You can drive around the city of Atlanta, even on the expressways and you’ll see dark street lights - they can’t afford to pay the electric bills because they are pi$$ing away the money on largess. Same thing for the 100+ year water system - won’t commit and spend the money because of the same reason.
The cash cow for Atlanta is the Hartsfield Airport (Maynard Jackson doesn’t deserve the honor of being included). It could fund all sorts of things but it is and has been a venue for Atlanta Mayors for payoffs, favoritism, nepotism and a whole host of dubious purposes.
Funny you should mention the lighting; here in northern NJ there was just a news story about lights along the highways in Paterson NJ being cannibalized by bandits for the metals (for scrap), and the lack of money to both fix them and install surveillance to prevent future thefts.
Northern NJ has little left to offer; Newark itself is a transit hub (with an airport) that is surrounded by hordes of people who contribute nothing while expecting everything. We’ve lost a lot of jobs here (most recently, Mercedes is moving its HQ to Atlanta), and they won’t be coming back. Young people that want to stay here simply look for a place on the government teat (as teachers, cops, firemen, etc.) as the only stable, very lucrative employment options. The masses of immigrants we traffic here to keep our government caste employed has no intention of funding it (or older Americans’ retirements, for that matter).