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Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

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Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#71

Post by adolph »

outworlder wrote: post #51
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…

> Are they stadiums or large government facilities that aren't taxable? Usually not. Low population density and far from city center is usually enough to make it very "red". See also, suburbs.

I wasn't able to orient the map to align with Google maps, but Lafayette does have a medium sized university and I didn't see an obvious blank place where it's facilities would be located on the article's map. Were you able to spatially correlate the large red blocks with actual suburban developments?

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#72

Post by GFischer »

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.

To be fair, in my city (Montevideo, Uruguay), government has made a strong effort to spend on poorer areas.

The problem is, most of the money (a staggering 80%) goes to pay salaries !!! They aren't helping the poor or the rich, they're helping themselves.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#73

Post by angry-hacker »

1_2__3 wrote: post #42
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…

My opinion is because modern development is all about squeezing every single last dollar out of that development. That involves things like the illusion of open spaces while still using every last square meter of ground without wasting anything. The result is extremely jarring in ways that people can't easily articulate. Something in your brain is noticing the architecture is trying to hide what is basically a big em…

I think your onto something.

Of course such things are extremely subjective. One thing I have noticed that bothers me with new developments are trees. They are always short, because they are still young. Hence they have no character, yet. Storms haven't ripped them, they haven't been shared when they cover someone's window from sunlight. And if course they are always perfectly aligned and usually rounded with a square made of tiles. Everything measured and inch perfect.

Interestingly this bothers me with new developments, that everything is too neat and measured. At some places I appreciate it.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#74

Post by gozur88 »

nine_k wrote: post #4

In short: the poor neighborhoods have the most low-hanging fruits, and can be improved in obvious ways using small, low-risk investments. Affluent neighborhoods are built in a way that cannot be easily improved upon.

If you live in an affluent neighborhood you've probably already improved the property as much as you reasonably can because you get a good return on the cosmetic stuff - what's really costing you money is the location of the property.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#75

Post by emodendroket »

walterbell wrote: post #17
Anechoic wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really gotta move out of California... It's not a California thing. As part of my job, I spend a lot of time presenting at public meetings and in my spare time I do a fair amount of advocacy (for various causes) which also results in a lot of time in public meetings. I've been in public meetings in small rural villages and large cities across 30 states. And I've observed the same thing - the folks that attend those…

We need to follow the example of Ancient Greece, where citizens got paid time off work to attend the Ecclesia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesia_(ancient_Athens) > It had the final say on legislation and the right to call magistrates to account after their year of office. In the 5th century BC its members numbered about 43,000 people. It would have been difficult, however, for non-wealthy people outside of the u…

That system worked because of a tremendous number of slaves, though.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#76

Post by Kluny »

sAuronas wrote: post #53
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…

> "What is obvious here is that the poor neighborhoods are profitable while the affluent neighborhoods are not." I didn't understand the argument either. I've lived all over the country and doubt the poor neighborhoods in Chicago (where I'm from) and Detroit (where I once lived) do their respective cities much good from an investment point of view (whatever that means). Another thing to consider is that poor people u…

> I've lived all over the country and doubt the poor neighborhoods in Chicago (where I'm from) and Detroit (where I once lived) do their respective cities much good from an investment point of view (whatever that means).

Well, check the data, don't just "doubt it". It means that neighborhoods on the bad side of town tend to generate enough tax revenue to pay for their road, electric, and sewer maintenance, whereas neighborhoods on the good side of town tend not to.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#77

Post by emodendroket »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #25
shostack wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the people renting these are increasingly likely to be automated out of a job why do you think this would be anything but a very risky investment?

Welfare systems will keep them in a home.

One look around you would probably convince you that this is not necessarily the case.

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#78

Post by azernik »

exclusiv wrote: post #61
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: mor…

For background, I read his article [1] on why density, so he argues, doesn't matter. Instead, he proposes a different metric - the ratio of private (i.e. productive, main property) investment to public (infrastructure/supporting) investment, which should be high; 20:1 or ideally much higher.

However, most arguments for dense development are EXTREMELY relevant to this ratio - the idea being that dense development is cheaper, per unit population/economic activity, to build infrastructure for. Maybe it shouldn't be viewed as an end in itself, but it is a good heuristic.

[1] http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/12/16/best-of-2015-d...

Re: Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

#79

Post by aaronm14 »

Kluny wrote: post #3

This blog, StrongTowns.org, consistently has some of the highest-quality, focused content that I've seen in a long time. I'd encourage donating if you also got something out of it.

Yea this site is fantastic. I just discovered the site because of two threads that made it to the front of HN today. I've already spent a couple hours reading all the other articles, I think I'll likely become a member
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