Never in America should a city like Flint, Michigan, be left to the kind of ruin we have witnessed. Even if one were to view it only from the narrow perspective of the economy, the country cannot afford it. But our view has to be greater.

This city is rich with a broad history, including being the birthplace of the UAW. A factory town like many others that fueled a generation of men and women to unrivaled economic prosperity. From that wealth the whole country benefited.

Our parents were either born in Flint or made it home after the war, eventually realizing a standard of living that propelled the next generation to college and beyond. That was the American Dream. At one point the median income of Flint was among the top five cities in the country. Today it is a shell of its former self.

We recently returned to this city marred by economic collapse, and the devastation shocks our eyes and sensibilities. We both were born and raised here, lived in vibrant neighborhoods, attended Civic Park School and later Northern High School. We left in the early 1980s after the local economy had already suffered for nearly a decade.

Flint today is a political, economic, ethical, and moral failure of unprecedented scale. I blame our national politicians for their lack of leadership — but also all Americans, since we elect those who have contributed mightily to this nightmare.

The human toll is catastrophic and can be found in any statistic you choose. The economic despair shows most obviously in blighted buildings, bulldozed homes, and devastated neighborhoods. Whole factories that hired tens of thousands have been wiped off the landscape. The city received funds for environmental cleanup so that someday these areas might be developed again. But will they?

The neighborhood we grew up in is now all but unrecognizable. Do most Americans know that this kind of poverty and neglect exists? Like the 9th Ward in New Orleans, will this one day come as a shock?

There are bright spots — the University of Michigan campus established downtown, a significant medical infrastructure, signs of new development that hold hope. But capitalism has been allowed to run wildly out of control here, seeking lower wages elsewhere in the country and the world. By blindly moving facilities overseas, the CEOs created a smaller pool of potential buyers. If you are making $10-20 versus $30-40 dollars an hour, you are driving a used car — not spending $20,000 or more on a new one.

The entire economy appears to be run for a smaller and smaller elite with a large and growing influence in Congress — securing the laws and tax breaks needed to operate with impunity, focusing laser-like on short-term profits and the bonuses those generate, ignoring social responsibility and any long-term vision.

We still have extended family and friends in the city. It is obvious what thirty to forty years of lost leadership and failed responsibility has cost. Flint is not alone. Our industrial base is teetering on extinction. This story is but one version while another is repeated in countless cities across the Midwest. But we are here now, and anyone can see that this is unacceptable.

This piece was written in October 2010. Four years later, in 2014, the state of Michigan appointed an emergency manager to cut costs in Flint — a mechanism that overrode democratic local governance. That manager switched the city's water supply to the Flint River without proper treatment, poisoning the water with lead. Thousands of children were exposed. Everything described above had already happened to Flint. Then the state did it again.