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Why Many Cities Have No Money

strongtowns.org

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Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#291

Post by krakensden »

avn2109 wrote: post #21
milesskorpen wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't read Strong Towns much, but I don't think you've read much of the stuff they put out. The blog definitely isn't in favor of mass privatization — that wouldn't help much, since the infrastructure is still crazy expensive and not worth paying for. The model of development that gets us out of this mess probably is one of much greater density + changes in accounting practices.

The model that gets us out of this predicament is trivially simple and literally fits on one line: Really Narrow Streets Unfortunately most North American local government has a savagely visceral hatred of that idea. Full disclosure I stole this idea from [0]. [0] http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2006/032606.htm

I feel like urbanists should talk about Mexico more. They have really narrow streets, as-of-right construction, and they are much closer than Vienna or Hong Kong.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#292

Post by cmurf »

yason wrote: post #216
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,…

Any city planned and developed before cars is generally considered very friendly, walkable, and desirable. Europe is full of such cities and they're loved for it. If only planners, politicians and citizens would realise what they have given up just to make it convenient to drive.

You see it in the U.S. as well, as you go from east to the west you can see the influence of the automobile on city layout and infrastructure, with possibly the epitome being Los Angeles. Ask most any 60+ year old in any of the larger American cities so designed (Dallas, Denver, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Seattle and so on) defends the idea of road widening to the tooth. Rip out the boulevards. Rip out these silly bike lanes. Rip out sidewalks. Make room for more cars! I've not seen much in the way of a road widening project that a baby boomer didn't love.

As a 45 year old, it's one my examples of how my elders aren't infallible, don't always have good advice, and have made very poor choices that cannot be unwound except through great expense of time and money. Mistakes have consequences and they can (and will) last generations.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#293

Post by rubber_duck »

michaelt wrote: post #219
rubber_duck wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

if anything I would guess spending more would lead to more expensive maintenance as well The idea is to buy a $100 thing that lasts 10 years, instead of a $20 thing that lasts one year, thus halving your long-term spending. Of course, not all more expensive products last longer, so careful attention to value for money is a must.

I get the concept in theory I'm just not sure it's a given in practice - the way I've seen people spend extra money on projects isn't really for long term cost reduction but features that make it look flashy (increasing the scope and making it more expensive to maintain).

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#294

Post by maxsilver »

sfifs wrote: post #180

It seems to be a uniquely American practice to expect infrastructure maintenance and renewal to be funded by cities exclusively using property taxes. Cities generally act not only as trading hubs providing services to the region surrounding them, they also act as tax revenue sweeteners due to higher concentration of high income residents. Ie. they have positive externalities for the region, province or nation. While…

> it seems to be incredibly short sighted to force cities to fund infrastructure through only property taxes and such without funding from income tax the province/nation collects as what happens in other parts of the world.

In America, many cities get some revenues like that as well.

Many cities levy their own income or sales taxes, in addition to the state income/sales taxes. (NYC has a 2.9-3.6% income tax itself, Seattle has a 2.7% sales tax itself, many small cities in the Midwest have their own income taxes, etc)

Cities typically also get some amount of revenue back from state taxes -- although it has unfortunately become common for some state governments to take city/road/school funding to cover spending in other places.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#295

Post by intrasight »

intrasight wrote: post #154
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For your last point, if your student demographic is more impoverished, you will get worse results compared to a more well off demographic even with the same per pupil spending; the resources the kid has at home is important! (Charter schools get their results through selection bias, American suburbs with large lots that aren't suitable for low income housing likewise). The white flight to the suburbs in the 60s is la…

This is the 21st century. Urbanites are not impoverished.

