Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

strongtowns.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 174 posts

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#61

Post by exclusiv »

adolph wrote: post #45

I don't understand the author's argument. Is it "spiff up the 'poor' neighborhoods so the inhabitants will pay more property taxes?" When I look at the map, it looks like most of the city is lightly in the red and it has several extremely red areas which may drive most of the losses. What is driving those? Are they stadiums or large government facilities that aren't taxable? Or maybe middle-aged neighborhoods with se…

That's what it sounded like to me. He said they'd take a block of 50k houses to turn into 55k houses which will pay more taxes (and since the area is poor it requires less funds to service). So it's a better investment than affluent areas from a direct profitability metric.

Of course, the bump in those home's property tax revenue wouldn't drive other revenue like investing in making a downtown more upscale would: more local homeowner values (and property tax revenue), corporate business tax revenue, sales tax and tourist revenue. He brushes off simplistic arguments but his argument is simplistic as well - and he advocates for squeezing the poor! The poor would rather have lower taxes than a bump in home value.

> We see this trend everywhere we've done a model. On a per acre basis, neighborhoods that tend to be poor also tend to pay more taxes and cost less to provide services to than their more affluent counterparts. How is this possible? Some of my planner colleagues will say it is density..

Then he goes into how it's cheaper to service but really offers no argument about the density especially as it relates to the 2 photos he proposes as evidence (the 1.1M poor block vs the 618k affluent block - it's actually 803k on his other article). Clearly there are more structures and less parking on the poor block. The poor picture has this: "two liquor stores, a pawn shop, a barber shop, a bankruptcy attorney, a campaign headquarters, a retail establishment, a cafe and a vacant building." How can he shrug off density?

> Poor neighborhoods subsidize the affluent; it is a ubiquitous condition of the American development pattern.

Bold claim with no evidence. Perhaps he meant to say "poor neighborhoods are more profitable on a property tax basis than affluent neighborhoods"

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#62

Post by StillBored »

PaulHoule wrote: post #39
RangerScience wrote: post #31

> These places are built all at once to a finished state. Today is peak wealth; it's all downhill from here, regardless of how much public investment is made. This . I've struggled to phrase why most developments seem so terrible, or sterile, or what-have-you, while the areas that developed over time seem so much more... Alive? Valued? This is an amazing way to phrase that difference - it's possible to invest yoursel…

Go to the poor neighborhoods and look closely and you often find that they built a bunch of row houses that are maybe two to four stories high. Some of them got knocked down, some of them are still there but they've been altered or decorated. When the trees get taller the monotonous aspects are less visible. Some of them are now vacant lots or rebuilt houses, stores, parking lots, etc. When they went to see Levittown…

That is the story of my first house in a every inexpensive blue collar/working class neighborhood. Five basic single story floorplans, couple different elevations. I purchased it at approximately 20 years old (that was 15 years ago), and at that point the houses had started to need new siding, roofs, etc. So generally as new buyers purchased them, they gutted and refinished them to varying levels. The end result is that its quite possible in many cases to walk into a house with the same basic floorplan and not really realize it right away because a couple walls had been moved around, the kitchens and bathrooms have been heavily updated at differing times and reflect the styles when they were last remolded. The landscaping is wildly different, back patio/decks/pools vary in size/style, etc.

I never knew it was possible to put brick or stonework on a house built with wood siding until living in that neighboorhood. A couple of the owners apparently worked construction putting in brick siding and they bricked up their own houses in a few days. Another guy covered his house in white stonework rather than just the limited front elevation with a chair rail high stonework.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#64

Post by supernumerary »

Detroit is implementing a program along these lines. They are selling properties in so called 'bad neighborhoods' and mandating that they be rehabbed and renovated within 6 months to code.

The average cost of rehabbing a home bought for $1000~$2000 say is $50,000. Have a look at the website:

http://www.buildingdetroit.org/

The 'Rehabbed and Ready' (http://auctions.buildingdetroit.org/RehabbedAndReady) homes demonstrate the transformation from a $1000 to a $50000 property.

To my eyes this approach closely matches the 10% target described in the article, and seems to be a smart way to build a tax base.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#65

Post by EpicEng »

sundvor wrote: post #54
ryandrake wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why national US voting is held mid-day on a Tuesday. Sure you have mail-in ballots now, but the default in-person voting time/date is surely deliberately designed to favor a particular demographic.

That's pretty sickening, but can't help but consider true. Upvoted and added this comment for emphasis. In Australia voting day is always a Saturday, from 8 am to 6 pm, also with ample opportunity to mail in beforehand. Oh and you'll be fined if you don't cast your vote... It may not be perfect, but appears way more democratic to me than the US elections. http://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/polling.htm (When I left Norway n…

>but can't help but consider true

You may want to reconsider your logical approach here, because it's not true at all.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#66

Post by esw »

twoquestions wrote: post #5

It turns my stomach to say this, but I think the reason why these ideas aren't implemented is the people in the "poor" neighborhoods are of a lower social class than the people running the cities in question. I very much doubt a legislator or city council could muster money from Us to spend on places where Those People live, even if it makes financial sense. I would love to be wrong about this.

I spent the last decade living in a struggling city, and I was actively involved in city government. In my city, it was a case of limited resources more than anything else. There were something like 300 miles of roadway, but only enough money in the budget to pave three miles a year.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#67

Post by RangerScience »

jonlucc wrote: post #41
PaulHoule wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go to the poor neighborhoods and look closely and you often find that they built a bunch of row houses that are maybe two to four stories high. Some of them got knocked down, some of them are still there but they've been altered or decorated. When the trees get taller the monotonous aspects are less visible. Some of them are now vacant lots or rebuilt houses, stores, parking lots, etc. When they went to see Levittown…

You might be interested in the episode of 99 Percent Invisible [1] that talks about how an architect was tasked with designing a bunch of housing for very poor residents in Chile after a disaster. He chose to build half-houses that are literally unfinished roofs on one side. Over time, people were encouraged to build the other half as they saw fit. [1] Episode 231 - Half a House - http://99percentinvisible.org/episod…

Oh so very cool. So very cool. This is going into the research pile; after Ghost Ship, this content seems excessively relevant.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#68

Post by cameldrv »

RangerScience wrote: post #31

> These places are built all at once to a finished state. Today is peak wealth; it's all downhill from here, regardless of how much public investment is made. This . I've struggled to phrase why most developments seem so terrible, or sterile, or what-have-you, while the areas that developed over time seem so much more... Alive? Valued? This is an amazing way to phrase that difference - it's possible to invest yoursel…

Also partly because older developments have had time to evolve to meet the needs of the people who live there. Sure, some things are hard to change after the fact, but if there's anything humans can do it's to iteratively change their environment to adapt to human needs. To expect some master planner to be able to instantly create something as good as a hundred years of people trying different things is unreasonable.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#70

Post by adolph »

Kluny wrote: post #56
adolph wrote: post #45

I don't understand the author's argument. Is it "spiff up the 'poor' neighborhoods so the inhabitants will pay more property taxes?" When I look at the map, it looks like most of the city is lightly in the red and it has several extremely red areas which may drive most of the losses. What is driving those? Are they stadiums or large government facilities that aren't taxable? Or maybe middle-aged neighborhoods with se…

It's more like, increase the value of those areas so the inhabitants will be prosperous so they can afford to pay more taxes.

Which is the pro-gentrification argument, right?

Increasing the valuation of a property doesn't magically change a resident's ability to pay taxes. Best case scenario is that the areas where low wage earners live shift around a bit. Worst case scenario is that people are pointlessly taxed out of their homes and the city gets a reputation of being unaffordable.

Post reply on HN