Why Many Cities Have No Money • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#91

Post by Daishiman » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 5:32 AM UTC

jcoffland wrote: post #84

The median house in Lafayette costs roughly > $150,000. A family living in this house would currently pay about $1,500 per year in taxes to the local government of which 10%, approximately $150, goes to maintenance of infrastructure (more is paid to the schools and regional government). I'm sorry but this kind of calculation is, I believe, the real reason infrastructure in America is suffering. If only 10% of my prop…

Someone still has to pay for education, law enforcement, and firefighter.

There's not way around it; people are paying much less for infrastructure than they should be. Sorry to you but that's the price of civilization.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#92

Post by aaron-lebo » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 5:32 AM UTC

davidw wrote: post #75

vvpan wrote: post #18

I can't say much about mathematics of taxes described in the article, but I always thought that Soviet Union got a lot of it's city planning very much right. Even a small town is built as a relatively tight formation of high-rises, yet leaving plenty of public space and greenery in the middle. The quality of life in the town that I grew up in is super high, because everything one might need: school, hospital, store,…

Part of the problem in the US is too much planning, alongside too many subsidies for cars. Look at a zoning map of any city: there's an incredible level of detail about what's permitted where. The local zoning code here in Bend, until recently, had a section on how many parking spots per customer for barber shops. As if, in a competitive market, those businesses couldn't figure out for themselves the optimal amount o…

Houston actually has relatively lax zoning laws. This makes for some interesting stuff:

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Weir...

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#93

Post by davidw » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 5:34 AM UTC

As elsewhere: I'm a member of Strong Towns, and think they're doing good things. Another one I like is the 'Market Urbanism' group - although some of the people there are very, very libertarian, there's still a mix of us so that it's not really a partisan thing. Then there are the various YIMBY groups, led by the one in the SF bay area.

This is one area where I think that people can move the needle some. The issues are not partisan in the way that so many others are, and I think there's a growing movement interested in doing things differently, that's more financially and environmentally sustainable.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#94

Post by tomcam » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 5:35 AM UTC

aurizon wrote: post #23

City governments are parasitised by three groups. One is the body professional politicians that manage to get elected.The second is the construction companies they use to build/repair their infrastructure The other is the work force they employ. All three arrange matters so they get twice as much money on average as the voters that pay their wages/ The politicians do it by simple theft by vote. They vote themselves l…

Can someone explain the downvotes?

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#95

Post by tomcam » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 5:36 AM UTC

crashedsnow wrote: post #26

32 Billion for 125K people.. feels like a lot. ~250K for each and every person? I wonder what that calculation looks like.

This doesn't even include pensions.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#96

Post by davidw » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 5:36 AM UTC

aaron-lebo wrote: post #92

davidw wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the problem in the US is too much planning, alongside too many subsidies for cars. Look at a zoning map of any city: there's an incredible level of detail about what's permitted where. The local zoning code here in Bend, until recently, had a section on how many parking spots per customer for barber shops. As if, in a competitive market, those businesses couldn't figure out for themselves the optimal amount o…

Houston actually has relatively lax zoning laws. This makes for some interesting stuff: http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Weir...

Yeah, Houston gets trotted out a lot by the Market Urbanism folks:

http://marketurbanism.com/2016/06/02/houston-beautiful-yet-p...

But that city also has massive sprawl, so it's kind of tough to point at as an example for more coastal folks. Certain areas may showcase how things could be, but it's still a very car-centric city.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#97

Post by taneq » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 5:38 AM UTC

gedy wrote: post #57

vvpan wrote: post #18

I can't say much about mathematics of taxes described in the article, but I always thought that Soviet Union got a lot of it's city planning very much right. Even a small town is built as a relatively tight formation of high-rises, yet leaving plenty of public space and greenery in the middle. The quality of life in the town that I grew up in is super high, because everything one might need: school, hospital, store,…

But isn't this what public housing projects in the US did, and are now considered massive failures?

The reason for the US public housing projects' failure is wealth inequality. When your population has a mix of well-off people and very poor people, and you provide super-cheap housing, the very poor people gravitate to it, among them those who are desperate, have nothing to lose, involved in drugs and crime, etc.

Once this happens the crime rate goes up, the area feels unsafe to 'normal' people, and anyone who can do so gets the hell out of there. The area turns into a slum and is basically impossible to 'fix' without redeveloping it.

I'd guess that in Russia, one of two things happens. Either Russia's wealth distribution is even enough under communism that the rot never sets in, or in practice they're just as much of a slum as the American ones and we're just seeing a romanticized view.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#98

Post by goda90 » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 5:40 AM UTC

Daishiman wrote: post #91

jcoffland wrote: post #84

The median house in Lafayette costs roughly > $150,000. A family living in this house would currently pay about $1,500 per year in taxes to the local government of which 10%, approximately $150, goes to maintenance of infrastructure (more is paid to the schools and regional government). I'm sorry but this kind of calculation is, I believe, the real reason infrastructure in America is suffering. If only 10% of my prop…

Someone still has to pay for education, law enforcement, and firefighter. There's not way around it; people are paying much less for infrastructure than they should be. Sorry to you but that's the price of civilization.

Does law enforcement really need that military equipment though? And the training for that stuff can't be cheap.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#99

Post by jcoffland » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 5:41 AM UTC

Daishiman wrote: post #91

jcoffland wrote: post #84

The median house in Lafayette costs roughly > $150,000. A family living in this house would currently pay about $1,500 per year in taxes to the local government of which 10%, approximately $150, goes to maintenance of infrastructure (more is paid to the schools and regional government). I'm sorry but this kind of calculation is, I believe, the real reason infrastructure in America is suffering. If only 10% of my prop…

Someone still has to pay for education, law enforcement, and firefighter. There's not way around it; people are paying much less for infrastructure than they should be. Sorry to you but that's the price of civilization.

That's why I left 40%. Maybe 60% isn't the magic number but 10% is BS. We need to eliminate corruption and abuse of power. Contractors of all types regularly get away with over charging local governments. This has to stop.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#100

Post by davidw » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 5:43 AM UTC

gohrt wrote: post #59

driverdan wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curing cancer with AIDS? No thanks.

You prefer that your local neighborhood be administered by a national bureau of neighborhood affairs?

Zoning is almost entirely a local affair, and it's city wide. HOA's are something I would personally stay far, far away from, but the amount of terrain they can effectively control is a small part of a city. I'd rather live in a more dynamic place with a few HOA's for people who want to live in a Rigidly Controlled Environment than what we have now, which is entire cities that are rigidly planned down to how many feet of front yard houses must have.