Not sure why the downvotes. There way more activity in the urban core here now, and both young adults and empty-nesters are choosing to move into the city. What used to be boarded-up storefronts are now cafes, bookstores, art galleries, restaurants, etc. Please don't continue giving progressivism a bad rap by sticking with this "impoverished city" bs.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#296

Post by ensignavenger »

sfifs wrote: post #180

It seems to be a uniquely American practice to expect infrastructure maintenance and renewal to be funded by cities exclusively using property taxes. Cities generally act not only as trading hubs providing services to the region surrounding them, they also act as tax revenue sweeteners due to higher concentration of high income residents. Ie. they have positive externalities for the region, province or nation. While…

States and the federal government certainly do help fund city infrastructure. Often it comes in the form of grants (used for capitol costs) and matching funds.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#297

Post by jessaustin »

jdsemrau wrote: post #223
yason wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any city planned and developed before cars is generally considered very friendly, walkable, and desirable. Europe is full of such cities and they're loved for it. If only planners, politicians and citizens would realise what they have given up just to make it convenient to drive.

Just came back from Tokyo and realized how much I miss riding my bicycle in Singapore. The city is just not made for bicycles. It would increase the quality of living by a wide margin since Singapore is so small.

It has been a long time since I was in Singapore, but looking back it isn't obvious why it would be bad for cycling. Obviously one wouldn't use the elevated expressways, but there are lots of other streets of varying sizes with varying amounts of traffic (like Tokyo). Is there a law against taking the lane? Perhaps there just isn't a culture of cycling, so one would be the only one on the road? Just curious...

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#298

Post by randomdata »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #248
randomdata wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Does that really make any difference? The original calculation was just an average amount per person. It already accounts for the fact that multiple people are paying into the public coffers.

A exception to that is if the location has a meaningful number of businesses held by non-residents. But even then, the businesses are not operating as a charity, and the tax they pay locally is going to come from the local customers.

If you dig deep enough in specific cases, I'm sure you can find exceptions to all of this, where neither the owners or the customers are within the local population. But, the original claim was just an estimated average anyway, including people like children who are unlikely to be paying tax at all in the window of their childhood.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#299

Post by maxsilver »

windlep wrote: post #137

I've seen the infrastructure thing come up for awhile now, and it's definitely true. In my area, as in others I've read of, they're smashing paved roads into gravel roads as the paved are too expensive. The thing that fascinates me is that it feels like a forgone conclusion that infrastructure costs cannot be made cheaper. Have we really hit the most cost effective, cheapest, most sustainable method of laying/replaci…

> I've seen the infrastructure thing come up for awhile now, and it's definitely true.

Sort of. I'm not convinced their infrastructure pricing is accurate at all. I fully believe infrastructure has a higher cost in the suburbs, and that we aren't fully saving for/planning for those costs. But the numbers this article uses are insanely too high, to the point that it feels like an outright lie.

Strongtowns claims it costs more money to maintain the infrastructure for a single-family home (on average), than the average house would cost to build from scratch using retail pricing today (including land + construction of the house, and all of the related road/water/power/sewer infrastructure).

The StrongTown estimate seems to claim it's replacing infrastructure "once a generation" (30 years?), but is charging enough money to rip-and-replace every piece of all infrastructure 6 times per generation. Which is really high -- no one does that, there wouldn't usually be any need to do so.

Or to put it another way, StrongTowns is claiming that infrastructure maintenance alone costs the same as leveling the entire neighborhood and rebuilding it all from scratch at retail pricing every 30 years. Which is just outlandish -- if infrastructure actually was that expensive, 90% of these suburban houses never could have been built in the first place, even if financed using subsidy or debt.

Re: Why Many Cities Have No Money

#300

Post by bookmarkacc »

devb wrote: post #11

There's a blog I enjoy that covers this sort of issue very frequently. It's interesting to see a hard data approach to explaining some of the municipal funding problems that are brewing nationwide. https://granolashotgun.com/2016/08/31/a-thousand-hidden-subs...

I wish they would add some figures. They keep saying "doing you know how much these roads cost?". No I dont. Please tell. But they never do.
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