I completely understand all of that.
However, when I drive through those places, they don't look like a cesspool of trash. The roads are in decent shape and the lane markings are not all worn off and barely visible. They are not losing billions of gallons of water to decaying water lines. Their electricity isn't failing in large swaths every time there is a wind or ice becaue there is not money to keep the trees around the lines trimmed. They aren't paying out hundreds of millions in lawsuits for stupid decisions their leader regarding airports or crime labs. They don't have a history of boodoggle, failed infrastructure projects. They don't have a history of overpaying for hotels and then letting them decay and burning tens of millions of dollar for empty hotels in the name of homelessness.
The library in a vacuum is fine. Not in the face of the financial status that this city currently in.
Ferraris are awesome cars, but you don't go out and buy a Ferrari while your kids are starving and you are living in a shack.
But I guess the city needs to have more vanity so when the guests come to down, before they get murdered, they can stroll through some homeless camps, walk down some decaying streets and walk into our awesome library and check out an ebook to read in their hotel.