David Zetland, water policy expert, on the disastrous problem with Flint MI water supply. He’s known for thinking outside the box and says, pay each household in Flint to move to Detroit, to help resurrect that city. Because Flint is probably too far gone to save.
Someone asked my opinion on the situation in Flint. The problem can be traced to a combination of:
- An underfunded, shrinking system
- Old pipes/underserviced network (30% non-revenue water!)
- A switch of water supplies that changed pipe chemistry and increased lead leaching
- Managers who are too indifferent, incompetent or overworked to run the system.
Now it seems that the people there face a future of bottled water while waiting for $1.5-$2 billion of spending to replace all the cities pipes.
This is a farce in one of America’s most poor and violent cities (thanks for pointing that out, Mr. Moore)
I thus suggest that the people of Flint be paid $50,000/household (that’s about $2 billion) to move to the neighboring city Detroit, where property is cheap.
Let’s make lemonade! Move the people from Flint to Detroit so they can drink the water, communities intact, and strengthen a “better” city.
Destroy a city, kick out the poor people, then gentrify it. Sounds like disaster capitalism. I’m not suggesting this is what Zetland wants, not at all. He’s one of the good guys. It does look what disaster capitalists do. If, as Zetland says, the Flint water system is lost, then the city is indeed screwed.