the town i grew up in likewise refused to invest in sewage infrastructure and used that as an excute not to annex it’s poorest part; my childhood neighborhood.

they invested in water infrastructure when my neighborhood was in the “planning” stages and calling it planning stage is a very generous way to describe it. once it became clear that my future neighborhood would become low rent, they stopped investing in the infrastructure; citing that the city couldn’t afford the sewage system and cancelled all plans to annex the neighborhood in the city limits.

fast forward rough 6 decades or so later and now the population & size of the neighborhood is starting to rival the city itself; so much so that the census decided to give it and many other similar municipalities across the country like it a special designation: census designated place.

all the meanwhile the price tag for that sewer system has only gone up and the city still continues to insist that they can’t afford it and they never will. like these people in alabama, my city gave their answer decades ago and i can’t image what goes through their minds when they beg their neighboring communities for a basic human need like water and then their neighbors won’t even allow them to speak.