4 ms·

But you're talking about Seattle, one of the largest cities in the USA. It's experiencing growth. Strongtowns isn't worried (as much) about large metro areas.

by mabbo 7y ago

But you're talking about Seattle, one of the largest cities in the USA. It's experiencing growth. Strongtowns isn't worried (as much) about large metro areas. His "shtick" is that the rest of the country, where populations are shrinking or stagnating, can't continue to run ponzi-like growth plans anymore that presume the population will continue to increase. They're not going to. Go find yourself a town of 10,000 people that has a massively over-budge roads and water department. You won't have to look far- just leave the big cities, driving in any direction for an hour or two. Those same towns have low incomes, generally, meaning your "only $700/year" is enough to bankrupt people. In short: I think you're living in a bubble and haven't ventured outside of it very far in a while.

caseysoftware 7y ago
Yes, that. But even cities experiencing growth aren't likely to get a pass in the short term. Austin has had massive growth but what happens when sales tax, hotel taxes, fuel taxes, local income taxes (not in Austin but other places), etc all take a massive hit all at once? With canceling SXSW this year, they're projecting there was an immediate $30-50M tax revenue hit and hotel occupancy is still ~4% when it's normally 70%. Sure, there's less wear and tear on infrastructure but they don't cancel out. Fundamentally, it looks like most cities are living "paycheck to paycheck" like a good part of US..
- yellowapple 7y ago
  > Fundamentally, it looks like most cities are living "paycheck to paycheck" like a good part of US.. Governments in general (and the departments/agencies thereof) tend to live "paycheck to paycheck" specifically because they're typically discouraged from saving a whole lot of money; there's almost always a "spend it or lose it" mentality (whether informal or actually codified in budget policies) that instead encourages spending every last penny of funding received lest whoever's in charge of the budget decide "well they're running leaner than expected so let's slash the budget to what they're actually spending and turn that into a tax break".
wasdfff 7y ago
When you look at abandoned towns over the last century, it wasn’t due to overbuilding of roads but from some local employer moving away. In this case it doesn’t matter if you have 6 lane highways or dirt roads if no one is being payed to live there anymore.
- freehunter 7y ago
  There is a middle ground between a growing city and an abandoned town. I run a very small startup in this space and we work with towns who have a growing population but a shrinking downtown business core. Some people can't afford to live in the big cities, some want a lifestyle that they can't get in the city, some have other reasons, but there's a growing problem in the Midwest of bedroom communities. People move into small cities outside of Madison, Detroit, Indianapolis, etc and don't spend a single minute in the central business district. They don't spend a single dollar in the town they live in. These people wake up in the morning and drive into the big city for work, which needs huge roads running through otherwise small residential areas. Now those roads are too dangerous to cross, so pedestrian traffic plummets. When the people come home, they get their family together and drive back to the big city to go to a concert, visit a museum, or get dinner. We've talked to so many people who live biking distance to their town's central business district but have never been there. They only live in Ada or Lowell, but they spend all their time and money in Grand Rapids. And Fulton Street isn't a road you'd want to walk across, because of all that traffic. The way it works: a town was thriving with an engaged population spending time and money in the central business district. One person moves away, and someone else moves into their house. This new person is fleeing the big city, but is still economically tied to the big city (not the small town). Now imagine 20 or 30 houses go for sale in this town every year. After a few years, that's a major hit to the small town's economic prospects. Businesses start to close, which accelerates the problem. And many of the newcomers want to live in subdivisions rather than city limits, so houses in city limits are sitting just as vacant as the businesses, and the town has less tax revenue to fix any of the problems. So it gets worse year over year until the town dries up. The only thing left is the major road, the McDonalds, and the gas station. But the people living in those subdivisons just outside of city limits still need to get to the freeway, so the town has to maintain massive roads used mostly by people who aren't paying them any taxes. This is the story of hundreds of towns in every Midwestern state, tens of thousands of towns across the country. We're building a network of four lane roads through the ruins of small towns and leaving the city council to pay for infrastructure no one is using anymore, with tax income they don't have anymore, for citizens who don't spend any time or money in those towns.
treis 7y ago
>Go find yourself a town of 10,000 people that has a massively over-budge roads and water department. Maybe, but the city mentioned in the article spends 10% of it's budget on infrastructure. That might be more than it should but it's not bankrupting them anytime soon.
twblalock 7y ago
> But you're talking about Seattle, one of the largest cities in the USA. It's experiencing growth. It is growing because people want to live there. They don't want to live in the communities idealized by the "strong town" people. They want to live in suburbs around a downtown core, which is what Seattle is.

