It is incredibly callus to suggest that poor (mostly black) people do not deserve such basic necessities as drinkable water and sanitary disposal of their own excrement.
Please don't muddy the waters with an insinuation of racism. He never once mentioned race, just asked whether or not something was a right or a luxury and gave his opinion. You can argue against it effectively without once ever bringing up race, because race makes no difference on the issue of whether or not cheap access to sanitation services is a right or a privilege.
I could be wrong here, as I don't know the races of all the parties are politicians involved, but I would hazard a guess that race isn't as big as an issue here as you might think, as blacks are the major majority in Birmingham, and in this case, it's probably just politicians (likely black) screwing over citizens (also likely black). Correct me if I'm missing something.
The city politicians (corrupt and incompetent, likely both) were almost certainly black, if the situation is anything like my hometown.
But there's a long history of racial tensions in Alabama, and nowadays one of the main ways it's expressed is through the white-dominated state government absolutely hating the city of Birmingham.* A combination of under funding and interference in local matters makes it very hard for an already poor city to prosper and, some would say, fosters a corruption-inducing urban insularity.
And now the families who lack indoor plumbing and running water? Suffice it to say that if they were mostly white, state politicians would be much more interested in remedying their situation.
Take this with a grain of salt, as I'm projecting my Georgia experiences. (I will note that Alabama is, if anything, less cosmopolitan than Georgia, so I doubt I'm being too harsh on them.)
*This is a repeated pattern through the South: compare, for instance, the Atlanta/Georgia divide. It goes beyond the typical urban/rural divide.
I don't think it is appropriate to gloss over the fact that race and poverty are often correlated in the United States.
I can understand why you think I was insinuating that the OP was racist, but that was not my intention. My intention was to point out that his 'academic' question was incredibly callus toward a population that is regularly and systematically disadvantaged on multiple fronts. .
To call him a troll could brush aside a few things worth our attention. Disturbingly enough, a statistically significant number of people in the U.S. actually hold viewpoints like these, and unfortunately a few of them occasionally comment on this site. So to call it trolling would be to ignore the depth of the ignorance and repugnance of these peoples' viewpoints, and the menace it poses to society. It's important to recognize these people and bring into the light their extreme right-wing philosophy at every opportunity. You judge a society by how it treats its least — not most — fortunate members.
To be clear, I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I usually hang out on liberal politics, social justice, and assorted culture blogs. In many instances, you get people coming in and saying terrible, hateful, and/or violent things to bloggers, especially when the topic of sexism comes up. In that context, they were still called trolls and for me, the troll label was meant to reinforce my opinion that what they said was Not Okay.
Additionally, based on the initial line ("At the risk of being accused of trolling"), it seemed obvious that the OP KNEW that what they were about to say was terrible and/or offensive. That comment was an attempt to confirm that yes, what they said was bad and they should feel bad.