> why waste time proving this when urban decay is a constant, documented situation?
Urban decay is a meme, like urban crime. Crime is, generally speaking, at generational lows (shootings and murders are up, but that's nationwide, not urban, and those are only a fraction of crimes), but some people imagine cities infested with it.
There are certainly urban problems with infrastructure, but using memes doesn't tell me what we're talking about.
IME the common narrative is that lots of people, especially these days, want to cut taxes and then complain about reduced services.
wages for labor in the US have stayed flat or decreased overall, since the late 1980s.. these figures are competitive for high-tech or other specialized work. The roads are not only not well-maintained, this is a top-10 worst city in the US roads place.. so wages+benefits go up and yet the work result is worse than comparable other cities
They are about what I'd expect. Should they be underpaid like much of labor? Is it the worker's fault that the roads are in bad shape? I doubt it.
local taxes such as sales and property tax, state income tax, plus federal tax, make this city objectively to be some of the highest total tax in the USA for working people (probably related to the high city wages for ordinary positions)
construction coordinator: starting $76k per year, grades $80k to $98k per year
construction & maintenance supervisor II: starting $98k per year, grades $100k to $120k per year
construction field inspector: starting $81k per year, grades $81k to $100k per year
pavement management supervisor: starting $77k per year, grades $80k to $94k per year
every listed position has 401k retirement and health care benefits. why waste time proving this when urban decay is a constant, documented situation? certainly some cities have failed budgets from the 2008 era, thats true, but not in this case.
this is the same city that was voted "worst unfixed potholes in the continental US" recently in some media outlet