51–60 of 209 posts
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?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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-... 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-vehic... Some small towns have literally run out of water. https://calmatters.org/califor…
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, it's sample bias. You only notice when institutions fail. You don't notice the thousands of bureaucratic processes that work exactly how they're supposed to.
Where I reside..what you’ll call a third-world country (Nigeria), everyone who builds a home digs their personal water borehole and sewage system because our government is too incompetent to maintain city-wide infrastructure. I’ve always thought it would be much better if we can get centralized systems for these things as they do in developed countries, but I’m pretty sure this is the type of thing we would see regul…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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."
> 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.
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.
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.
The government(s) in the US have reneged on their social contract to care for its citizens. It's a crime.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
Where I reside..what you’ll call a third-world country (Nigeria), everyone who builds a home digs their personal water borehole and sewage system because our government is too incompetent to maintain city-wide infrastructure. I’ve always thought it would be much better if we can get centralized systems for these things as they do in developed countries, but I’m pretty sure this is the type of thing we would see regul…
So even a first world country can fuck it all up and you wouldn't need a spectacular failure, just a bit of time, and a bit of willingness/resources shortage too.
You can build a more, say, resilient infrastructure, but I don't think anyone builds infrastructure like The Romans did today.
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.
You would think that, but history tells us that in Mississippi nothing will change.