The lessons of the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, are both familiar and strange. An austerity-minded governor, Rick Snyder, using a controversial new law, appoints emergency managers for a number of the state’s poor municipalities, including Flint. By 2014, more than half of the black people in Michigan are living under unelected leaders with extraordinary powers. The Flint emergency manager decides, in April, 2014, to save some money by ending the city’s contract to buy water from Detroit, switching for its supply to the Flint River.