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skucera t1_j3e0k01 wrote

At what point is it just straight-up racism that the state government (controlled by white republicans) won’t fix the infrastructure in the largest black community, which also happens to mostly vote democrat?

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domestication_never t1_j3e5rnl wrote

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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periwinkletweet t1_j3e5uqn wrote

It's not all the states responsibly. The city leaders have made errors also. I feel so bad for the residents there

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procrasturb8n t1_j3he2of wrote

Yet, the feds gave the state money to address it, and the state legislature decided to do something else with the funds.

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BitterFuture OP t1_j3efs0m wrote

Sometime around 1865, I'd say.

Edit: Conservatives have joined the discussion, I gather? Don't like being called out on your racism, boys?

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After-District8811 t1_j3h1w09 wrote

At what point is it straight up incompetence that the local government (controlled by black democrats) ran the city services into the ground after decades of corruption and mismanagement? Blaming this on the state government makes no sense when it’s the city governments responsibility. They are the ones that fucked up, many many times. The residents of Jackson, MS vote for incompetent leaders and this is the result. Period.

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ultradianfreq t1_j3i62u7 wrote

As you can see you’re the only comment here who isn’t placing all the blame on the racist white republicans. It’s always weird when people totally ignore the locals running the cities that these things happen in. Republicans are trash but using them as scapegoats to excuse the incompetence and corruption and the root cause of a matter doesn’t help the local black community who are the victims of the corrupt scumbags making the decisions. See this happening over and over again. People seem not to know you can fight racism, support minorities, and hold leaders accountable even if they themselves are minorities. This ideology of treating each group identity as though they are homogenous is itself racist.

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ConcreteState t1_j3h7ik8 wrote

They figured out how to sneak 'colored only' water fountains back into the state

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SQUIRTnCIDER t1_j3hkfmi wrote

So what you said isn’t racism. It sounds more political.

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Serverpolice001 t1_j3ffozs wrote

Was so sad happened in flint too

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redander t1_j3gw7fd wrote

Not just flint. There is lots of cities in Michigan that had issues with the water in the years following. Flint just got the most press due to the political aspects of it.

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