The tragedy that is Flint, Michigan, should not be possible in the 21st century. In this time of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, it's inconceivable that almost no one in the world knew that 100,000 people in the The states were without clean drinking water for more than than a year. How could we so publicly fail to protect thousands of poor people of color but ten years subsequently Hurricane Katrina? Why in the richest country in the world were there still lead pipes delivering h2o to kids despite decades-quondam legislation confronting pb in water, air, and more than starting in 1970? We cannot permit this to happen once more.

Here are three essential things we have to do to avoid the next Flint:

Make it Easier for the Poor & Disenfranchised to Use Engineering for Change

In today'due south hyper-connected world, awareness of injustice often spreads fast and wide. Awareness doesn't ever solve problems, merely it makes them much harder to ignore. In 2011, a tweet from Egypt'southward Tahrir Square brought worldwide attention overnight to a brewing revolution. In 2012, 130,000 people signed an online petition in 36 hours and forced Verizon to modify its billing practices. This kind of denizen reporting just didn't happen in Flintstone.

Somehow, despite the ubiquity of Twitter and sites similar Change.org where you can easily tell important stories and garner support, Flintstone's crunch remained largely invisible to the outside earth for over a year. I'grand non referring to the equally outrageous fact that local and state officials knew about it and didn't act. I'm referring to the fact that the tools that can raise awareness, create populist backlash, and apply external force per unit area on these officials were non used to do so.

This travesty must never exist repeated. In part, this requires the nation to prefer a modernistic definition for community organizing that moves beyond helping residents pressure elected officials through traditional means. We demand to ensure that residents, and customs organizations that represent them, are equipped with additional date tools and capacities that allow them to organize quickly, continually and well-nigh and to harness masses of people outside of their community to help bring nearly change. With billions of dollars in assets, philanthropy must also do more to drive capital to these types of technology tools. More 80% of depression-income people accept cell phones today. More work is needed to back up people in doing so finer.

Linda Parton via Shutterstock

Government Must Accost Structural and Institutional Racism

Inequality goes beyond income and wealth. Inequality is also about where yous alive, what air y'all breath and what water you lot drink. Historically, we've depended on government to ensure equal admission to prophylactic air, nutrient, and water. Yet, we are now confronted with the impacts of a 200-twelvemonth legacy of discriminatory policies that drove segregation and unequal access to opportunity for people of colour and the poor.

While the blatant, Jim Crow-era laws and practices accept for the most part disappeared, the insidious impact of ongoing structural and institutional racism continues. In New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, this meant that poor people of colour were disproportionally in danger of losing everything, including, in also many cases, their lives. Often, policies and approaches non necessarily developed to take a disproportionately negative impact on people of color and neighborhoods do so in implementation. And, once in effect, these policies are often maintained despite their negative impacts.

That'due south why government needs to hold a mirror up to itself. Government must understand which of its laws, policies, and practices perpetuate inequity–-whether in lead and copper h2o pipes or access to quality early education.

Philanthropy has a office in challenging cities to disrupt the condition quo and interrogating long-continuing policies and practices that might pb to inequity. In that location is incredible potential to implement "public sector audits"–looking at every metropolis agency through a racial disinterestedness and inclusion lens to examine if their current ways of working have racially disparate results. In the wake of Flintstone, now is the time to ask these tough questions and double-down on solutions that can eliminate disparities for the poor and communities of colour.

Barbara Kalbfleisch via Shutterstock

Infrastructure Must be Improved Much More Equitably

A crucial function of providing public services in a city, of form, is addressing crumbling infrastructure. As a nation, nosotros've fallen into a trap of waiting for the federal government to gear up our infrastructure bug–and nosotros cannot look anymore. Increasingly, cities have to cover these costs on their ain, which requires enormous coordination and new financing mechanisms to address that large and growing need. And these costs take a toll on a city, diverting scarce resources from other critical services. Unsurprisingly, the heaviest burden then falls on poor neighborhoods and communities of color. In many ways, this tension is at the cadre of the Flintstone crunch. Flint'due south infrastructure has failed its citizens. The current state of affairs underscores the urgency of now, of the firsthand need to come up with new and innovative ways to equitably run into cities' infrastructure challenges.

It is well past time for cities to develop additional capacities to drive resources to infrastructure priorities. By smartly resourcing infrastructure, cities volition be improve equipped to tackle poverty, pedagogy, and job creation. With innovative solutions, they will have more funding to practice so.

In that location is no question that the travesty that is Flint'south h2o crisis could have been avoided. Every bit a nation, nosotros must come up to terms with our legacy of structural racism and leverage existing tools and solutions to dramatically improve the lives of low-income residents. The systems broke downwardly in Flint. We must see what happened there as both a warning and a telephone call to activity. This call to activity is nigh giving citizens a bigger megaphone and supporting them in telling their stories, confronting hard truths nearly systemic racism, and developing innovative solutions to build a more equitable tomorrow.