does), and additionally they live in a revanchist mythology of Jackson being overrun by blacks with the help of the Democrats, and tell stories of how beautiful Jackson was to their grandparents. That would be enough to seal off any possible empathy. Jackson is just big Flint. Or Dixmoor: https://news.google.com/search?q=dixmoor+water https://news.google.com/search?q=dixmoor+water In the 60s and 70s, ghettos grew to encompass entire cities while the middle-class retreated to subsidized enclaves. In the 2000s, the grandkids moved back into the city for work and to imitate people on television who seemed cooler than them. Maybe this is the next phase of the cycle.

systemvoltage 4y ago

These are the people that have been running the city: - (D) Harvey Johnson Jr. [2009-2013] - (D) Chokwe Lumumba [2013-2014] - (D) Charles Tillman [2014] - (D) Tony Yarber [2014-2017] - (D) Chokwe Lumumba [2017-Present] From the article: > “No one is taking responsibility” for the crisis, she said. “You have the governor and the mayor blaming each other. They just keep going back and forth. Both of them knew the water needed to be fixed. This has been going on for years.” May be they need to elect different people at both state and local levels.

jamroom 4y ago
From the NYT article it looks like the state legislature holds the purse strings on any federal funds that might help: "the State of Mississippi received $75 million to upgrade drinking water systems across the state, with an additional $429 million coming available over the next five years. But that money is in the hands of the state Legislature, not Jackson officials."
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  It is the job of the mayor to look out for their city, lobby for it. They can also sue the state government. An impoverished city like Jackson, that's a hard problem. I think the problem is quite deeper than just funds. Jackson has been in decay economically.
- nradov 4y ago
  Local water systems really shouldn't depend on federal funding. Unless there's some kind of interstate impact, that should be entirely a state and local issue. Mississippi could certainly afford to keep water flowing, they just chose not to prioritize it.
- bradleyjg 4y ago
  > on any federal funds that might help Why do they have to be federal funds? Mississippi is a poor state within the US but if you look at global comparisons it has a robust tax base. There’s no reason it needs to depend on federal largesse for the basics. It just needs better governance.

dehrmann 4y ago

But Mississippi is one of the poorest states in that country.

cs702 4y ago
Mississippi's GDP per capita is roughly between Spain's and Portugal's, so by global standards, the state is actually quite wealthy -- definitely wealthy enough to ensure everyone has drinking water in all its cities.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- makomk 4y ago
  Spain has a fairly substantial shantytown outside Madrid. There are also urban areas there (including, I think, some fairly touristy ones) which just discharge all their raw untreated sewage into the rivers and sea because somehow none of the governments have managed to build sewage treatment for them, so I do wonder about the quality of their drinking water. In general, there seems to be more regional inequality and poverty in the developed world than most people realise.
  - cs702 4y ago
    Yes. There are more than a few shantytowns throughout Spain, but keep in mind that they tend to be inhabited by Gitanos (often called Gypsies or Romani in English) who haven't yet fully integrated into mainstream Spanish society. Gitanos are in fact systematically marginalized by governmental and other institutions in Spain.[a] And also, yes, there's quite a bit of dysfunction and corruption in Spain -- more than in its fellow EU members to the North. That said, I have a hard time imagining Spanish politicians ever neglecting infrastructure in a major city (let alone the largest one, the capital, Madrid) to the point that the city's entire population finds itself without access to drinking water. [a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gitanos#Marginalisation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gitanos#Marginalisation

sokoloff 4y ago

This is a city water department that has failed, not a state facility. Those in charge should be ashamed, indeed, but that shame is at a city level as far as I can tell.

yardie 4y ago
The city of Flint, MI didn't have a water problem until the governor took control of the budget, appointed a special administrator, who promptly switched that city over to a polluted water source.
- mattmcknight 4y ago
  Actually, Detroit cut them off before the new source was ready to come online. "The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department sends Flint a letter terminating their water service contract, effective in 12 months, or April 2014, which means Flint must find an alternative source of water until the Karegnondi construction is completed" [1] In addition, the water was not polluted. When they switched to the Flint River source, they failed to add corrosion controls, so the accumulated corrosion in Flint's existing lead pipes quickly dissolved, allowing lead from the pipes to seep into the water. [1] https://www.freep.com/pages/interactives/flint-water-crisis-timeline/ https://www.freep.com/pages/interactives/flint-water-crisis-...
mjmahone17 4y ago
In the US states tend to have the most power. The federal government can coax states by offering more money (for instance, funding 90% of highway projects), but can’t usually force states to take any specific action. There are exceptions but in general, if you want an action to happen the state needs to be OK with it. Cities may have a lot of autonomy or almost no autonomy, depending on the specific state and city. It’s constitutional for a state to take over a city’s services, and it’s not uncommon for there to be a huge overlap in services provided between different political entities. In this specific case it sounds like the state encouraged the development of suburbs for people to commute into Jackson, but did little to invest in Jackson’s infrastructure. The primary means of fixing infrastructure is through property taxes, and those taxes also pay for roads and parking for commuters who don’t pay (as they’ve moved outside the city limits). Basically from my understanding the suburban development and urban flight is causing Jackson to need to pay more for infrastructure on less income. Ultimately, a state that allows its most important city to falter has a problem at the state level. Even if the city has problems as well, the state has the political tools to fix city issues, if it cares to. In this case the state could have taken income taxes from the suburbs and used it to invest in city infrastructure, but has consistently chosen to cut taxes instead.

hollywood_court 4y ago

It’s a Southern thing. Alabama isn’t much better. It’s the worst place to have a child in the entire country. We have people without access to fresh water or sewer systems. We have people living in conditions worse than anything I ever saw in Haiti. And we keep voting to actively make it worse.

