Description
Book SynopsisThis volume places the Flint, Michigan, water contamination disaster in the context of a broader crisis created by neoliberal governance in the United States. Authors from a range of disciplines (including sociology, criminal justice, anthropology, history, communications, and jurisprudence) examine the failures in Flint, with an emphasis on comparison. Their analysis calls attention to similar trajectories for cities like Detroit and Pontiac, in Michigan, and Stockton, in California. While the studies collected here emphasize policy failures, class conflict, and racial oppression, they also attend to the resistance undertaken by Flint residents, Michiganders, and U.S. activists, as they fought for environmental and social justice.
Contributors include: Terressa A. Benz, Jon Carroll, Graham Cassano, Daniel J. Clark, Katrinell M. Davis, Michael Doan, David Fasenfest, A.E. Garrison, Peter J. Hammer, Ami Harbin, Shea Howell, Jacob Lederman, Raoul S. Lievanos, Benjamin J. Pauli, and Julie Sze.
Table of ContentsList of Figures and Tables
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: The Flint Sacrifice Zone
Terressa A. Benz and Graham Cassano
PART 1
Structure in Context
1 Neoliberalism, Urban Policy and Environmental Degradation
David Fasenfest
2 Colorblind Michigan
The Legal Impossibility of Environmental Justice in Flint and Southwest Detroit
Terressa A. Benz
3 Stockton Isn’t Flint, or Is It? Race and Space in Comparative Crisis Driven Urbanization
Raoul S. Liévanos and Julie Sze
4 Too Close to Home
The Incidence and Health Effects of Neighborhood Neglect in Flint, Michigan
Katrinell M. Davis
5 Housing Waste
The Lakeside Public Housing Complex, Pontiac, Michigan
Graham Cassano, Jon Carroll and Daniel J. Clark
PART 2
Reaction and Resistance
6 Technocracy and Populism
Remaking Urban Governance in Post-Democratic Flint
Jacob Lederman
7 Waging Love from Detroit to Flint
Michael Doan, Shea Howell and Ami Harbin
8 Bottling Public Thirst
Scarcity, Abundance, and the Exploitation of “Need” in Mid-Michigan
A.E. Garrison
9 Lead Does (Not) Discriminate
Environmental Racism in Expert and Popular Discourse
Benjamin J. Pauli
Afterword: The Flint Water Crisis, KWA and Strategic-Structural Racism
Written Testimony Submitted to the Michigan Civil Rights Commission Hearings on the Flint Water Crisis
Peter J. Hammer
Index
