Lafayette is my hometown. The article says this isn't a cultural issue, but when a majority of cities shares the problem, that speaks to a national culture of scarcity. The desire for growth stemming from feeling there isn't enough to do, land to build on, people living there, etc. was definitely prominent in Lafayette. It's that shared mindset driving this phenomenon.
Why Many Cities Have No Money
161–170 of 424 posts
Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A generation is what, 25 years? If you expect to replace all roads/electricity poles/sewers etc every 25 years you seriously need to look a quality. For this I feel this whole article is off. Isn't that the typical depreciation schedule for infrastructural assets? I've seen some useful life tables used by accountants and 25 years seems to be a typical mark. Maybe 30 years, but rarely 50.
Depreciating it over 30 years is probably reasonable, but automatically counting replacement as an unfunded liability is way too conservative. Heavily traffic roads will need replacing at least every 30 years. But in my college down, they had side streets made of brick that has lasted over 80 years. Things like water mains and sewerage pipes have a lifetime of 100 years or more. A lot of the systems are now due up fo…
The problem is, since nobody budgeted for this rare but predictable replacement, there is no money for it. This is why even long replacements have to be budgeted annually. They may be cheaper, but they silk exists. It is always somebody else's problem, but then it sucks to be that person.
Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money
#163> When we added up the replacement cost of all of the city's infrastructure -- an expense we would anticipate them cumulatively experiencing roughly once a generation -- it came to $32 billion. A generation is what, 25 years? If you expect to replace all roads/electricity poles/sewers etc every 25 years you seriously need to look a quality. For this I feel this whole article is off. > Humans are predisposed to highly…
A concrete road is good for 50 years at best. Water and sewer lines somewhere between 50-100 years.
Which means one will see them replaced during their lifetime and grandkids paying for it.
Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, there are externalities and also other ways markets fail; that's why I didn't use the term. Maybe there aren't enough street parking spots for all the businesses, and then the market fails: No business wants to spend on on-site parking in order to free up parking for everyone else. The way to move forward is to come together and pass a law. > Zoning didn't even exist in Bend until 1947. Some of the first zoning…
By enacting laws, you create a very rigid situation that's much more difficult to change than "there's not enough parking", which is something the neighborhood could adapt to without too much trouble. When I was born, Bend was still a wood products industry town based around logging and the local mills. These days, it's trying to develop a high tech industry, and doing reasonably well at it for a small-ish town. Plac…
I do think the market is a very useful tool and that some things are over-regulated and some are under-regulated. But I don't understand your point: All regulations are bad? Everything is too regulated? I know these ideas are trendy, but they don't really mean anything or inform us. As I asked before:
In what ways are they too regulated, and in what ways not regulated enough? ... How much regulation is just right?
Without answers to those questions, we have nothing serious to act on.
> By enacting laws, you create a very rigid situation
A general statement, but laws can change. Laws often are written to create flexibility, delegating authority to regulatory commissions. Markets can be very rigid; look that the market power of Windows, whose dominance has lasted longer than most politicians' careers. When is the last time the market allowed in a new car manufacturer (Tesla hasn't yet survived infancy, and if it does it will be the only exception in (80?) years). How long does it take to change a web standard in the 'free' market? If they were government regulations, they could be changed like analog to digital TV or the reallocation of spectrum. I thought Europe's regulated, universal GSM was better than the U.S.'s 'market' solution of competing technologies.
Also, laws allocate power democratically to all citizens. The 'market' allocates it to those with the most money.
> Planning commissions, or even city councils, have just a few people with their own ideas of "how things should be".
I disagree; they are creations of and responsive to the democratic process. The market, on the other hand, is responsive to a few people with the most money; most citizens have no say. I don't want my community run by the wealthy, with 99% of citizens living like subjects under an aristocracy.
> In terms of how they're too regulated, sure: ...
I don't see a few op-eds as evidence; I have no doubt there are enough people who believe it that op-eds could be supplied daily. If you are correct about SF Bay Area (I don't know), it is an example of something that is over-regulated in some way, not evidence that the everything is over-regulated (again, could you really be saying that?).
Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money
#165This article seems to focus overmuch on infrastructure maintenance costs. While those are certainly an important factor, most of the actual municipal bankruptcies in recent years were caused primarily by expensive union contracts and pension obligations. Declining populations and financial malfeasance were also factors in some cases. Perhaps an explosion in infrastructure maintenance costs will cause a new wave of mu…
Both are intertwined. When there is not enough money, pension funds tend to take a hit. Population will move to greener pastures.
The bankruptcies are not happening, because a lot of the infrastructure can withstand 50 or a bunch more years. It has been built in say 50s - 70s so never had to be completely overhauled.
In EU, the problems with replacing infrastructure built in 1940s have already hit a few times, but it was better planned after the war.
Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money
#166Extreme density is overrated. See http://tinyvillages.org
How do you move around in these neighborhoods? Take a daily stroll on foot for a few hours? It does not work when you want to do anything big, say a few thousand people in approximately the same place. Those people have to get to this place, which would require efficient mass transit. The large area makes both road and fuel costs go up.
Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As if, in a competitive market, those businesses couldn't figure out for themselves the optimal amount of parking to pay for to keep their customers happy. I don't know anything about Bend, but speaking generally ... There are many ways that markets are inefficient and flawed; I wouldn't assume they would yield a good result. For example, the barbershops may be incentivized to push the parking costs onto others. It…
> the barbershops may be incentivized to push the parking costs onto others You mean others who post "Parking for McDonald's only" on their spots and have a towing service visible? There are problems that are not pragmatic for markets to solve without a bit of legal rigidity, but the whole "who will build the roads?" seems to stem from a lack of creativity and just overall contrarianism. "Who will build the interstat…
> I think cities would enjoy a nice efficiency boost from the decentralized, organic growth of a less bureaucratically-planned city (plus fewer budget problems).
Consider the infrastructure costs in the article: Less centralized, less planned cities would, I expect, create higher infrastructure costs as efficiencies of scale, standardization, reduced redundancy, and planning would be lost. Also, different parts of the city would try to dump costs on each other.
As I asked in another comment:
In what ways are they too regulated, and in what ways not regulated enough? ... How much regulation is just right? And: To which cities are you referring? What kinds of cities?
It's too easy to say, 'there's too much regulation'; it's cliche and doesn't really mean anything.
Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As if, in a competitive market, those businesses couldn't figure out for themselves the optimal amount of parking to pay for to keep their customers happy. I don't know anything about Bend, but speaking generally ... There are many ways that markets are inefficient and flawed; I wouldn't assume they would yield a good result. For example, the barbershops may be incentivized to push the parking costs onto others. It…
In that case, you set up a corporation that buys an entire subdivision of the city, has 'zoning laws' in its corporate bylaws, and makes 'landowners' shareholders. Isn't this just local city government with another name? Well, no. There are significant differences between a city government and an organization of private citizens. For one, it's illegal for Walmart to bribe voters; but a corporation would love to have…
Should citizens have a vote in what happens in their city, or should they be ruled by corporate executives?
Also, a common and essential part of the free market is failure and bankruptcy. What happens when parts of the city go bankrupt? What happens to the citizens there? What happens to the debt?
Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 d…
in Russia most people with low-income just can't afford new housing and live with parents or in inherited apartments after their grandparents/parents die
those apartments we not bought, but privatized after Soviet Union collapse, where people get apartments for "free" after approx. 10 years working on a factory or so...
so in new projects, which are sold for money with mortgage rates at 12% annually there's no people that have "nothing to lose", people that have "nothing to lose" are widespread, living in apartments their parents got in Soviet Union
Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money
#170Earlier 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…
There are zoning and planning because, well, people actually live in those places, and it's natural for people to want some control over their environment. Is that really such a bad thing? It's like drugs, and prostitution, and all of the many things that seem so trendy to want to 'free' from government these days. On paper, the ideas look fantastic and efficient. That is, until a 24-hour strip club / pot dispensary…
In Canada towns have strip clubs in the main commercial area across from banks and grocery stores. It's not an issue. The windows are blacked out and the mere aura of a strip club doesn't somehow damn children. Heck in the D.C., liquor stores are precriously close to playgrounds yet it causes no trouble. People who buy liquor have children too, and if not are still part of the community and thus tend not to do whatever it is you think those who buy legal pot will do.