by mabbo 7y ago

caseysoftware 7y ago

Yes, that. But even cities experiencing growth aren't likely to get a pass in the short term. Austin has had massive growth but what happens when sales tax, hotel taxes, fuel taxes, local income taxes (not in Austin but other places), etc all take a massive hit all at once? With canceling SXSW this year, they're projecting there was an immediate $30-50M tax revenue hit and hotel occupancy is still ~4% when it's normally 70%. Sure, there's less wear and tear on infrastructure but they don't cancel out. Fundamentally, it looks like most cities are living "paycheck to paycheck" like a good part of US..

yellowapple 7y ago
> Fundamentally, it looks like most cities are living "paycheck to paycheck" like a good part of US.. Governments in general (and the departments/agencies thereof) tend to live "paycheck to paycheck" specifically because they're typically discouraged from saving a whole lot of money; there's almost always a "spend it or lose it" mentality (whether informal or actually codified in budget policies) that instead encourages spending every last penny of funding received lest whoever's in charge of the budget decide "well they're running leaner than expected so let's slash the budget to what they're actually spending and turn that into a tax break".

wasdfff 7y ago

When you look at abandoned towns over the last century, it wasn’t due to overbuilding of roads but from some local employer moving away. In this case it doesn’t matter if you have 6 lane highways or dirt roads if no one is being payed to live there anymore.

freehunter 7y ago
There is a middle ground between a growing city and an abandoned town. I run a very small startup in this space and we work with towns who have a growing population but a shrinking downtown business core. Some people can't afford to live in the big cities, some want a lifestyle that they can't get in the city, some have other reasons, but there's a growing problem in the Midwest of bedroom communities. People move into small cities outside of Madison, Detroit, Indianapolis, etc and don't spend a single minute in the central business district. They don't spend a single dollar in the town they live in. These people wake up in the morning and drive into the big city for work, which needs huge roads running through otherwise small residential areas. Now those roads are too dangerous to cross, so pedestrian traffic plummets. When the people come home, they get their family together and drive back to the big city to go to a concert, visit a museum, or get dinner. We've talked to so many people who live biking distance to their town's central business district but have never been there. They only live in Ada or Lowell, but they spend all their time and money in Grand Rapids. And Fulton Street isn't a road you'd want to walk across, because of all that traffic. The way it works: a town was thriving with an engaged population spending time and money in the central business district. One person moves away, and someone else moves into their house. This new person is fleeing the big city, but is still economically tied to the big city (not the small town). Now imagine 20 or 30 houses go for sale in this town every year. After a few years, that's a major hit to the small town's economic prospects. Businesses start to close, which accelerates the problem. And many of the newcomers want to live in subdivisions rather than city limits, so houses in city limits are sitting just as vacant as the businesses, and the town has less tax revenue to fix any of the problems. So it gets worse year over year until the town dries up. The only thing left is the major road, the McDonalds, and the gas station. But the people living in those subdivisons just outside of city limits still need to get to the freeway, so the town has to maintain massive roads used mostly by people who aren't paying them any taxes. This is the story of hundreds of towns in every Midwestern state, tens of thousands of towns across the country. We're building a network of four lane roads through the ruins of small towns and leaving the city council to pay for infrastructure no one is using anymore, with tax income they don't have anymore, for citizens who don't spend any time or money in those towns.

treis 7y ago

>Go find yourself a town of 10,000 people that has a massively over-budge roads and water department. Maybe, but the city mentioned in the article spends 10% of it's budget on infrastructure. That might be more than it should but it's not bankrupting them anytime soon.

twblalock 7y ago

> But you're talking about Seattle, one of the largest cities in the USA. It's experiencing growth. It is growing because people want to live there. They don't want to live in the communities idealized by the "strong town" people. They want to live in suburbs around a downtown core, which is what Seattle is.