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In Jackson, Mississippi, a water crisis of unparalleled scale

washingtonpost.com

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Re: In Jackson, Mississippi, a water crisis of unparalleled scale

#61

Post by nostrademons »

peterpost2 wrote: post #21
scifibestfi wrote: post #14

Does anyone else feel like all of our institutions are crumbling in real time? And to the degree they still work is a product of momentum?

That was the most shocking thing to me when I visited the United States for the first time in my live last month, the road system is so incredibly poorly maintained and so incredibly poorly thought out. It all is incredibly expansive but not maintained. That being said I only saw 3 (eastern) states, maybe it's different elsewhere.

It all depends how many rich people live in the city. You can tell when you cross city/town borders because the roads become noticeably better or worse.

Re: In Jackson, Mississippi, a water crisis of unparalleled scale

#62

Post by 1270018080 »

scifibestfi wrote: post #14

Does anyone else feel like all of our institutions are crumbling in real time? And to the degree they still work is a product of momentum?

No, there are 1000's of cities in America with who have had uninterrupted functioning water systems for decades (hundreds of years?). Doomerism anecdotes lead to lots of clicks.

Re: In Jackson, Mississippi, a water crisis of unparalleled scale

#64

Post by yardie »

sokoloff wrote: post #17
cs702 wrote: post #5

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.

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.

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.

Re: In Jackson, Mississippi, a water crisis of unparalleled scale

#66

Post by dirtsoc »

scifibestfi wrote: post #14

Does anyone else feel like all of our institutions are crumbling in real time? And to the degree they still work is a product of momentum?

Who wants to work on public infrastructure when you can be a software engineer making 6 figures after a single 3 month long bootcamp.

Re: In Jackson, Mississippi, a water crisis of unparalleled scale

#67

Post by seanmcdirmid »

sokoloff wrote: post #17
cs702 wrote: post #5

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.

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.

This gets really close to the racial and ideological divide in MS, you have a very white conservative state government and a very black liberal city government, the former isn't going to bother trying to help the latter very much. As a poor city on the economic decline (and makes Detroit look nice), I'm not sure what we would really expect when natural disaster strikes (look at what happened to New Orleans during Katrina).

Re: In Jackson, Mississippi, a water crisis of unparalleled scale

#68

Post by parkingrift »

cs702 wrote: post #5

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.

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.

Re: In Jackson, Mississippi, a water crisis of unparalleled scale

#69

Post by heavyset_go »

theropost wrote: post #10
cs702 wrote: post #5

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.

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.

Governments in the US are set up explicitly to represent minority interests, usually those of owners of large amounts of property, over the interests of the public at large.

Re: In Jackson, Mississippi, a water crisis of unparalleled scale

#70

Post by krapp »

sokoloff wrote: post #58
ahelwer wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is our inability to converse and work with opposing viewpoints relevant to a situation occurring in a state entirely dominated by a single viewpoint? There are many, many problems (most problems?) whose causes have nothing to do with a lack of unity or civility (relative to when?) in US national politics or whatever.

This is a strongly blue city inside a strongly red state. That seems like differing politics could be relevant.

>This is a strongly blue city inside a strongly red state.

This is a strongly black city inside a strongly white supremacist state.

Let's just put the cards on the table here - this tends not to happen in majority white areas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_racism_in_the_Un...

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