[jancsika]

> In a localized bottom-up system, politicians advance their career by currying favor with voters by distributing handouts, like farming subsidies, tax cuts or artificially low prices. The Flint water crisis was at least partially caused by politicians not wanting to improve the infrastructure, because the cost would have to be recouped by raising the water price, which would have been unpopular.

The flint water crises was caused by state emergency powers being abused to take the action of switching to a more acidic water source. The corrosion inhibitors the state-appointed emergency manager neglected to install were necessary because of the lower quality of the new water source. If the water source hadn't been changed, I don't know of any evidence that the corrosion inhibitors would have even been needed.

In other words, your counterexample to a centralized top-down system is in fact centralized top-down corruption of a localized bottom-up system.