> Setting aside how you didn't show "potholes for miles"

I'm not entirely sure what you think causing each motorist $888 in additional vehicle operating costs annually means, because that's exactly what it means. Potholes, cracks, and other physical deterioriation is part of their definition for poor condition.

Even going by your (I say extremely disingenuous) "usable lifespan" definition posted elsewhere, that is a gigantic bill about to come due that isn't part of the current repair backlog with no plan for paying it off.

> The entire backlog of road projects is 90 million dollars which is ~15% of the annual budget. That's not a sum that is going to bankrupt the city.

So we've established that the city spends 1/20 of what is necessary to clear the current road maintenance backlog, that the backlog, as backlogs do, continues to grow as time goes on, that clearing the current backlog would take a substantial percentage of the entire city budget, that there are other costs that aren't going anywhere that have to be paid regardless of how the city is arranged, that there's much _much_ more to infrastructure than just paving roads, and that in order to pay for needed maintenance they'd have to increase taxes beyond what people can afford to pay and/or cut other services.

And "Making matters worse, in the next four years of the parish’s five-year capital outlay budget, the budget for any kind of roadwork — fixing existing roads or building new ones — is, quite literally, $0."

> A category 4 hurricane impacting water quality for some weeks is not evidence of poor infrastructure.

It absolutely is when hurricanes are expected, common, and known to be getting both more frequent and worse in the region. It's quite well studied that development can make flooding better or worse. It's why after Harvey there were so many "Houston could and should have prevented this" articles.

But here, no hurricane needed: https://www.theadvocate.com/acadiana/news/article_701ae113-a...

"But each time it’s rained over the past year, the untreated sewage spills into the backyards and creates a mucky lake over the grass that blocks the pathway and causes a serious stench, Hornung said. The contaminated sludge spills into the coulee that drains into the Vermilion River.

Although the families alerted the city about the problem, its patchwork attempts to fix it — first, by extending the manhole covers above ground to relieve some of the pressure, and second, by bolting the manholes shut — only pushed the eruptions further down the sewer lines to neighboring properties, Hornung said."

"Some downtown Lafayette employees also were recently requesting relief after the same downpours that caused the sewage overflows near Girard Park caused some downtown storm water drains — which flow into different pipelines than those that carry sewage beneath the city — to overflow above the sidewalks and into their businesses near the corner of Jefferson and Convent streets."

And here, no hurricane needed: https://www.pnas.org/content/115/9/2078

"Here, we show that health-based drinking water quality violations are widespread, with 9–45 million people possibly affected during each of the past 34 years."

"in a given year, about 7–8% of [community water systems] report at least one health-based violation."

"In 2015, 9% of CWSs in our study sample violated health-based water quality standards, affecting nearly 21 million people. During each of the past 34 y, 9–45 million people were affected, representing 4–28% of US population."