Winner of The Hillman Prize for Book Journalism - 2019

When the people of Flint, Michigan, turned on their faucets in April 2014, the water pouring out was poisoned with lead and other toxins.

Through a series of disastrous decisions, the state government had switched the city's water supply to a source that corroded Flint's aging lead pipes. Complaints about the foul-smelling water were dismissed: the residents of Flint, mostly poor and African American, were not seen as credible, even in matters of their own lives.

It took eighteen months of activism by city residents and a band of dogged outsiders to force the state to admit that the water was poisonous. By that time, twelve people had died and Flint's children had suffered irreparable harm. The long battle for accountability and a humane response to this man-made disaster has only just begun.

In the first full account of this American tragedy, Anna Clark's The Poisoned City recounts the gripping story of Flint's poisoned water through the people who caused it, suffered from it, and exposed it. It is a chronicle of one town, but could also be about any American city, all made precarious by the neglect of infrastructure and the erosion of democratic decision making. Places like Flint are set up to fail -- and for the people who live and work in them, the consequences can be fatal.

• We started tracking this book on September 18, 2017.
• This book was $14.99 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 24 times in the past 3,014 days.
• The current price of this book is $12.99 last checked 2 days ago.
• This book is at its lowest price in the past 90 days.
• This lowest price this book has been offered at in the past year is $1.99.
• The lowest price to date was $1.99 last reached on June 16, 2025.
• This book has been $1.99 2 times since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was $18.99 last reached on July 16, 2022.
• This book has been $18.99 one time since we started tracking it.

• HistoryAmericasUnited StatesState & LocalMidwest
• FranceUrban Planning & Development
• HistoryAmericas
• HistoryUnited StatesState & LocalMidwest

• Publication Date: July 10, 2018
• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 302 Pages
• File Size: 43 KB