Why Many Cities Have No Money • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#241

Post by jsymolon » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 2:09 PM UTC

richmarr wrote: post #225

Zach_the_Lizard wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>very different incentives to the market. They are concerned about being elected, that's it. Hence why we have huge infrastructure bills coming to haunt us, pensions that are out of control (though dwarfed by infrastructure costs), and other passing the buck behavior. That's not to say they're bad, do no good, etc. Just that their incentives are such that they can't enact good policy oftentimes or possibly even tell…

> They are concerned about being elected, that's it. Politicians are clearly incentivised by election, but saying its their only concern is generalising and reductionist. The rest of your comment makes a lot of points, but broadly seems to assume that I'm claiming that private companies have no place in transport infrastructure, which is not the case. My point was that "the market" meaning an unmanaged build-it-and-t…

>My point was that "the market" meaning an unmanaged build-it-and-they-will-come approach would not be optimal, in response to my parent commenter's "an easy thing for a market to fix".

The item that worries me, and based on decades of observation, that the private companies will snap up all the profitable routes and leave the non-profitable routes to the city, thus deepening the budget gap.

The "market" will do that w/o some sort of regulation specifying that the private companies have to support the other routes.

Kind of points to the cable industry and local agreements w/ towns.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#242

Post by drabiega » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 2:11 PM UTC

rubber_duck wrote: post #182

jaggederest wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the article says, there are plenty of solutions for these problems, individually. The predicament, as a whole, is that we cannot afford them. Infrastructure quality is, like so many things, directly proportionate to investment. You can trade off future maintenance by spending more initially, or vice versa, but you can't magically reduce both at the same time while providing the same level of service. This is preci…

>You can trade off future maintenance by spending more initially, or vice versa Umm is that really true ? Maybe it is I just don't see why this would be - if anything I would guess spending more would lead to more expensive maintenance as well > but you can't magically reduce both at the same time while providing the same level of service. Not magic - innovation.

Lowering maintenance costs is one of the things you can spend money on when building infrastructure, but not the only thing, so it depends on how you spend the money.

> Not magic - innovation.

Innovation is great, but in most cases requires new upfront expenses that have already been covered for existing solutions. We already have a fairly good amount of infrastructure for producing infrastructure, so usually innovation is one of the ways you can spend more upfront to reduce long term maintenance.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#243

Post by yummyfajitas » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 2:12 PM UTC

kasey_junk wrote: post #230

yummyfajitas wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would having fewer rich people prevent the poor from committing crimes against the middle class (or just publicly engaging in victimless crimes[1]) and engaging in other behaviors that make an area feel unsafe? As a counterpoint, consider India and most of Asia. Poor areas are dirty and have little infrastructure, but they don't feel unsafe. I occasionally shop in Dharavi and don't feel unsafe at all. [1] I belie…

In Chicago at least, it was a vicious circle. The rich (who by extension are the powerful) moved poor (or maybe more inline to their thought process at the time, black) people to specific areas so that they would be away from the rich (or again, really more relevant at the time, white) people. This concentration of people required more services both because of the sheer higher concentration of people and because of t…

According to you, the problem is that the rich moved away and stopped providing resources.

Suppose inequality were lower and those rich people simply didn't exist. They would still be unable to provide resources, and the low level of services you describe would still exist. Wouldn't the crime/drug use/etc still happen?

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#244

Post by panglott » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 2:12 PM UTC

princeb wrote: post #229

csydas wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Russia at the moment and probably the most startling thing is how well planned many of the cities and towns are and how very clearly these cities were not made for cars. While it's a hassle for vehicle traffic because the roads were never designed to handle everyone owning a car, the benefit is that no matter where you live there is a shop nearby for essentials (groceries, clothing stores, repairs, cafe's,…

i think the auto is a red herring. i think what it is is that these cities have a level of lifestyle that happened to be commiserate with the revenue that they can generate, because the more expensive infrastructure- fibre, 4g, or undergrounds, tram lines, auto traffic control, or even a large network of roads, have not or cannot be built in. when i travel to the cities in the developing countries in asia, and speak…

The auto is at the center of what's unique about American towns. The chart in the article essentially says that the urban core generates surplus revenue that is used to subsidize low-productivity outlying areas. The car is at the heart of why the outlying areas are so large and thus need so many direct and indirect subsidies, and a direct source of the subsidies and costs. See something like "The High Cost of Free Parking"

The exurban paradigm that is now standard even in very small towns is just incredibly costly, miles of pavement, huge parking lots that cause stormwater problems, for a very low density of tax base.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#245

Post by davidw » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 2:16 PM UTC

hackuser wrote: post #164

davidw wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? Wi…

I'm not a 'markets solve all problems' guy. There are plenty of good regulations and plenty of places where markets don't seem to work. I'd be happy to tell you about how single payer health care works in Italy - better than the mess we have here in the US.

