Financial Fragility Is to Blame for Jackson’s Water Crisis

The highlights:

> Through annexation and horizontal expansion, Jackson has grown its own footprint many times over. Josh McCarty at Urban3 calculated that between 1960 and 2020 Jackson has tripled in size while adding only 6% more people. More stuff to maintain with fewer people to maintain it is an equation that equals insolvency.

> All of those miles of roadway, pipe, and sidewalk were added to a tax base that never kept up. And much of the tax base that was there, the most productive part of the community, was torn down for parking lots and silver-bullet projects.

> Over time, an enormous backlog of maintenance promises combined with rising tax rates, record amounts of municipal debt, and a stagnating tax base to rob the city of options. Financially, Jackson is really fragile.