Places like Flint need to contract. That’s right. Their urban footprint needs to become smaller. When Flint was building most of the city’s current infrastructure, it had a robust local auto industry and a booming population. Over the next 50 years, Flint lost 100,000 residents (about half its peak population).

Flint has fewer than 100,000 residents but is paying to maintain infrastructure designed for over 200,000; much of which is post-WW2 low-density sprawl. This model of housing development, coupled with industrial decline, has made this problem of maintaining necessary water systems exponentially more expensive.

The same can be said about places like Detroit, Youngstown, and countless other small cities and towns across the country.

Now, picture all of the aging lead-based water pipes built prior to 1985 that crisscross the nation. This number includes countless low-density, low-ROI suburban development that now find themselves in decline (see: It’s not an Annexation, it’s a Bailout).

The Flint water crisis came to light at the same time another story here in Minnesota was breaking. The small, exurban town of East Bethel gambled with growth and got burned. It built a $28 million water works system anticipating doubling its population. The results are heart-breaking: