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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

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 6y 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.
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  Why don't they have tax income? Presumably all the residents of these bedroom communities are paying property tax.
  - freehunter 6y ago
    You may have missed the part where I talked about subdivisions right outside of city limits. The towns only get tax revenue from people who live inside of city limits.
- masonic 6y ago
  Small town business districts aren't losing business to the Big City, they're losing it to Amazon and big box stores (and the latter avoid being within Big City limits, anyway).

freehunter 6y 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.

ForHackernews 6y ago
Why don't they have tax income? Presumably all the residents of these bedroom communities are paying property tax.
- freehunter 6y ago
  You may have missed the part where I talked about subdivisions right outside of city limits. The towns only get tax revenue from people who live inside of city limits.
masonic 6y ago
Small town business districts aren't losing business to the Big City, they're losing it to Amazon and big box stores (and the latter avoid being within Big City limits, anyway).