That said, I think housing and cities are overregulated in the US.

Those op-eds point out a lot of issues that you can study further and find that mostly, the cause is zoning and regulation of housing/land use. They also cite other sources.

Here's a book, talking just about parking:

http://amzn.to/2jvfxpJ - Donald Shoup's "The High Cost of Free Parking".

Here are some books about zoning and regulation:

Ryan Avent's "The Gated City": http://amzn.to/2jv3dpk

Bill Fischel's Zoning Rules!: http://amzn.to/2j62fTw - dry and very, very thorough.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#246

Post by davidw » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 2:20 PM UTC

roel_v wrote: post #157

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…

The number of parking spots isn't for the barber, it's so that the customers don't park their cars in the spots of the residents or other users of the area! We in 'Europe' have exactly those rules (and then some). And we need them, because these old, not-planned looking cities lack space for everything that didn't exist 500 years ago, obvious things like cars but also 100's of people per building (few residential bui…

> the spots of the residents

Those are generally driveways in the US, and are private property: you park your car there, it'll get towed in short order.

Parking minimums are not a thing in large areas of Italy, where I lived. I once lived in an apartment downtown and there was no parking spot included: we walked 20 minutes to a place where we could park. If we had wanted to pay something, we probably could have found a spot that was closer. This is the market at work: we were not forced to pay for parking we didn't really need (we used the car rarely at that point in our lives).

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#247

Post by davidw » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 2:22 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #207

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zoning controls single and multi unit housing, but the "apartment building" that consists of just rentals is an American thing unrelated to that. In fact, one can convert apartments to condos if one wants (assuming rent control is not an issue). The developers alternate between doing condo and apartment projects, I guess the distinction is important when projects are approved individually, but you can't set that bias…

The US is weird in its fixation on detached housing, for sure. Is it really so weird not to want to hear your neighbors' every amorous evening? Or worry that your kids are bothering them when they run around, or that your work schedule will interfere with the sleep schedule of your neighbors (or vice versa)?

It's also not weird to want to live in a huge house on several acres of land. Many people would like that.

Economics is about the infinite wants of people colliding with limited resources. Given the option, some people would live in a cruddy apartment to be 'close to the action' in a place like San Francisco or New York.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#248

Post by theandrewbailey » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 2:22 PM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #222

Salgat wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't business taxes come into play?

Doesn't business tax still get paid by people?

Yes, but business tax gets paid with business money, which is (often) not attributed to a single person.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#249

Post by davidw » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 2:24 PM UTC

TulliusCicero wrote: post #128

davidw wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

While it lacks many types of zoning, Houston still has minimum parking requirements, which push people towards driving. It also exists in a conservative state that favors highway expansion over transit expansion.

Yes - that's pointed out in the article where they talk about how parking minimums and covenants enforced by the city, rather than privately, create a sort of 'zoning lite'.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#250

Post by LordKano » Wed, Jan 11, 2017, 2:24 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #106

hackuser wrote: post #104

Earlier 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…

"Externalities" is how economists describe those costs. Realistically speaking, the barber shop could only really push people to park: * On the street. And you know what? That's fine. If the street was built to have parking, and people are parking there, it's not a problem. It might be more of a PITA for the clients. If it's too much of a PITA, the business may suffer. But that's how markets work. * In some other bus…

This desire of urban planners to regulate virtually every aspect of city life is precisely why I live in the suburbs.

I like to remind budding conservatives and libertarians that the free market is an ideal, not a mandate. The situation you describe is one that it perfect to be handled by the market. It's a cliche but it's also true that what matters is "Location, Location, Location". If you locate a business in an area where the people who would normally patronize it do not often travel or where they can't obtain adequate parking, that business will suffer.