Consultant32452 4y ago
Wait till you find out about rural Alaska.
- octonion 4y ago
- pxeboot 4y ago
  Many people in the (few) remaining villages without running water don't want it, and certainly don't want to pay anything for it.
- newaccount2021 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

parkingrift 4y ago

Urban decay. Maybe the state will step in to save Jackson, but maybe not. There isn’t a quick fix to reverse the situation in Jackson. Even with dedicated funding and committed resources it would be a multi-decade effort to save the city. The state government may just let the city rot away and disappear.

afterburner 4y ago
> Urban decay Aka "the white people moved out of the town and the rest of the state doesn't care about it now"
cableshaft 4y ago
It's the state's capitol and largest city (by more than 2x the population of its second biggest city), if the state isn't willing to help in that situation, I'm not sure what the state government is there for. Small towns I can see slipping through the cracks, but not your largest/capitol city. Now it's possible the state just doesn't have the resources to fix it, I wouldn't be surprised about that (and reading an article that appears to be the case, they're even getting $429 million from the federal government for it and they're saying it might cost billions to fix). But that's different from just deciding not to.
- coliveira 4y ago
  Jackson is a black city in a state run by white supremacists. What is happening there is exactly what the state wants to happen.
- parkingrift 4y ago
  Jackson has 150k residents in a state with 3m total residents. It’s also a state that is historically associated with libertarianism. The state is usually not responsible for local municipal infrastructure. I’ve read various estimates on the cost to “fix” Jackson but these estimates are just to address infrastructure problems right now. It’s probably an order of magnitude more money to reverse the downward spiral and turn Jackson into a growing city. It’s not as if Mississippi is a thriving state with cash to spare. Take away federal funding and federal welfare and it’s a third world country deep in poverty. The total annual spending by the Mississippi state government is $23 billion.

pkrotich 4y ago

I guess your idea of America is from movies - immigrated here 24 years ago from a so called third-world country and I can tell you it’s rather unsettling when you see the bowels of America especially in the southern parts (I live in Louisiana).

systemvoltage 4y ago
Honest question - why do we send so much foreign aid but don't fix our own backyard? This has been going on for decades and there must be an opportunity cost here. Sure some things cannot be solved by just throwing more money at it, but a lot of things can be. I remember this was a popular topic in pro Ron Paul 2008 reddit discussions. More people are eager to help Ukraine than our own states. They'd be ashamed infact.
- cyberlurker 4y ago
  I suspect a lot of foreign aid is actually used to stabilize parts of the world so they don't turn into hotspots for things like terrorism. Not that there isn't a wish to improve the lives of others, but it is easier and cheaper to maintain the status quo.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jasonlotito 4y ago
  Ukraine accepts aid. States reject aid. People are willing to help, but people have to be willing to be helped.
- creato 4y ago
  When you say "send so much foreign aid", how much do you think we send? It's around 1% of the federal budget (maybe not this year, but until 2021 at least). In contrast, the federal government "sends" 16% of its budget to states (in 2019 at least), and obviously the rest of government spending is intended to at least indirectly benefit people in US states. Ironically, googling sources for this is difficult because almost every result is about how Americans think we send 10-25% of the federal budget as foreign aid, but the actual number is far less.

MisterBastahrd 4y ago

For most of the southern states in the US, their ideology demands that disasters disproportionately impact the poor for the sin of being poor. In order to do this effectively, the various state governments actively avoid supporting, maintaining, or improving infrastructure past the bare functional minimum during good times. They know that for all of their crying and complaining about welfare and handouts, the federal government will be right there to write them a check to fix their shit when times are tough, and they'll turn around and use that money to pad the pockets of themselves and their political donors. That money has to trickle down through the state legislature's pockets before even making it to the city.

GeekyBear 4y ago

>It must be so embarrassing for the politicians who have been running Mississippi. Water systems are run by the cities, not the state. It's fair to say that maintenance has been put off for long before the current city leadership took office, but it's also fair to say that the current leadership knew the system was failing (it's failed several times over the last few years) and didn't even develop a plan of action. As the House member whose district includes Jackson put it: >U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson said the state bears some blame for neglecting Jackson for decades, but if the capital city cannot properly run its water system, “I would not be in favor of the city being given back the authority to run it.” Thompson said he has been talking with the mayor and other city leaders and repeated, “I have not seen a plan,” about a long-term fix for the water system. https://mississippitoday.org/2022/09/02/bennie-thompson-jackson-water-crisis/ https://mississippitoday.org/2022/09/02/bennie-thompson-jack... He's also said that, like everyone else, he can't even get details on what went wrong this time. >“I think it would be advantageous for the city to come up with a plan, and to share that plan with as many sources of help as possible. I know there’s a water problem with the city of Jackson, but nobody has shared the facts on the problem with me, as one of the Representatives, as well as what the cure or the plan for correcting it.” https://yallpolitics.com/2022/08/23/thompson-jackson-shouldnt-expect-federal-help-on-water-crisis-until-a-plan-is-put-forward/ https://yallpolitics.com/2022/08/23/thompson-jackson-shouldn...