Lol.
"In large part". Funding matters.
Because funding matters.
You mean, the legislature refused to fund them.
Yes, the legislature has refused to fund them since at least the 80s. We both know why.
Yes, we need a total replacement of our legislature, agreed.
Yep, the way most small towns get things done is through federal match grants. Water, sewer, roads all have federal money they can apply for, but they have to fund part of It through money they collect.
This may help shed some light
www.mississippifreepress.org
You are just flat out wrong. "There" means the Jackson political class, not the state one, although that wouldn't hurt either. I know why, you obviously don't. Read the article above that thatsbaseball linked. That spells it out. The Jackson municipal government is not well run.
It does, thanks. MS agencies were essentially found "not guilty" in the same way OJ was, it doesn't mean they were innocent. The law is set up to allow the actions of the legislature.This may help shed some light
EPA: No Racial Discrimination Against Jackson in Water Funds
An Environmental Protection Agencyy investigation found no racial discrimination against Jackson in water infrastructure funding.
Is this the part where I am a prick for how I write?
My perception (right or wrong) has been that the legislature's problem was not so much allocating funds as it was what happened to the funds after they were allocated to the City of Jackson.
It wouldn’t be Sixpack if we didn’t chase some rabbits.
Since the legislature has a decades long history of not allocating funds to Jackson.....it's pretty hard to blame Jackson for that part. Not that Jackson was smart with their own funds or what they did get allocated...but what city ever is? Seems the underfunded had an impact. As should be expected, right?
I think those "rules" were created to specifically achieve an end of underfunding Jackson.
Federal grant match money is usually automatically funded 50% by the state. Locals still have to fund 50% of the match. And there’s no way the state somehow left Jackson out of the 50% funding. You’re just trolling on this. And not even very well.
In fairness, I think we’re making as much progress as the elected officials.
I read them, you are wrong on every single one. Jackson's problem is not racism. It's not being run well.
Chucky Labamba would definitely label you a racist though for saying that because almost every single elected position in the city and most in the county are of one race.
The Jackson Metro area has probably been the biggest beneficiary of incentives in Mississippi by far.
Race played a huge part of it, but not in the way you are implying. Racial politics have ensured that they have had terrible leadership for the last couple of decades.
I have found that 'the basics' are often some of the most difficult things to provide because they cost so much to fix/maintain/replace, they are typically very old and new standards or code means delays and increased costs, and because they are the base and the base of city infrastructure must be the extensive and robust in order to hold the city up.
"What City Ever Is"? Is that a legit excuse? Just keep throwing more and more money into corrupt and incompetent hands till it gets better?
Got it, the MS state legislature of decades past were paragons of virtue that never did Jackson wrong in any way. Sure sure. MS never had a single racist legislator, ever. Sure Sure, how could I have ever doubted yall.
The expense is part of it but the other huge part of it is that you have the flexibility to defer maintenance and replacement, and it's tempting for politicians to do that and push those costs into the future for future politicians and taxpayers to deal with. Jackson is not really unique in that regard. Lots of better run cities do it but get away with it partly because there is still some moderate amount of growth to pay for it and usually somebody acts like a grownup when it gets really dire. Jackson is unique because it applied for so few grants to help pay for some infrastructure and then when they got screwed on the digital water meters (also not unique to Jackson), they gave away a huge chunk of the money they could have recovered by using a contingency fee.
The state legislature has been pretty dumb in many ways on multitudes of issues and sure, the Jackson metro area would be more prosperous if they had done better. But Jackson has not suffered as the surrounding areas have exploded because Jackson was somehow mistreated by the legislature. Jackson has suffered because of self-inflicted harms for the most part. It had a huge advantage with all the state and federal jobs inside the city limits and screwed the pooch.
Getting more reasonable....
How is that the State's responsibility rather than the City's? To the extent cities are more expensive, they also have higher density, which should offset that. I will say that cities and counties in general do not do a good job of matching up taxes to increased lifecycle maintenance costs. Greenfield development of new subdivisions and commercial projects are essentially incentivized when they should be penalized compared to infill, as they are requiring new roads and water and sewer infrastructure to maintain rather than utilizing infrastructure that is mostly already there.
The state chose to structure grants/loans in a way that they thought helped the communities least able to afford it. Less densely populated areas have more trouble funding water and sewer because they have more linear foot of infrastructure per meter and they also don't have economies of scale. They were not wrong that larger communities are more able to afford water and sewer infrastructure and should not need the forgiveness. I think it was a bad policy decision because it's generally a bad policy decision to hide the social costs of things, and maybe having to pay full freight for water and sewer would have encouraged smarter development, with nicer towns even in rural areas, but there wasn't any animosity towards Jackson driving that. It was just politics of a rural state. And Jackson wasn't really screwed by that either. It would have been nice for Jackson to have more state and federal money, but they still had more capacity than most small towns to pay for water and sewer, they just chose not too.
Old cities are more expensive to maintain than new burbs, far beyond what increased density can account for (and does that even help? Wouldn't that lower property tax revenue?) The state made the choice to funnel infrastructure money to small towns and not Jackson, right as Jacksons tax base was shrinking. Jackson's infrastructure got worse. This ain't rocket science. Are you arguing that Jackson should have raised taxes? (I'm not necessarily disagreeing, but you seem fundamentally opposed to that solution yet are castigating Jackson for not doing it.)
Back to the view of the state legislators as paragons of virtue. Besides, this ignores that they watched Jackson's infrastructure deteriote and didn't change a thing.
So, you're view is that Jackson, suffering from massive white flight and a disastrous drop on revenue, was more able to afford infrastructure maintenance than the areas flush with cash from the white flighters? Jeez, I know yall are desperate to deny racism and will make any lie to do so, but this is pathetic even for yall.
Sure sure, racism was never a thing in MS. Sure, sure.
Lol.
Sure, sure. White flight was a hoax. Sure sure.
I mean, if you could at least acknowledge that a rural dominated state legislature did not act in the interests of the city, that would be something.
