14. Potemkin Water Treatment Plant
The Potemkin city was an actual plywood facade of a city built to fool Empress Catherine the Great of Russia into thinking her empire extended way out into the useless boonies of central Asia and Eurasia. Where the Tsar could not get anybody to actually move out there and settle the land, unhealthy soil and unfriendly environs do not seem to be a deterrent to humans crammed into the overcrowded and sewage inundated hovels of Brazil. Least shocking, despite efforts, sincere efforts, within their means: Brazil never could afford to bring things up to speed; they promised to build five to eight (by varying estimates, cited below) water treatment plants and have built only one, which is not necessarily operational or hooked into the existing infrastructure. As far back as the 90s, Brazilian politicians procured Japanese funding to build several treatment plants and it is an as of yet unsolved mystery where most of these funds went.
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