Flint, like other places, are not unique in that they have financial hardships. They are not the first or the last to endure these type of issues. The fact is, however, that solutions exist and they have been applied, and worked out well in many cases. The only issue or factor holding those solutions back from being applied is the left leaning elected officials. They don't want solutions, they want to blame others for their issues and pray for a gov handout to fix the very issues they were elected to resolve. It is a process indoctrination which led to these issues.
Right. Take Eastern Kentucky or West Virginia for example: those areas are some of the most impoverished in the country, but we don't hear about them because it's not politically convenient. Why Detroit and Flint get the attention they do is because they were once vibrant cities that have become the flagship for America's urban recovery.
The reason I say that there is more at hand than just politicians in their case is looking at history to determine the cause of their downfall. Chief is the heavy reliance on manufacturing. Once the factories started becoming automated or moving elsewhere, unemployment started to soar. It started becoming apparent in the 70's and 80's, and took a nosedive in the mid-2000's. Many of those workers had nothing more than a high school education, and had never trained to do any other job. Even when some of the companies offered opportunities to retrain, they never took advantage of it. Now, we have health care and other services emerging as the largest industry in the state, which has essentially become everyone who is willing and able to work taking care of everyone who is not, which I believe the series in part represents.
Then you have decades of racial tension which is now engrained in the population, and has contributed to the destruction of those cities. If you have ever watched archival footage of the 1967 Detroit riots, it looks more like Berlin 1945 than America 1967. The result was the election of Coleman Young, which ushered in a new era of corruption in local government and civil service.
Going off of the destruction and corruption, and making the full circle back to manufacturing, there were the unions. One of the most infamous ones was headed by Jimmy Hoffa, so add ties to organized crime. The unions pushed legislation which raised the weight limits on roads which sped the wear and tear on infrastructure that the local and state governments allowed to fall into disrepair. They also created conditions where people with high school educations could work a job making $38.50 an hour with full benefits. When that goes away, how does an individual compete with that, or replace that?
That's why I say that there's more than just politics that caused the situation in Flint and Detroit. It's politics, influence of organized crime and unions, generations of distrust, and the collapse of the largest portion of the state and local economy. It's generations relying on government assistance that has unfortunately become institutionalized for a lot of people.
So what's the solution? You're absolutely right. It's people needing to care enough to get involved. It's shifting the paradigm of thinking and getting the right people in office who can affect change. It all starts with the personal choice to want to change your situation and take the steps to do so. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't even want to start there.
Sorry for getting in the weeds there. This is a subject that is very near and dear to me in a lot of ways.
Completely off topic, if anyone is interested in another documentary similar in subject, check out "BURN". It follows fire fighters in Detroit. You'll probably notice similar themes.