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originally posted by: St Udio
there were some vain attempts to beautify the desolate, empty auto fabrication buildings and to re-purpose buildings into metro-sexual apartments for young professionals & college aged people...
A third of the city has been left abandoned. If all of the abandoned houses, vacant lots, and buildings were consolidated, there would be 10 square miles of "blight" in the city.
Young said, "You can buy houses by the dozen on eBay. You can get houses for $500."
Flint is a small city of about 100,000 people. In 2012, Flint's statistics, per 100,000 people, were: 62 murders, 106 forcible rapes, and 662 robberies. The murder rate alone is higher than Baghdad's.
The numbers have earned it the No. 1 spot on Business Insider's "most dangerous cities" lists for 2010, 2011, and 2012. Violent crimes in total — including murder, nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault — reached 2,729.5. The poverty rate is over 40%, and the percentage of adults with a high school degree is roughly 83%.
originally posted by: JacKatMtn
Politics to the extreme...
The folks in Flint paying for their water supply have been poisoned by moves on the political level...
How about the Federal gov't come in with an emergency plan to both, provide clean water to the citizens, and prosecutors to jail those for allowing this to happen....
Jail a few, save the innocent....
holding my breath..
originally posted by: SteamyJeans
I have a friend (more like acquaintance) that has one of these $500 houses on the north side... Not too bad if you don't go outside. Also his power meter reader box gets stolen and subsequently replaced by consumers about every other month.
a reply to: Xtrozero
originally posted by: mikell
A couple of years ago a friend of mine took some metal to a scrap yard. He said there was a pile of stainless steel sinks bigger than his house there. Thousands of them stolen and scrapped. He wanted one for a deer processing shop in his barn. $100 for one like new that goes for $2500 new.
originally posted by: korath
Even if people weren't drinking the water, why does this river has so much crap in it? Industries using it for a sewer?
When your water leaves a treatment plant, it is transported into large pipes, or mains, that run under your city's streets. These are typically made of cast iron or concrete. The problem occurs when the water flows into smaller pipes known as service lines, which carry the water directly to your home.
An estimated 3.3 to 6.4 million service lines in the United States are made out of lead, and while they are found across the country, they're especially common in older neighborhoods in the Midwest and Northeast. This, of course, makes it very likely that your home's tap water is being contaminated by this poison virtually 24/7.
originally posted by: SteamyJeans
Also i heard volunteers remarking that they noticed a. people coming back through the lines to get a second dose of free water and b. that most of these cars in line were nicer cars than many of us volunteers were driving...
Now how relevant that is i dont know, but it is true...
originally posted by: JacKatMtn
a reply to: Skid Mark
I hope the folks in Flint get a better deal considering that this wasn't a spill, but a local authority allowing substandard water to be supplying the folks in the community...
I read where some are saying that some of their supply pipes are still LEAD PIPE...
I don't know WTH these elected in Michigan think they can get away with, but it's becoming obvious that they have and do so with zero regard for the folks who elected them...
That needs to change quickly... with a hammer if need be...
OMG this is the 21st century, in the Greatest nation on earth.. and folks are being poisoned because their elected care more about their wallet and connections...
I may be wrong, but our laws should in no way protect those who would do such a thing...
(insert multitude of non T&C compliant words here)
On April 25, 2014, Flint, [....] switched to using the Flint River as its water supply. The city had drawn water from Detroit’s system for decades, but it was expensive, and so Flint joined efforts to create a new, regional system that would draw from Lake Huron.
Costs had become a central concern in a city that has lost thousands of auto industry jobs. Fiscal troubles were so significant that the state sent an emergency manager — with ultimate decision-making power — to oversee a recovery. Until the new pipeline to Lake Huron was constructed, the city would take its water from the Flint River, which it had used as a backup.
[....] For years the Flint River had been a dumping ground — for cars and even bodies. Aware of the doubts, the city’s first news release on the switch trumpeted state and local officials’ assurances.
[....]
Then came the odd colors from the tap — greens and browns — and the offensive smells and tastes. Soon there were reports of rashes and clumps of hair falling out.