4 ms·

Taxes don't pay the same thing in dense cities as in the suburbs. Public transport for example: in a dense city taxes pay for bus, subways, tramways, bike lanes

Taxes don't pay the same thing in dense cities as in the suburbs. Public transport for example: in a dense city taxes pay for bus, subways, tramways, bike lanes, sometimes subsidized bike sharing. In a lot of suburbs none of this make sense because everyone has to have a car anyway, so people only pay for roads. In the end, what you pay for your car could very well be higher than the differential in taxes. That's how the dense city is more "efficient". More over, people living in a suburb only pay for a part of the roads they use in their daily commute. My (dense) borough actually did a study that showed 80% of the traffic going through our streets were people who would not stop there, for example because they are commuting between a suburb and the city center nearby. So city dwellers pay for roads that are mostly used by other people. And since the traffic we get this way is quite intense, there's a good amount of road repair each year.

opportune 8y ago
Has your community looked into a toll system, with reduced cost or free passes for residents? Regarding public transportation, I wish this was an issue that more people understood. Yes, it takes higher taxes to build public transportation infrastructure (although buses have pretty low upfront costs), but that public transportation could replace your need for a car, saving you a lot of money. Even if you personally don't use public transportation, it has a lot of external benefits: less traffic, less air pollution, brings in workers who may have been priced out of working in a certain area.
pmorici 8y ago
In the small suburban town I grew up in they had bus, train, and bike lanes. No different than a large city really.
madengr 8y ago
Well they could do a 1% earnings tax like Kansas City, MO; crooks.
burfog 8y ago
People pay the property taxes wherever they go. If you rent a home, your landlord pays property tax. If you work for an employer, your employer pays property tax. If you go out to eat, the restaurant pays property tax. I suppose some federal and religious things may be exempt, but that is also the case with non-commuters. So a person who lives in the suburb but works and shops in the city will be paying most of their property taxes in the city, via their employer and the shopkeepers. It's taxation without representation. Perhaps they should also get a pro-rated vote. :-) It could be based on time spent in each location, or economic activity in each location, or simply 1 part for each kind of activity spent in each place.
- Retric 8y ago
  Unless your personal office is 1000+sf the property taxes on workplaces and restaurants are relatively tiny. A shop that has 1 customer per minute over 10 hour days sees 18,000 people a month who each pay for about a square inch of property tax. PS: They also do vote based on who they work for and what shops they do business with.

opportune 8y ago

Has your community looked into a toll system, with reduced cost or free passes for residents? Regarding public transportation, I wish this was an issue that more people understood. Yes, it takes higher taxes to build public transportation infrastructure (although buses have pretty low upfront costs), but that public transportation could replace your need for a car, saving you a lot of money. Even if you personally don't use public transportation, it has a lot of external benefits: less traffic, less air pollution, brings in workers who may have been priced out of working in a certain area.

pmorici 8y ago

In the small suburban town I grew up in they had bus, train, and bike lanes. No different than a large city really.

madengr 8y ago

Well they could do a 1% earnings tax like Kansas City, MO; crooks.

burfog 8y ago

People pay the property taxes wherever they go. If you rent a home, your landlord pays property tax. If you work for an employer, your employer pays property tax. If you go out to eat, the restaurant pays property tax. I suppose some federal and religious things may be exempt, but that is also the case with non-commuters. So a person who lives in the suburb but works and shops in the city will be paying most of their property taxes in the city, via their employer and the shopkeepers. It's taxation without representation. Perhaps they should also get a pro-rated vote. :-) It could be based on time spent in each location, or economic activity in each location, or simply 1 part for each kind of activity spent in each place.

Retric 8y ago
Unless your personal office is 1000+sf the property taxes on workplaces and restaurants are relatively tiny. A shop that has 1 customer per minute over 10 hour days sees 18,000 people a month who each pay for about a square inch of property tax. PS: They also do vote based on who they work for and what shops they do business with.