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domestication_never t1_j3e5rnl wrote

Reply to comment by skucera in ‘This is no way to live’: Mississippians struggle with another water crisis by BitterFuture

State republicans haven't helped. It's well established that the responsibility for water is the city though. It's on them. They've have shrinking tax take for years due to shrinking population. Jackson is not in a healthy way as a city. Hospitals are closing too. The economic activity just isn't enough to sustain the infrastructure they need as a city. Tax needs to be higher, but the residents can't afford that.

The federal government is putting in 600 million to try and fix it. The city fundamentally isn't looking financially viable in the long term though - if there isn't the tax based to sustain the water supply, you can be sure other issues will follow.

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PenguinSunday t1_j3f6z03 wrote

It should never have been allowed to get to this point. This is the United States of America, the richest country in the history of the world, and an entire city has no access to clean drinking water. It's disgusting. Wtf is the government even for if it won't step in to fix this?

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gangofminotaurs t1_j3g0u25 wrote

A lot of the rise in life expectancy in the last centuries, generally attributed to food or medicine, really happened alongside access to clean water. That communities today would be left out when there's no good reason to (i mean: not a failed country, no war...) is unconscionable.

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WestCoastBestCoast01 t1_j3ho9l0 wrote

The “richest country” lives on the coasts, Mississippi is desperately poor.

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abk111 t1_j3hpogi wrote

Which is why they take in plenty of fed money sponsored by coastal states. If they decide to use it to own the libs or pay celebrities instead of investing in infrastructure that’s a local government problem.

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Wyndrell t1_j3p95sq wrote

Mississippi's gdp per capita is about $48,000/person, making it about as rich as the United Kingdom or Germany, and considerably richer than Japan, Italy and South Korea (amongst others).

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Hobbit_Feet45 t1_j3fk498 wrote

No one wants to live there if there’s no water. You gotta fix the problems to bring people and businesses back. They are at an inflection point. They can do nothing and watch the city death-spiral or they can take out loans, pass a bond with extra tax revenue or get the damn state or feds to bail them out.

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kiklion t1_j3grnj8 wrote

I thought people were leaving/population was dropping before the water failed. Sure, no one wants to move to where there is no water but doing a one time fix on the water won’t fix the underlying issues either.

If the city is positioned in an economically important area, then whatever local laws and regulations are driving people away or discouraging people from staying need to be re-evaluated.

If the area isn’t particularly economically important then why put good money after bad?

Either way, the city should be able to maintain it itself.

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GlassWasteland t1_j3j028h wrote

Yes, well the feds gave the state millions for projects like this, but the guys in the state decided to spend it on a volleyball arena for some college, because a rich football players daughter went there.

If the feds really wanted to help Mississippi they would go down there and start an anti-corruption campaign doing deep dives into every politician.

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CT-91 t1_j3f1jhz wrote

I think what you said is correct I live in Indiana we get a lot of transplants from Kentucky which when I was younger I couldnt understand why anybody would come here of all places but like there is absolutely nothing and no way to live in some parts of KY (this isnt me shitting on KY I love your state and Indiana and KY will always be like cousins)

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evanwilliams44 t1_j3f4zhc wrote

Really close cousins that spent all summer together but nothing ever got weird you promise?

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iAmTheHYPE- t1_j3fwgn7 wrote

> (this isnt me shitting on KY I love your state

They keep re-electing McConnell...

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docmedic t1_j3hfu31 wrote

The sad thing is that the state is probably waiting for the city to become abandoned, and then fix it for all the white government officials.

This isn’t a normal process at all.

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domestication_never t1_j3hkq6e wrote

Madison, five miles away is whiter and has zero of these issues. They don't even have to wait for it to fail to have an alternative, it's built finished and right there

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docmedic t1_j3i7acc wrote

The only issue with Jackson is that “too many” black people live there. Once they are tortured enough to leave, then that’s great real estate again for Republicans.

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sp3kter t1_j3ehjnl wrote

Another Detroit or worse?

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Gommel_Nox t1_j3hf6gu wrote

Contrary to popular opinion, Detroit has very clean water. Companies wouldn’t be fighting each other to steal it if it were that bad.

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