Rethinking Tiebout: The Contribution of Political Fragmentation and Racial/Economic Segregation to the Flint Water Crisis

Abstract

Abstract The water crisis that has embroiled Flint, Michigan, since 2014 is often explained via the proximate causes of government oversight and punitive emergency management. While these were critical elements in the decision to switch the city's water source, many other forces helped precipitate the crisis. One such force has been an enduring support for Charles Tiebout's model of interlocal competition, through which a region is presumed stronger when fragmented, independent municipalities compete for residents and investment. However, the Tiebout model fails to account for spillover effects, particularly regarding questions of social and regional equity. In this sense, the fragmentation of the Flint metropolitan region—supported through a variety of housing and land use policies over many decades—created the conditions through which suburbs were absolved of responsibility for Flint's decades-long economic crisis. Because of the Tiebout model's inability to address imbalances in population shifts arisi...