Michigan Radio reports that disinvestment in Michigan's local governments has had a direct effect on the deterioration of basic infrastructure, especially water and sewage systems.
Stephanie Leiser, who leads the Michigan Local Government Fiscal Health Project at the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy (CLOSUP), commented on the effects.
“Flint was a financial crisis long before it was a water crisis, and those two things are intricately connected,” she said, noting that cities and towns across Michigan face increasingly desperate choices as they struggle to maintain their infrastructure – many of them with a shrinking number of taxpayers to foot the bill.
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